Surface Grinder - Convert to belt or not ?

William Schrade said:
Not to hijack this thread but why after grinding both sides I removed the blade to check thickness and put it back on there are high spots. I'm thinking my chuck isn't flat. I put it back in the same spot and clean the chuck before I put it back.

Thanks
Bill
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Bill, your chuck should be ground to the spindle, each time the chuck is removed or remounted, or if it suffers damage.

This is best done with coolant, but can be done without if necessary. Take very light cut the same as you would surface grind a blade. Some people recommend rubbing Crisco or other Shortening over the chuck if no coolant is used, although I'm not sure if this helps or not.

Grind the chuck with the magnet engaged.


Typically, for accurate work, even with properly ground chuck, you want to "stone" the chuck with a hand held stone (like a sharpening stone) for any burrs or nicks. The metal on the chucks are soft and will gouge and pull up small burs occasionally that can throw off accuracy.

Suburban Tool has a good series of videos on Youtube, they make high end chucks, and most of their manufacturing operation utilizes surface grinding, so they know what they're talking about, although they recommend some unorthodox methods in some cases.
 
Kosa_PL said:
AOX or SiC wheel for grounding chuck ?
Click to expand...

On your place I will first found someone who is familiar , who is working on such a machine. To show me how to do it .And if that man try to grind one blank of this that you destroy , he would immediately determine what the problem is , if any is there ..........in what I have deep doubt . I'm an auto mechanic , and I often visit workshop with such machines . And even experienced masters sometime make mistakes on such a machine ,not only a beginner.
 
AO wheel is fine for grinding in the chuck. You need to take extremely light cut.
 
Hey,

Slowly finishing work on surface grinder :) ( living room renovation make some things longer :P )

From some time I think, about to maybe buy CBN wheel, as I will mostly grind hardened PM steels.

And when manual is in only Germany language...

Some photos of parts what I need to know, what they are for.

1. Here I suppose is a micro-feed for cross feed ?



2. What is for this know in the cross feed wheel ? and this little knob on left ?



3. This is probably some blockade ?




And I think about to make this grinder work with a good VFD ( siemens Sinamics or LG iC5 )

Here photos of labels on this "something like VFD" and on engine.





Big foto: full res http://imageshack.com/a/img921/1859/Oq2bAk.jpg

 
1) Yes

2) No idea, maybe a lock for hand feed.

3) appears to be saddle way lock, but not certain from photo.
 
Surface grinding is kind of a dying art, at it takes a decent amount of know how, and a good number of things going correctly to get a proper finish. How fast or slow you dress the wheel can make a difference, as can the type of wheel you have, whether you're running with coolant, hardened steel vs. soft, etc....

At the very least you want to make sure your machine is set up as perfectly level as you possibly can. Anti-vibration pads for the feet can be helpful. Start with light passes, removing very little material, and "spark out" for finish passes.

As for whether to convert to belts or not... belts do have their place, although they come with their own techniques for good finishes. I have my surface grinder set up for belts, but I can go back to stones fairly quickly and easily if I wanted. I'd recommend not making any changes that aren't reversible, and if you have to choose one OR the other, I'd stick with stones. They can get a little pricy, but they last a good while.
 
For now I think about to buy CBN grinding wheel.
As I working mostly in PM steels.
 
Kosa_PL said:
For now I think about to buy CBN grinding wheel.
As I working mostly in PM steels.
Click to expand...

Hard to say, I haven't used any myself, but they have their own caveats and are expensive. Maybe consider a Norton SG ceramic type stone as an alternative? If you want one stone to do it all, they're a good choice, and like ceramic belts they last longer and work better with high alloy steels. The thing is, while most hobbyist and knifemakers stick to using just one stone all the time, like with anything, if you really want to master the tool and it's techniques, a wide range of tooling is necessary.

Also look into buying multiple wheel adapter hubs, and keep each stone mounted on one, as opposed to remounting each stone to the same adapter. This keeps them balanced and in the same position, and keeps you from having to dress as heavily when remounting, and can make switching stones much quicker.

If you do decide to add the option for belts, you mount you contact wheel on one of these adapters also, and hopefully design your tensioning bar and the rest of the conversion so as to be able to easily switch back to stones, as Drew mentions above. I agree with this highly, and have done the same with my converted grinder, which still spends 50% of its time running stones.
 
I have ordered 3 wheel adapters ( have two now) and balancing shaft to be made for order.
This will cost me less than ordering one from Jung ( 290 Euro for wheel adapter and 180 euro for balancing shaft...)
All 3 made for order with balancing shaft will cost me max 1.200 PLN (~290 USD)

Also now waiting for 2 boxes of grinding stones from Poland company called ANDRE.

10x 59A60I8VTE10 - for hardened steel. 59A is a mix of different AO.

and 10x 99C60J8VTC10 for titanium and soft materials.

5 wheel adaptors will be ok ?
1 can be for CBN, other for 59A etc.
 
Yeah, 5 should be plenty.. Most likely you'll have 2-3 different stones you use regularly, and one or two odd-balls with angles on them for things like cutting nail nicks, or thin cutting wheel etc.
 
Grinder got Fogless mister for grinding coolant ( using a lot less coolant and mixed wit hair :) )

Using a new diamond with mouting block at 15* to dress wheel + fogless mister resulted in propper finish without chatter!

As 99A wheel ( clean Aluminium Oxide) is good for soft steel and carbon steel, this wheel totally don't like stainless and is dead when meeting Elmax/M390 ( this technology layer clogg wheel in seconds) but in Vanadis 4 Extra this wheel is Anihilated...
To grind all steels with one wheel I need to wait a month for box of newly made for order wheels with 59A AO mix 60I for grinding hardened tool steel.
If this will also fail for PM steels, then CBN will come to help. ( ou man this will be costly...)

Btw. I started building first kiln :D

Maybe someone know some good book about surface grinding ?

And probably I will be looking for a 6x18 hand feed surface grinder (Reid, Chevalier etc.) to import from US to max 1-1.3k USD...
I cant find any hand feed in Europe...

iybTLt.jpg
 
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Much better, those dark lines however are usually from overheating/burning the work where the thin stock is warping into the wheel somewhat. You can probably clean that up easily by making a final fine dress then another quick pass with very light feed. I'm guessing this is just a problem with high alloy steel and your stone however correct?


Did you grind these in sequence or all together? Looks like you ground them one after another, without redressing your stone between blades. The question will be, whether this finish is good for your process, and is quicker than redressing for a finer finish on each. Don't waste time on unnecessary work. I do mostly hand finishes, so I want as close to perfect as possible off the grinder for my ricasso, so I can hand sand immediately from 400 grit, because of this, I take very fine, slow final passes redressing between each batch of blades on the magnet. This may not be necessary for you.


Good work!
 
I was dressing after one side of blade.
This junk layer on steel quickly clogg wheel.

Dark lines are from clogged wheel.
With new wheel and wheel flanges + balancing this will be even better.

CBN 126/180 – B30 RUN will probably make a mirror. (Resin based)

Later I will get additional grinder.
A Tool Grinder converted to belt, for rough work and removing technology layer from stainless PM steels.
This junk clogg wheel in seconds..
 
Fat bastard working :P
[video=youtube;z-zzzDUI9KQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-zzzDUI9KQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
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