"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
Rex B wrote:
Looking at a tool local to me, have not seen it yet.

K. O. LEE BA960 Tool & Cutter Grinder

What is this tool good for, in a home shop - anything?


Sharpening end mills & milling cutters & reamers. End mills you can
sharpen on the ends only unless you have a special "air bar" attachment.
Reamers you can sharpen on the end only.

Do not consider this tool as a replacement for a surface grinder.

Do not consider purchasing this tool if it does not come with a boatload
of tooling including stuff like centers, indexing fingers, tool head.

If you decide to think about this tool, you will need about 4x6 feet of
floor space dedicated to it, and need 3phase power for it. Do not consider
replacing the 3phase motor with single phase.

Before you buy this tool look at clones to see what tooling you should be
getting, and also search ebay thoroughly to see how KO Lee T&C tooling is
priced lately.

This was once a nice tool & cutter grinder. What kind of shape it's in
now, I cannot say. T&C grinders are sweet, but floor models are not very
space efficient in a home shop.

There is a book that was once published by KO Lee on how to set up and use
their grinders including T&C grinders, best reference I've ever seen. Very
hard to find and pricey if you can find it. It is titled "Instruction
Manual - A Handbook For Use With K. O. Lee Universal Grinders And Tool And
Cutter Grinders". Many years ago they cost $6, now they can cost 30 times
that.

Been there, done that.

KO Lee still sells that manual or something like it for $75 and I believe
that it is a photocopy, although one with pretty decent reproduction. For
less than $10 one should be able to find one of the old Norton T&C grinding
booklets on Ebay which has comparable info. John Stevenson in the UK also
sells a CD with several T&C grinder manuals on it and I think that he sells
on ebay as marypoppinsbag.

BTW, a T&C grinder can also be useful for grinding HSS lathe toolbits and a
Delta Univise can be handy for that. I've got a 1980's bench top universal
T&C grinder complete with air bearing fixture with 5C collets and a few
other accessories that is pretty decent and takes up much less room than the
stand alone T&C grinders without giving up much in work envelope. It's
similar to the Darex end mill grinders and I think that they actually sold a
version of the Enco T&C grinder at one time as did Chevalier. Gromax still
sells what looks like the Enco, but list price is around $3500, with a slew
of optional accessories at comparable prices.

Mike