Is their a consensus out there regarding small surface grinders?
I may be moving in that direction when I get back on my feet after an
illness so I'm trying to find out as much as I can about them. There
seem to be a whole lot of Boyar-Schultzs out there - at least on ebay -
for not an incredible amout of money. Then there is a Reid machine
described in all caps from someone in Hartford...that looks a little
risky..
It's all probably just a pipe dream, but I've got to stay off
machines for at least a couple weeks until I heal up after a rare
epileptic siezure. Hey, at least I can dream and catch up on those
copies of The Machinist Bedside Reader from last Christmas.

Charles Morrill

Charles Morrill wrote:

Is their a consensus out there regarding small surface grinders? I
may be moving in that direction when I get back on my feet after an
illness so I'm trying to find out as much as I can about them. There
seem to be a whole lot of Boyar-Schultzs out there - at least on ebay -
for not an incredible amout of money. Then there is a Reid machine
described in all caps from someone in Hartford...that looks a little
risky..
It's all probably just a pipe dream, but I've got to stay off machines
for at least a couple weeks until I heal up after a rare epileptic
siezure. Hey, at least I can dream and catch up on those copies of The
Machinist Bedside Reader from last Christmas.

Don't know for consensus.

I have a little surface grinder and use it a lot. Need four precision
spacers faced to 0.2500"? Grind 'em. Basically, I think "mill or turn
to thousandths, grind to tenths."

The big deal buying used is spindle bearings. These are super super precision
bearings that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They gotta be *perfect*.

Electric chucks are better than manual.

Ball bearing ways are better than slideways.

Buy from a manufacturer that is still in business. I like K.O. Lee. A good
friend bought new from Chevalier, he's happy too.

Hydraulic feeds are real real nice.

GWE

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 18:50:31 GMT, Charles Morrill
wrote:

Is their a consensus out there regarding small surface grinders?
I may be moving in that direction when I get back on my feet after an
illness so I'm trying to find out as much as I can about them. There
seem to be a whole lot of Boyar-Schultzs out there - at least on ebay -
for not an incredible amout of money. Then there is a Reid machine
described in all caps from someone in Hartford...that looks a little
risky..
It's all probably just a pipe dream, but I've got to stay off
machines for at least a couple weeks until I heal up after a rare
epileptic siezure. Hey, at least I can dream and catch up on those
copies of The Machinist Bedside Reader from last Christmas.

Charles Morrill

Charles..where are you located? Ive 2 Boyer Shultz grinders that are
project machines..one needs spindle bearings and the other an infeed
nut, that Id lelt go very very reasonably. Cheap as hell in fact G

They both of course need a clean up and paint. Shrug. Either will
clean up and be good machines.

Im near Bakersfield California.

gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem.
To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized,
merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

Thanks a bunch Gunner. I'm really interested, but living in
Charlottesville, Virginia, I don't think it's possible because of the
distance unless you've got a truck heading this way for some reason.
Many thanks for your thoughts, however.

Charles Morrill

OK, I added some stuff and moved some text around -- then I saved this
file, because "how to buy a little surface grinder" is actually a FAQ.

I have learned all of this by experience. None of what follows is from
conjecture or from something I read. - GWE

The biggest deal buying used is spindle bearings. These are super
precision bearings that cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They
gotta be *perfect*.

Also very important is it should have the original 3-phase motor.
If the motor's been replaced by e.g. a Dayton or Marathon,
someone's trying to rip you off. Precision grinders need motors
with precisely balanced armatures, period. And you don't buy those
from Grainger or Harbor Freight for cheap, either.

It should also have all shields for the wheel and table.

It's nice if it still has the stops to limit travel.

Electric chucks are better than manual.

Ball bearing ways are better than slideways.

Hydraulic feeds are real real nice.

Flood coolant is real nice too but messy.

Buy from a manufacturer that is still in business. I like K.O. Lee.
A good friend bought new from Chevalier, he's happy too.

It's real handy if the grinder uses standard wheel holders like
those made by Sopko. A nice plus is if it comes with one or
two Sopko wheel wrenches and real big plus if it comes with a
balancing spindle and balancing ways -- little surface grinders
do a lot better with a nicely balanced wheel.

One more thing, more of a user issue really. When you're using a
small surface grinder be aware that your max. depth of cut is
usually .0005" (half a thou) unless you are only feeding in a
little bit. Also, go ahead and dress with a diamond to true the
wheel but make sure you also have a dressing stone and give the
just-trued surface a quick wipe, lingering a tad on the corners.
And if you notice the wheel beginning to cut differently, STOP --
it's probably loading up. What can easily happen is it loads up,
cuts warmer, more friction less cutting, it warms up from the
friction MAKING THE WHEEL A LITTLE BIGGER -- I'm sure you can see
this is a classical positive feedback situation. What happens is
bad, no matter what it is. Hopefully you don't explode a wheel, and
if you do, that's why it needs the shielding.

In article ,
Grant Erwin wrote:
OK, I added some stuff and moved some text around -- then I saved this
file, because "how to buy a little surface grinder" is actually a FAQ.

I have learned all of this by experience. None of what follows is from
conjecture or from something I read. - GWE

I'll toss in a very few extra comments, snipping what I am
leaving uncommented on.

[ ... ]

Electric chucks are better than manual.

With one caveat. Consider the power source for the chuck. I
have the smallest of the Sanford grinders (4x7" IIRC), and there is a
warning to *not* use electromagnetic chucks and coolant at the same
time. A very good reason for this is that the power to the chuck is
derived from a minimal amount of circuitry inside the base of the
machine (rectifier, capacitor, and resistor) with *no* isolation
transformer -- so you could be connected to the power line through the
coolant. *Not* a good idea.

[ ... ]

Flood coolant is real nice too but messy.

And dangerous -- as above -- if the power supply does not
include an isolation transformer -- and ideally it should be located
behind the machine, not under it, where coolant can flow into the
circuitry.

Buy from a manufacturer that is still in business. I like K.O. Lee.
A good friend bought new from Chevalier, he's happy too.

My Sanford may have been the last one to receive a replacement
manual from the makers before they stopped communicating with the world.
I don't know *why* they stopped -- owner died? Chapter 11? Lawsuits?
Just tired of running the company? Does anyone know?

It's real handy if the grinder uses standard wheel holders like
those made by Sopko. A nice plus is if it comes with one or
two Sopko wheel wrenches and real big plus if it comes with a
balancing spindle and balancing ways -- little surface grinders
do a lot better with a nicely balanced wheel.

My Sanford uses smaller wheels -- 4" ones, so larger toolpost
grinder wheels are probably the easiest ones to fit. You can make
adaptor hubs for anything down to a 1/2" hole with a lathe. This one is
a very simple mounting system.

Probably others should add their suggestions here. Harold
Vrodos probably would be a primary source of information here.

Once it is all done, it needs to be put on a web page somewhere
-- one accessible to anyone, not ones requiring signing up to a service
to access them, and the location added to Scott Logan's regular posting
of FAQ links.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Once it is all done, it needs to be put on a web page somewhere
-- one accessible to anyone, not ones requiring signing up to a service
to access them

Hear, hear. Yahoo groups *suck*.

, and the location added to Scott Logan's regular posting
of FAQ links.

Is anyone *ever* going to update the RCM FAQ, barely touched in 10 years?

It's because of the non-support for the FAQ that I did the 4x6 bandsaw FAQ
http://www.tinyisland.com/4x6bsFAQ.html


Enjoy,
DoN.

GWE

In article ,
Grant Erwin wrote:

Once it is all done, it needs to be put on a web page somewhere
-- one accessible to anyone, not ones requiring signing up to a service
to access them

Hear, hear. Yahoo groups *suck*.

, and the location added to Scott Logan's regular posting
of FAQ links.

Is anyone *ever* going to update the RCM FAQ, barely touched in 10 years?

I think that nobody who follows the newsgroup is still in a
position to edit it. It needs to be somebody with an account on that
system, and write access to the anonymous ftp spool directory.

Does anyone know who *used* to maintain the FAQ there? Did he
retire without appointing a successor, or did he die?

The archiving of the newsgroup there is running on autopilot,
which is why a few years ago several copies of a then common
newsgroup/email virus wound up in that archive. Not a problem for me
(with a unix system), and probably would be caught by any modern
anti-virus program (unless it is so old that they have fallen off the
signature list), but there is nobody there to remove the files. (This
means that all of the massively off-topic crap is in there, too. :-(

It's because of the non-support for the FAQ that I did the 4x6 bandsaw FAQ
http://www.tinyisland.com/4x6bsFAQ.html

Good thing to do.
Thanks,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Charles Morrill wrote:
Is their a consensus out there regarding small surface grinders?

It sounds like you don't need a wonderful machine, just a useable machine..
I own a Rockwell "toolmakers" grinder which can be used as a surface
grinder or a tool/cutter grinder. Works well in my home shop and was
easy to move to the basement.

I also played with a Boyer shultz at a local machinery dealer. Even though
it looked a bit ratty, it ran well and left a nice finish. Probably better
than my toolmakers grinder. I think the price was about 1k. My understanding
is that it is a fairly easy machine to move too.

So if a manual machine will do what you need, it will be cheaper and
easier to move. It is nice to have a machine with hydrolic power feed
and coolent, but I suspect they will cost more and be more difficult
to move. Also, will the machine be in a heated shop? If not, I bet that
makes using coolent more difficult.

This would get shoehorned into my heated alcove at work, where the
Emco Maximat is earning it's keep bailing our custom woodworking shop
out the occaisional breakdown, hardware modification, etc. It doesn't
really have to do anything other than run...all manual is fine. I
recently read about building a simple grinder in one of Guy Lautard's
Machinist's Bedside Readers but that version required the operator to
manually feed the work under the wheel with bare hands on a granite
surface plate. The grinding spindle is suspended above the work on a
pedestal that's bolted through the granite. Though simple and elegant,
it scares the living daylights out of me. The garden variety manual
surface grinder seems a whole lot safer and would probably deliver
nearly the same results.
I should probably get down to Dempsey and Co. in Richmond to see
what they've got. I know they've had simple surface grinders in the
past.

Charles Morrill

On 14 Dec 2004 22:58:09 GMT, (Charles A.
Sherwood) wrote:

Charles Morrill wrote:
Is their a consensus out there regarding small surface grinders?

It sounds like you don't need a wonderful machine, just a useable machine..
I own a Rockwell "toolmakers" grinder which can be used as a surface
grinder or a tool/cutter grinder. Works well in my home shop and was
easy to move to the basement.

I also played with a Boyer shultz at a local machinery dealer. Even though
it looked a bit ratty, it ran well and left a nice finish. Probably better
than my toolmakers grinder. I think the price was about 1k. My understanding
is that it is a fairly easy machine to move too.

So if a manual machine will do what you need, it will be cheaper and
easier to move. It is nice to have a machine with hydrolic power feed
and coolent, but I suspect they will cost more and be more difficult
to move. Also, will the machine be in a heated shop? If not, I bet that
makes using coolent more difficult.

Ive got 2 Very nice Jones-Shipman surface grinders, full power feed,
located in Santa Ana, California. $1000 for one, $1500 for the other
(mostly cosmetic differences) and the owner is motivated.

And of course I have several fixer upper Boyer Shultz grinders for
about a 1/3 of that G

Gunner


"If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third
hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're
around."

"Democrat. In the dictionary it's right after demobilize and right
before demode` (out of fashion).
-Buddy Jordan 2001