Angle Dresser

[rossbotics]

Angle Dresser

While working on a new tool to be posted in the forum I came to a point and discovered I didn’t have a way to do my next step, so that put the brakes on that project for a few days, I want get into details about the tool I was making just about the tool I have to make to complete that tool.

95% of all the tools I make are finished on the surface grinder, surface grinders leave a beautiful finish and you can work with in a gnats asz, I’ve always been able to setup my work for grinding on a magnetic chuck, parallels, blocks, tool makers vice, or a fixture of some kind, well this time I couldn’t set the part up at a 45° angle on the grinder due to its size, so the only way to grind the 45° angle I needed was to make a tool that would dress the side of the surface grinder wheel at 45°, shops I worked in over my years had an angle and radius dressers, those things can cost you an arm and a leg, I don’t need the radius dressing capability just the angle dressing feature, so over the weekend I came up with this design.

I wanted to make this tool simple and easy to use; this angle dresser does not have pins set at a certain center distance like a sine bar or a sine plate that require the use of gage blocks (which I have), all Iuse is a simple 45° angle plate to set my angle and lock it, most common angles can be readily set using any angle plate.

I make most all of my tools from 4140 steel and heat treat prior to grinding, I didn’t have a couple of sizes of 4140 that I needed so I made the entire unit from 1018, I was in a hurry so I just made it from mild steel which will work just fine, it has been ground all over and looks good and functions as intended.

The diamond is guided by a tongue milled on the upper part of the dressers body while the lower body has a slot, making it have sort of like square ways or just plain old tongue and groove, there is an adjustable friction plate mounted underneath the lower body which secures the two body parts from separating yet letting it slide smoothly with just a very slight drag, the diamond is advanced by means of a left hand threaded screw, same as the cross slide on a lathe, I’ll be posting the project that this tool was made to help complete in my next post.

Below you will find some photos of the completed tool along with some photos of the machining process and a video of the tool dressing a 45° angle on the edge of a surface grinding wheel.

As always thanks for looking
And happy machining
Doug

[olderdan]

Nice job Doug, very useful tool to extent the range of your grinder ( a surface grinder is the one machine I really miss having use of).
Thats an expensive diamond you are using there, and I noticed a permanent magnetic chuck for which I assume you have a demagnitiser in the shop.
I made one from a microwave transformer which works well.
Thanks for posting.

[Paul Jones]

Doug,

Wow, very nice tool. You are an amazing toolmaker with your finishing work on the surface grinder.

Paul

[rossbotics]

Thank You Paul
Your pretty amazing yourself, I like your work as well

[Brendon]

Very nice job Doug. This was tool of the week for me....
Brendon

[DIYer]

Thanks rossbotics! We've added your Angle Dresser to our Metalworking category,
as well as to your builder page: rossbotics's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Angle Dresser by rossbotics

tags: dresser tool

[rossbotics]

Thanks Brendon,
That was very nice of you to say

[ragsflh]

awesome tool you made doug

[rossbotics]

Thanks for the compliment Dan
Yea I have a demag, but now you have me intrigued about the one you made from a microwave transformer, I would like to see it and understand its functionality if you don't mind sharing

[rossbotics]

Thank You ragsflh