Quote Originally Posted by piper184 View Post
A long time ago I watched a small automotive machine shop setup and grind a crank. It did not have the follower. The operator had to dial in each set of journals. Once everything was running true, the grinding wheel was moved from journal to journal. I think he did the mains first, then the offsets for the pistons. It would take a day or more to get a crank turned back then.
Yeah I've been thinking about this after I wrote it. There's no way a mechanical follower would work. You'd end up with an egg shaped crank because of the backlash on each direction change. The video above is what you described.