Home built universal grinder

[albertq]

I served a toolmaking apprenticeship back in 1974 to 1978 but never practiced it during my working career and, now retired from business I have more time for my metal working hobby.

Having used a surface, cylindrical and tool & cutter grinder back then, I appreciated the precision and fine finish capability that these machines provided and wished this for my workshop, but a lack of space and the cost to buy individually was too prohibitive.

So, using Fusion 360 CAD I set out to design a single universal grinding machine that could do all these functions and that I could build at home on my existing Chinese milling machine and lathe.

The precision I wanted was 0.01mm or better for both surface & cylindrical grinding. To achieve this, I included both a course and fine feed system for each axis with a DRO for positioning in addition to the standard mechanical vernier scales. To achieve this accuracy, it had to include a coolant and drainage system.
The sheet metal parts, also designed on Fusion 360, I had laser cut and bent by outside contractor.

The basic design is a X & Y axis table with a rotatable grinding head using a vertically mounted motor on the Z-axis with 90-degree gearbox driving the grinding wheel spindle. A removable 4^th axis (the cylindrical grinding attachment) would be lifted from shelf below and placed onto the table using a remote arm, ….to save damaging my back. This could be interchanged with the magnetic chuck and Tool & cutter grinding attachment.

I’m a novice at posting so not sure how this post turns out.
I’ll post an overall CAD sketch of the machine and some photos showing the different uses and some build photos.

Also adding Http files for the subassembly's that you can view and disassemble even without downloading Fusion 360.

Universal grinder complete assembly: https://a360.co/4jypWQL (large file)

Base subassembly: https://a360.co/4prFZRw

Cross slide assembly: https://a360.co/4sM6Lav

Table assembly: https://a360.co/49J9ny4

Column tower assembly: https://a360.co/4jAbCHA

Column drive assembly: https://a360.co/4q7c1Dz

Grinding head assembly: https://a360.co/3YvQZT5

4th axis Work head assembly: https://a360.co/4pwdvGq

Tool & Cutter attachment: https://a360.co/4slHNOK

Pedestal assembly: https://a360.co/4jrXZKd

4th axis lifting arm assembly: https://a360.co/4svGYD7

X-axis fine-feed worm screw assembly: https://a360.co/44UQhCA

Zip file with 44 additional photos: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...der_photos.zip

Zip file with 17 additional PDFs: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...bertq_PDFs.zip

Post ID grinding clocking:

First OD grind:

Worm screw fine feed engagement:

Surface grinding with auto Y-axis feed:

Testing sliding dust shield movement:

[ductape]

That is very nice. I'm in the middle of building a Tinker grinding jig and now have thoughts of mission creep. thanks

[ozylee]

Hi Albertq,
Did you ever get a chance to post your cad files for your Home Built Universal Grinder?
How long did it take you build the grinder??
Do you have a materials list etc. for the grinder?
Love the job you have done with your machine.
I am like you, cramped for room in workshop but want the machines.
Cheers
Ozylee.

[albertq]

Hi Ozlee, A year to design and a year to build, not full time as I have other hobbies.
There are approx 160 different sheet metal parts and probably a similar number of machined parts, I haven't counted all of them hence not considered posting all those files. If you have Fusion 360, I could try find out how share the entire project.
I'll attach an example of a sheet metal and machined part file, more to test if I can do so.
Base plate https://a360.co/49K4rHg (fusion CAD file) .pdf bending drawing BASE PLATE #1 B-Drawing .pdf, Base plate #1 .pdf, .dxf file for laser cutting Base plate #1 .dxf
Gearbox housing (fusion Cad file)https://a360.co/3GzR6nP, .pdf Gearbox housing VER4 #310 Drawing A v5.pdf, .pdf Gearbox housing VER4 #310 Drawing B v2.pdf
You will notice there are many dimensions missing on the drawings, as these are on the .dxf and CAM files, but too many to post here.

[Jon]

If it's easier for you to send files by email, you can send them (or a zipped folder of them) to me at jon@homemadetools.net, and I'll take care of uploading them and linking them in this thread.

[Saltfever]

WoW! What a beautiful design and fabrication. I love how you packaged the X & Y parallel rather than orthogonal. I have never seen timing belts that look translucent like that. What are they and why did you select that particular type? What grade of "precision" bearings are in the spindle? How did you fab the indexing plate? X & Y coordinates or some other way? Sorry about the questions, I hope you will continue to post about this machine.

[stillldoinit]

Beautiful build and pride shown in craftsmanship. Looks like it took more than a couple weekends to put this together. Your build rivals anything in the marketplace,WELLDONE!

[tonyfoale]

Great job. It is of particular interest to me because I am part way through making a precision CNC surface grinder, and also a CNC grinder for engine camshafts. I have a T&C grinder so I do not need to incorporate that although I expect that a surface grinder will open more ideas on tool sharpening.
Homemade Tool & Cutter grinder (with a difference).

[albertq]

The translucent steel reinforced timing belts is what I could source here in South Africa. So nothing exotic.
The spindle bearings are SKF angular contact bearings.
The small indexing plate on the tool & Cutter grinder I had laser cut the index holes.

[albertq]

Good luck with your grinding project. As I mostly make one-off parts, I didn't want to CNC my machine, but rather manually operate it with the use of DRO.
Anyway I'm not that smart so couldn't do it if I wanted to.