C-bag Brake shoe grinders sadly have fallen by the wayside about as much as the riveting machines have. Just about the only riveted shoes seen any more are the ones on large trucks and trailers. Last year I must have replaced shows and drums on at least 10 transport trailers. With all of the new safety regs now, it doesn't pay liability wise to replace shoes without using new drums as well. Before you could take your drums in for a regrind then have the new shoes radius ground to match. But with the advent of auto-slack adjusters then the addition of anti lock brakes on big rigs all drums and shoes need to be a very close match or the stupid systems go nuts. Add in the documented fact that today's truck drivers are less qualified, poorly trained and only holding on to the steering wheel for a paycheck. With absolutely no knowledge of how to preform any sort of emergency repairs to get to a repair facility, couple all of this with the fact that trucking companies are not owned or run by trucking managers or persons with much to do with the trucking industry,but rather are run by BEAN COUNTERS and lobbyist.
Now when it comes to making big machines the question was how to make something that big without a bigger machine to make it.
Well a Man by the name of letourneau once needed a big machine that did not exist to make his even larger equipment so He poured tons and tons of concrete then embedded railroad rails to become the ways then poured more concrete as a solid tower to hold the turning head the carriage was so large that the operator road on it that is how big gets bigger