camshaft grinder

[cuttergrinder]

Ive been working on the grinder a little as i have time. I got the rocker bearings mounted to the lathe bed and the grinder table. I also made the brackets to mount the gearbox and motor to the drive the spindle. I still need to make the brackets to attach the follower wheel to the grinder table. It looks like I am going to need atleast a 10" grinding wheel in order to be large enough to not hit the lathe bed while grinding. I will have to slow down my grinder for the larger wheels and probably mount a larger motor. I also need to make something to hold a spring on the back side of the lathe bed to keep pressure against the follower wheel although the drive for the lathe is going to hang towards the grinder head so it will probably have enough pressure on the follower just from that. Time will tell. I made a sleeve to screw on the lathe spindle to hold the masters and the dividing head. It still needs finished.

 

[cuttergrinder]

Watch this video. Starting at 5:00 it shows the homemade grinders ed iskenderian made to grind cams.

 

[michiganbuck]

A spring, or a cable over a pulley with a weight gives even and adjustable pressure with changing the weight..
The older Cincinnati #2 had a weight system to pull along the long travel.
Timing the valves is critical. The master or the cam need be indexed.

 

[cuttergrinder]

A spring, or a cable over a pulley with a weight gives even and adjustable pressure with changing the weight..
The older Cincinnati #2 had a weight system to pull along the long travel.
Timing the valves is critical. The master or the cam need be indexed.

The dividing head will have degree marks for setting lobe seperation and it will have holes every 60 degrees for indexing cylinders. This is for a straight six engine.

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Watch this video. Starting at 5:00 it shows the homemade grinders ed iskenderian made to grind cams.

All those machines were based on cylindrical grinders.

 

[cuttergrinder]

All those machines were based on cylindrical grinders.

Yes they were. I may see if I can find a cylindrical grinder to mount my lathe bed on. They would definitely be more beefy.

 

[michiganbuck]

A spring, or a cable over a pulley with a weight for the rocker.
Early Cincinnati #2 had a pulley weight system for long travel. That was good because the pressure was constant and adjustable by adding or decreasing the weight
Another good element was that you could contact the wheel and then walk away and let the machine travel to the bump stop. it could also travel/grind to a limit switch that would shut down the motor/spindle.

 

[john.k]

In the late 70s ,the boat guy next to my shop organized a package tour of all the West Coast drag racers,engine builders ,parts makers etc .....I got included as a last minute reserve,.........anyhoo,Iskenderian was one of the places we visited ,and he had the same Landis grinders as mine out in his yard ,replaced by automatic machines.

 

[stephen thomas]

I also need to make something to hold a spring on the back side of the lathe bed to keep pressure against the follower wheel

weight as Buck suggests, or an air cylinder will provide uniform force/pressure regardless displacement. Air is sometimes useful because it can be more damped. But either weight or air are easy to adjust, too. (Unless rising rate with displacement such as a spring provides, is preferred?)

 

[cuttergrinder]

Not sure what would work better but a berco has a spring

 

[michiganbuck]

One might employ two sprigs two for rapid feed and one for fine feed.
Just the assembly weight if off-center would give some feed pressure.

We used the pre-notch grind often but called it spotting. We would set a gauge between the wheel and the stub face arbor to set zero and then buttery fly the cutter or part to make a to-size withness grind...then grind the whole cutter or part to clean up that mark.
Another method was to set the dressing diamond to a height off the table or work head so the freshly dressed wheel would equal zero on the part, or + 005 if we intended to measure the finish size.

 

[stephen thomas]

Re OP, maybe it is interesting that Ed Iskendarian relates that he thought "drag" racing was so named from early farmer contests competing to see whose horse could best drag a plow... (About 13:40 or so)

 

[CarbideBob]

As an example of pulley and spring are pics from a old Wit-O-Matic in the back room.
Rocker bearings in the head. Die spring on a shaft with pulley.
Pressure is adjustable with the nut.
This a pretty slick and compact arrangement with a wide range of easy adjustment. Thompson ball bushing in that block.
The Agathons and Wendt grinders of this ilk use hydraulic cylinders.
Interesting that in the insert grinding world these machines are also called "cam grinders" since they follow a master cam to make your SPG-422 or whatever.
Wits are rockers, Agathon and Wendt sliders .
The early version of the Wit used a row of valve springs under the front of the head to "rock" it.
Also a worry in this design is how to change the master cam since the head is always loaded against the follower. (there is a kickstand built in)
Note that the spring here pulls down on the back of the workhead. Since off center and a rocker design this pulls the cam to the follower.
Pressure on master cam is between 20 and 60 pounds of force depending on how much you dial in with the nut on the threaded shaft.

 

[EmGo]

Ed Iskendarian relates that he thought "drag" racing was so named from early farmer contests competing to see whose horse could best drag a plow...

Just discovered that Isky is still alive -- 102

But from a machinist viewpoint, the best part about him was the field of derelict machines out back that he horse-traded. From the office they'd send you out the back door with some general instructions about where the machine you were looking for might be located - along with instructions to watch out for the guard pig(s). (There were two, if I remember right. And they were big). He had a maag grinder I wanted but alas, too expensive. This was before I learned to bargain.

Those guys were all cool but there have been some advances in cams and cam grinding over the past fifty years.

 

[cuttergrinder]

Here is an interesting video about Delta camshaft. At about 40:00 min he says the company was started on a machine made from a piston grinder. Now they have over 9500 masters to regrind cams.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLuckujlxto&t=1829s

 

[prince-grinder]

I posses an attachment for regrinding camshafts that was made for the Prince crankshaft grinder, it clamps onto my Prince crank grinder's bed with oval locks and is driven by clamping the shaft into the headstock chuck. You then mount the camshaft into a mini chuck and the machine 'rocks' or follows the camshaft profile and you simply turn the in feed dial to grind. Its very easy and fast to set up and use