Tool and cutter grinder - ID help needed

[esbutler]

I was given this flat belt grinder under the premise that it was a surface grinder. I believe it is actually a tool and cutter grinder minus the various accessories. I have not been able to determine who the maker might be. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Ohio Mike]

I would agree T&C grinder. Not something I can recall seeing before but early for sure. It does have some very unique attributes that hopefully help someone ID it.

 

[sfriedberg]

I can't identify, but it looks like a quality-made piece of equipment.

 

[michiganbuck]

Turning/adustable tables usually indicate a Tc grinder because moving the table would throw off the accuracy of a ground-in mag chuck or a fixture. locking the table to one place and turning the wheel head 180* would make it a surface grinder because the wheel could cross over the table.. likely not very accurate extendin far out lobg travel ecause gravity wouls pull one end low.B

Best used as a Tc grinder, the gravity ting wouls no have as much bad effect.

Take care/caution to save the spindle as it may be good, but not good if you fire it up with not cleaning and adding oil to both sides.
I would likely put a flat plate on top to mount the motor and pulley it for 3600 RPM, with a reversing switch.

 

[texasgeartrain]

I don't believe it is Brown & Sharpe, but looking at a 1909 catalog, some styling looks reminiscent, with some of the patents in the area of 1891 and such, pdf page#'s 78-81:

Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. - Publication Reprints - 1909 Machinery and Tools - Catalog | VintageMachinery.org

Going back that far, no doubt there's a large number of company names we might not recognize, or not know unless we stumble across it.

 

[JST]

There are lumpty-bump old manufacturers who made T&C grinders of that general form. I have a Greenfield Machine Co grinder that is very similar, and I have seen at least one other machine here in this subforum which is nearly identical to mine.

I have seen several different similar types in old shop books as well. I don't remember all the various names.

It seems that everyone and their dog made machines back in the lineshaft drive days.

 

[James H Clark]

If I had to guess, I would guess that Norton was in the ancestry, having had used one of a 1960's vintage, but could be wrong.
JC

 

[michiganbuck]

I woked in a shop that had a couple old timers much like that. I recognised the names at that time but now have forgotten them. One I took the time to get unfrozer and everything to work..but never tried grinding on them.. Much Tc grinding and sharpening is only a short travel so they would have been fine for manyTc tasks.

 

[esbutler]

Thanks for the replies. Greenfield Machine Co./Greenfield Tap & Die have been some of the closer looking examples but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that it's definitely in that family. The search continues.

 

[michiganbuck]

Agree that Greenfield is close.

The long travel feed handwheel location of a greenfield 1900 machine might suggest that the Ops machine might be a/some manufacturer of year 1875 or what.
The front gear rack on the op's machine might suggest heading toward a front hand wheel design. Green field prototype?

Greenfield Machine Co. - History | VintageMachinery.org

 

[JST]

The Greenfield ones are different enough I do not think they are related, just similar, as many others are similar. Key issues are the lack of the large curved brace on the knee, which all the Greenfield ads show, and the table swivel arrangement vs the column.

I'm not clear on the table feed wheel location for the OP's unit, I see a rack, but also what look like mill-type feed wheel spigots on the end of the table.

Possibly a very early type, but there are enough other column type grinders that it is likely just another make among many of them.

I never tried to look up mine, but it is nearly if not totally identical to the 1907 "Greenfield Universal" as shown on the Vintage Machinery link.
Thanks michiganbuck for the link to Vintage Machinery's info on Greenfield.

 

[michiganbuck]

Op's machine may be an off shoot from an early milling machine maker, and was not well recived well so having a shorter producton life

 

[esbutler]

I'm not clear on the table feed wheel location for the OP's unit, I see a rack, but also what look like mill-type feed wheel spigots on the end of the table.

I see no obvious means of attaching a hand wheel to drive through the rack. There is a lead screw to feed the table and you see the ends of that, but there is no means of disengaging the nut so I don't believe the rack was used to feed the table. I am guessing it was more for attaching accessories, unless it was indeed an in-process prototype.

I've dug through the obvious milling machine guys (B&S, Cincinnati, etc) and have not found any good candidates. Garvin had an interesting ancestor...

 

[JST]

Ah, OK. Mine feeds with the rack.

I would think that screw feed would be a pain, to say the least, for a T&C grinder. Takes so long to move the table with the screw.

The rack feed is great, because being dry grinding, one tends not to take much of a cut, but rather take a lot of lighter cuts. That would have been even more of an issue back then, because with plain carbon tool steel, heat is a lot more of an issue than with HSS, where it is hard to do damage.

The fact that it has a rack suggests that there may have been an optional feed type. If so, I bet the screw feed version died a quick death.

Maybe that is why there are few units of the type. The rack feed style may exist, and we just don't realize the connection between this and whatever the rack feed version looks like.

 

[Paolo_MD]

On the top of the leadscrew, another thing that leaves me perplexed is the dovetailed bed. I might be wrong, but most of the T&C grinders (even the early ones) tended to have ways that would generate less friction (e.g. like on the saddle of a lathe), given that you do not need any hold-down force.

I agree that, back in the days, there were a lot of small manufactures. Several of them were very careful not to put any marking on the machine that could be traced back to the producer, in order not to be devoured by any patent infringement lawsuit brought by any large company: unless you had something revolutionary and/or you were literate and wealthy enough to be able to check what was covered by existing patents and to file a few new ones, it was better to produce a few small runs of mostly copycat machines and fly under the radar.

Paolo

 

[JST]

Well, I finally remembered and looked at the Greenfield, which I had been forgetting to do, since I could not recall what it had for ways. It has one V, and one flat as the table ways (crossfeed is dovetailed). The V is a "planer V", with the "peak" down, not the type as on a lathe bed.

I never have quite seen why that type V is preferred for planers, you'd think it would collect swarf and grit.

 

[michiganbuck]

A simple long travel way design is two flat ways and a center bar that has two bearings riding on a flat bar.
The flat parallel bar also being the long travel gear rack so not to be an extra machine part.

Double V way on planers is because planers exert very high, and off to one side pressure.
This design is over-kill for a grinder, but done right makes a great grinder.

 

[JST]

.....................

Double V way on planers is because planers exert very high, and off to one side pressure.
................

Yes to that.

Asking why V set with point down, instead of up as on a lathe, which has lots of side force also. Seems like a "grit funnel", where on the other orientation there is at least a chance that stuff will slide off (yeah, sticky oil, but...).

Pic...

 

[CarbideBob]

You will not like this...
A quote from a friend who taught me much about machines and cars. "Do you have a large boat and need an anchor?"