Poor man's tool grinder

[DICKEYBIRD]

I’ll preface this post with the statement that this project is still early days and if ya’ll see something I can add or modify (short of pitchin’ it in the trash) yell out.

It all started with a chance encounter at H/F with a 4” cross-slide vise on sale for $29.99. Here it is http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...Itemnumber=538 I couldn’t pass it up for that price, even knowing up front it was just a kit. I had to straighten up several surfaces in the mill and added bearings to the leadscrew/handles. I did a little crude lapping of the dovetails and gibs and it moves pretty smooth now and appears to be fairly tight with the gibs adjusted carefully.





The next component is the 5C endmill sharpening fixture available from CDCO and many other places. Seems to me to be a good value at $32.00 and should guarantee the proper angles being ground into the ends of medium size 2 and 4 flute HSS endmills. It just occurred to me that the diamond wheel could be installed and carbide endmills could be touched up as well. I drew it up in CAD so I could visualize what would be needed to offer an endmill up to the H/F Baldor grinder clone at the proper angle. 4 - 3/8” UNC holes were drilled/tapped in the fixture so it could be bolted solidly to the vertical plate. The steel it’s made from is pretty hard and it was tough going but I got ‘er done with HSS tooling.

[DICKEYBIRD]

I printed out the sideplate drawing on the shop inkjet and glued it to to 2 pieces of 3/16” plate, bolted together with 10-24 c/sunk allen screws. This was clamped on the mill table and the slots and holes were machined easily and accurately. Once the holes & slots were completed, I put 2 - ¼” bolts & nuts into the holes so I could cut out the outer shape & finish up on the disc sander. Machining them as a pair insured accuracy. I took the trouble to machine the slots so it could be adjusted in & out for different lengths of endmills.





Rough measurements showed that the combined cross-slide/5C fixture would be too low if it was just bolted down and needed a spacer to bring it up to the grinder centerline. Eureka…the Grizzly mill vise rotary base was perfect for a spacer and would allow it to be swiveled for most any unknown future grinding chores. I’ll have to machine a plate to bolt to the cross-slide base with a slot milled in to fit the centering dowel in the vise rotary base. This will allow rotary movement and some back & forth movement.





These pics are of the thing just mocked up and held in place by gravity so I still have a ways to go yet. I thought I’d post what I have accomplished so far to see what ya’ll think. It seems to be rigid & tight enough to be useful but that remains to be seen. I’m going to bend up some aluminum sheet covers for the exposed sliding surfaces and add a couple cheap dial indicators or digital calipers to accurately readout the movements. If the thing works OK, I may try to save up enough to get a CBN wheel instead of the soft A/O wheel.

I haven’t taken the time yet to work out how to gash the ends but hopefully, I can cobble up something.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Your basic 5C spin-indexer bolts on nicely as well. Dunno if it'll do anything useful or not but looks the part anyway.

[BobWarfield]

Getting quite the arsenal of machines there in your Grinding Department, DB.

When's the big belt sander coming?

I ordered steel for mine and a couple of flange bearings. It'll be a little while before I get started on it though.

Best,

BW

[John Stevenson]

Wish I'd have thought of that ...........

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[DICKEYBIRD]

No belt sander in my immediate future Bob. Gotta stop these tool projects and actually make something more mainstream...like a steam engine, or a flame licker or....I'm thinking about joining A.T.B.A. (Amateur Tool Builders' Anonymous) so I can kick this addiction to building tools instead of making "real" things.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Holy Cow, I didn't get a "clumsy bastid" out of Sir John...The dang thing may actually work!

[John Stevenson]

Oh it will work.
Read post #8 in this thread dated 24 - 4 - 2003

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ht=tool+cutter

The link to the pic is broken due to change of ISP but the same picture is here.




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[DICKEYBIRD]

Yup, I remember that pic well Sir J. I'm sure that's one of the many swirling images that was spinning around in my head when this project rose up from the murky depths. Looks like you made a bracket to mount the spin-dexer in the cross-slide vise jaws? I didn't have that much room so I just sawed off the movable vise jaw and mounted a grinding fixture bracket directly to the lower vice ways.

Anybody got any ideas how to gash an endmill after the end is sharpened? I have trained my brain to avoid all thoughts on that subject. It's easy, I just call up an image of Kiefer Sutherland in the old 70's movie Kelly's Heroes: "Hey man, stop with all them negative waves."

[John Stevenson]

It was Donald.

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[DICKEYBIRD]

Crap! You're figgin' right. Brain glitch I guess...not enough pineapple juice in my pineapple juice this afternoon! No comparison between the Dad and his son.

[BobWarfield]

One of the all time great WWII movies!

Have a little faith baby, have a little faith!

BW

[quasi]

this post is like deja vu all over again!

[tiptop]

It looks to me like you have everything you need to knash endmills except the proper wheel. You have pretty well covered your bases on angles and such. You will need a cup type wheel or I have used a cut off type wheel to get in close with. I have found that having a air bearing works well as most of the wear on my end mills occours at the edge rather than on the end. There are a couple of good articles in HSM on making them. You will probably want one sooner or later.
You are doing a nice job and keep posting pictures of your progress. Jay

[lenord]

Questions

It looks like it can sharpen an end mill with little more effort on your part. Looks so good I may spring for the parts and copy your design. It looks like it's easily made and cheap, my two top concerns. The Lisle is $$$, even used off flea bay. The other ones I have seen look like they will take a while to make, lots of really kewl parts, but too time consuming to make.

But, how do you hold the 5C EMS fixture securely ?

Isn't the end mill suppose to be a some certain height in relation to the wheel ? How do ya figure that out and then keep the vise there ? Maybe some flat stock under it and a few bolts ?

How hard is it to put another fixture in the vise to sharpen drill bits ?
(I still can't sharpen them on a grinder). I have about 30 S&D bits that need sharpening......and that may more end mills.

Thanks
Lenord