9x20 Tool Post Grinder & Adapter Plates
Last updated on Thursday, January 31, 2013 04:19:18 AM Eastern US Time Zone

Tool Post Grinder, Simple Mounting Bracket, Single Point Dresser,
Grinding, Tool Post Grinder Movie, Pivoting Bracket, Air Micro Die Grinder

NOTE: Cover all ways, lead screw, & other exposed parts before grinding.
The grit dust is very abrasive to the ways & other parts.

Always wear safety glasses & breathing protection.

Tool Post Grinder

Designed for the smaller mini-lathe. I chose this one because it has good clearance around
the grinding wheel area & the mount is more generic though it does not have a chuck for ID grinding.
The grinding wheel is: 80mm (3.2") diameter, 10mm (0.4") thick, & has a 20mm (0.8") center hole.
The wheel center is about 57mm (2.25") above the bottom of the mounting foot. Some of the grits available
are: 60, 80, 120, 180, & 240. No-load wheel speed was measured at 7800 RPM (motor is 23,400 RPM).
3:1 pulley reduction uses a multi-V belt. Note how the foot has an alignment edge along one side.
Tool post grinder diagram.

Cover shown removed revealing two aluminum pulleys with a multi-V belt.

A simple grinder to cross slide adapter plate is held down using the same four, M6-1 bolts & nuts
used for the QCTP clamping plate. A 0.426"" plate placed the grinding wheel center at the 9x20's
spindle centerline. The motor & belt housing are tilted back toward the operator to allow a better view.

Simple Mounting Bracket

Top view of the simple adapter plate. A slot was milled that allows the ledge of the grinder's foot to align against.
The slot's top left edge was chamfered to allow a tight fit. The foot was deburred & wire brushed to remove paint
overspray. Two, M6-1 cap-head bolts with washers are screwed into threaded holes to hold it in place.
Always wear eye protection

Single Point Dresser

Mounted a single-point, 0.75 carat diamond dresser into the spindle using a 2" boring head with a ½" shank arbor.
The spindle is in lowest speed & engaged to firmly hold it in place. DO NOT turn the lathe on.
I had made a ½" to ⅜" boring-bar adapter for the boring head which also holds the dresser shank.
I advance the wheel into the dresser about 0.0005"/pass. Always dress the wheel before use.

A dedicated diamond dresser fixture.
The ⅞" diameter holder has a ⅜" precision-reamed blind hole for the dresser.

Improved the dresser fixture by reaming the ⅜" hole for the dresser all the way through for more adjustability.
The  holder now has ¼", ½", ¾", & ⅞" steps for added flexibility when mounting in a collet.

Grinding

It puts a nice finish on steel. The 80 grit wheel is shown, above.
Reshaping a removable/replaceable tip for a General No. 79 automatic center punch, below.

Removing a burr from an interchangeable counter-bore pilot.

Tool Post Grinder Movie

Cleaning-up the body of an imported countersink. Both the lathe & grinding wheel should turn CW so the
surfaces are moving opposite each other. This method produces the best finish. Tool post grinder movie.
In this movie the part appears to be turning the wrong direction but this is due to the camera's 30 fps sampling
rate. This is called the wagon-wheel effect which is caused by under-sampled (stroboscopic) apparent motion.

Grinding at a 35° angle as set by the pivoting bracket.

The collet stop body did not fit inside all of the 5C collets so it was reduced using the tool post grinder.

During grinding, abrasive dust is produced; protect the ways with a cloth.

Pivoting Bracket

In order to accurately rotate the grinder to different angles, I made a pivoting bracket.
Top bracket was bolted down onto the rotary table with a scrap plate on the bottom to keep
from autographing the surface. Indexing holes every 5° on the left & 15° on the right. First,
center the rotary table then indicate the plate off the precision reamed, ¼" hole in the center.

Base & top mounting plates to allow rotating the grinder. Pivots on a ¼" dowel pin. ⅛" reamed holes every 15°.
Each plate was fly-cut to 0.213" so when combined, it would align the grinder wheel's center with the lathe's center.
The two larger holes on the top (right) plate were used to clamp it to the 6" rotary table. The slots are a ¼" wide.

Added indexing holes every 5° along second edge. Detail of dowel pin with knurled knob, shown.
Note relief at both pocket ends. The base has 6.5mm clearance holes for the 6mm tie-down bolts.

Added an alignment bracket on the base (right) that is placed against the lathe's cross-slide table edge.
Three, 3-48 Phillips flat-head screws are used to attach the bracket. This bracket is 0.005" below the base's
top surface to allow rotation of the upper plate. Returning the bracket to the same rotational position reduces
the amount of material that is removed while wheel dressing. Note the secondary zero-indexing holes.

 
Pocket for the foot's alignment edge was milled the same as that for the simple bracket.
A pocket is stronger than if cut all the way through. Both ends of the pocket were
relieved (milled) with small right-angle cuts so they would not touch the foot's corners.
¼-20 button-head bolts with custom-sized brass washers are used to clamp the upper rotating plate to its base.

An aluminum knurled knob with a ⅛" dowel pin insert is used to align the plate indexing holes.
The base uses 4, M6-1 cap-head tie-down bolts.

Grinder set to & used at 0°.

Grinder is shown set to & used at 30° to grind a 60° included angle point.

The guard interfered with the indexing pin at 45° so a secondary zero position was made 15° to the right.
Note how the base alignment bracket on the right side is up against the side of the cross slide table.

Air Micro Die Grinder

Air micro die grinder shown being held in the ¾" boring bar tool holder using the ⅝" split adapter.
The die grinder has an ⅛" collet, uses 2 CFM @ 90 PSI supplied air & can turn 56,000 RPM.
Dress with a single-point diamond before use. This setup is for precision ID grinding.
Cover ways to protect the ways from grinding dust. Air micro grinder manual.

Precision holes are either reamed, bored or precision ground.

Tool Post Grinder, Simple Mounting Bracket, Single Point Dresser,
Grinding, Tool Post Grinder Movie, Pivoting Bracket, Air Micro Die Grinder

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