Dad's surface grinder

[PixMan]

Here's a story about the surface grinder I secured for my dad's shop (which we share) at his house 7-1/2 miles from me.

I had visited a shop in southwestern CT a couple times in my job. I gotr friendly with the owner, his wife and two sons. One of the sons left the company around the time that his dad had bought a small competitor job shop. He was the one son who knew how to program, setup and run their Citizen F20 CNC screw machine.

One day I visited and Joe and he had just unloaded machines from that shop he'd bought. Among the cast offs was a surface grinder that wasn't as nice as the Okamoto and Mitsui Seiki he already owned. I asked if he'd sell it, and he instead suggested we work a barter. Because Joe knew I've got a lot of experience with CNC screw machines, he suggested he'd GIVE ME the little manual grinder in exchange for a day of training for him & his other son on their Citizen machine. I'm IN!

Here's what I got for about 4-1/2 hours of easy work on a Saturday morning, as it sat in Joe's shipping bay:


This is what it looked like in my dad's shop, after a $271 truck rental to get it there, and $600 for a OE coolant unit/dust collector.


Now I've added about 13 more wheel adapters and 12 wheels, so far. My dad made up a pin spanner for changing wheels.




Shortly after the coolant unit was installed, I got my next door neighbor to make a sheet metal guard for it, based upon lousy illustrations of wht the OE one looked like in the parts book. The deal for that was me letting him use my power washer to get the north side of his house, he would accept no money.


And finally, my dad trying it all out:


All totalled, it's a fair investment of about $1150 to $1250 for the machine, transportation, accessories and attachements. That more than a LOT of home shop guys might be will to spend, but so worth it to ME.