The Home Grown cutter Grinder

[Micktoon]

Quality work Bill and by the looks of it does a first class job   .  Something to be proud of and treasure.

  Cheers Mick.

[PixMan]

(01-06-2015, 03:22 AM)dunn Wrote: Howdy Bill,

Thanks for posting this.  I have two completely unrelated questions, perhaps both silly.

Could you grind arbor-type involute gear cutters?

Can you tell me how you achieved the paint/finish on the non-contact parts?

Thanks,
  -- dunn

His T&C cutter grinder could sharpen an involute gear cutter easily by grinding the cutting faces with a dish wheel. I don't believe it would be possible to grind one new from scratch, but I'll let him say yay or nay. I suppose it's possible with first dressing the form onto a wheel with a radius/angle dresser device, though a Godawful amount of work for something you can find all over eBay and as new from several suppliers.

F&D Tool of Three Rivers MA (not far from me) still makes their form relieved cutters in diametral pitch and in both 14-1/2º and 20º pressure angles. They range in price from about $94 to over $2800 (a big 8" 1 DP) so that's probably why you want to know if he can grind them.

[dunn]

Thanks, PixMan,

I am considering my first metalworking mill to be a mini horizontal one. Also, part of the 'romance' of metalworking in my addled mind is to be able to cut gears. The gear cutters are amazingly expensive as you say, with three of them exceeding the price of the mill, and in the interests of accuracy use larger arbors as the cutters get larger. So, you're right, it's the expense, but it is also perhaps making the cutters fit one arbor diameter instead of a few. Also, expense-wise, just about all cutters for a horizontal mill seem more expensive, probably because there are so many cutting edges.

And because I have no idea what I'm talking about, the original post said, "You name the tool it can grind it," and I honestly didn't know if that just meant 'any tool this cutter grinder was designed to cut or grind', like any drill bit, end mill, straight cutter with a helix, and if I was silly in thinking it could cut or grind a circular cutter meant for an arbor.

Now I know that it can, so thanks!

[TomG]

Bill,

Don't let the desire to cut gears be the reason you want a horizontal mill as your first mill. Horizontal mills are quite specialized and unless all you want to use one for is to square up stock, cut through slots and cut gears, a vertical mill would be a better option. A vertical mill can do everything a horizontal mill can plus it can easily drill holes and mill pockets and blind slots. Yes, it can even make gears. The cutters are also MUCH less expensive than for a horizontal mill.

Tom

[PixMan]

I agree with Tom on that. The only thing related to gear cutting that some horizontal machines can do that a typical "Bridgeport" type vertical machine cannot is spiral cut gears. I haven't needed to make one in 40 years, and the only one I made back in 1975 was a do-nothing practice piece to show the trade school instructor that I learned his lesson on calculating everything for the Brown & Sharpe universal mill.

[dunn]

Thanks, Tom and Pixman

I seem to have accidentally hijacked Bill's thread about the fantastic cutter/grinder he has created.  Sorry about that!  I am the guy new to metalworking and this forum.  Bill just (was) new to the forum, but obviously not metalworking.

I will start a new thread so as not to go completely of subject with my ramblings here.  I just sure would like to know how to cut gears and how a cutter/grinder works, and how to make something as beautiful and complicated as the cutter/grinder this thread is really about!

Thanks!

[Bill Gruby]

Sorry I have been gone so long. The other Forum needed much attention.

The Cutter grinder I built will grind anything you can come up with. I have even done Screwdrivers and Wood Chisels for my Son-In-Law. Grinding Involute Gear Cutters from scratch could be done with a profile type wheel. Dressing the wheel would be a problem. Grinding existing involute cutters would be easy. If you can hold it you can grind it.

"Billy G"

[EdK]

Welcome back Billy. I was wondering if you had abandoned us.

Ed

[aRM]

Magic, Magic - only a kind of magic !!!
aRM

[Shawn]

Dammit, now I want a set of precision ground screwdrivers?

Work of art Bill, fully featured and beautiful to boot.

Shawn