Can anyone ID this grinder?

Yes, but bronze has to have more clearance left in for oiling. With a roller bearing you can preload the bearings to almost zero clearance. Yes, they're expensive but so is everything in the machining world lol.

Bronze bearings like you are describing often have grooves or oiler holes to allow for lubrication. While there is clearance between the spindle and bushing, the purpose is for proper runout and preloading of the spindle. Clearance that you are referring to is usually in sliding bronze elements not rotating ones.

With that said, you are rolling the dice on purchasing without testing. Do a search on buying surface grinders here and you will get some good advice on what to look for and what to do.

Edit: ball bearing races are usually sliding or press fits so very, very little clearance or an actual intereference. We are comparing apples to oranges when talking about clearances.

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Brown & Sharpe offered an optional extra of a plain bearing spindle on their Micromaster grinders, very sophisticated units, they ran only .0002" clearance and used a very light spindle oil. I believe that a ball bearing spindle would be considerably cheaper to build than one of their plain bearing models. I think that the plain bearing spindle likely ran smoother and much longer than the anti friction spindle.
 
I see no provision for oiling, so presume it is a ball bearing spindle.
 
the cup for mine is low and behind the guard you would not see it. but again I don't know
 
In the aircraft industry there is a machine called a strut grinder.
It is designed to allow an airplane strut to swing in a gap.
These are prized machines......
They use bronze bearings on the wheel head. I have seen many older grinders with bronze bearings it is smoother than ball bearings.
 
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