criags list grinders

rpmMan

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A few weeks ago i saw a local area post on cl about a surface grinder for sale.. called and was told it was a manual boyar schulz 6x12 the poster said it came from his dad's shop. and that he and his dad were tool and die makers...i had high hopes tho for the listed 250.00 price i should have been prepared....

when i arrived he had it out on the driveway and it was pretty rough looking.. he mentioned the rack gear had fallen off due to someone yanking back on the handle too hard but it was still ok.. i was about to say no thanks when he said look i also have this ko lee tool grinder and you can have both for 350...so i said ok and we loaded it up on my trailer...

some pics:

lots of work to do.. i had to dig beneath 40-50? years of crud to get to the mag chuck clamps.... will update as i get time..

rich

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Go for one project and come up with two - nice...
That looks like some heavy moving.
 
Dan.. yeah some heavy metal there for sure...

making some progress..

got the table cleaned up and painted..
started on disassembly motor came off pretty easily.. 1/2 hp 3 ph with a brown and sharpe cast pulley..
had a challenge getting the spindle off.. have to remove the roll pin holding the spur gear but it was not easy... measured several times to make sure i was driving the right way.. tried the heat and wax method finally i was able to clamp and very carefully drill it for my 1/8 drift and it popped right out

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The real questions to look at carefully are the spindle, the ways, and the lead screws -- in that order. Surface grinders need those things to be in good condition -- make that very good condition -- to do good work. Elbow grease and paint will make it look nice, but is wasted time if the basics are not correct. We want to turn out good work, making the grinder look good is well down the list. Tell us about how the spindle feels when you rotate it. It should be dead smooth, with zero side or end play. How about some closer photos of the ways and the lead screws? Boyar Shulz made good surface grinders, but the spindle bearings can often cost a LOT of money, if they are available at all. Installing the bearings or just taking the spindle apart and putting it together is a truly fussy job if you want good results, not like changing or greasing the wheel bearings on a pickup. Many say that only a professional shop should attempt the job, but it is worth a try if you want to roll the dice, and do your very best work. The spindle is the heart and soul of a surface grinder. Not at all trying to rain on your parade (great score!), just advice from someone who has done it...

Edit: Also, what is the condition of the spindle taper and threads, where the wheel mounts? That needs to be carefully checked with a tenths indicator.
 
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bob..

yeah i hear ya...i am trying very hard to get it apart without causing additional damage....the challenge has been dealing with all the embedded crud..so i brush,scrape vacuum and wipe.. the spindle "seems" ok... i can turn it by hand and cannot feel any issues.. i have checked it on my bench with a tenths indicator on the taper and cannot discern any obvious play... the taper has a bit of rust ... about the only thing on this machine that way any turning it by hand i can see perhaps 2-3 tenths of runout..but it is very hard to tell for sure at this point..

for now i am going to continue getting it as clean as i can and get it back together.. i am waiting on a quote from a bellows outfit on new bellows for the saddle screw.. the old ones were in pieces..and i do not want to attempt putting it back together without first being able to install those first..

if it were not for the ko lee i would have passed for sure on this machine...way to much work....

rich
 
OK, sounds good. I was a bit concerned when you did not mention the spindle at all in your original post. Keep going, you are making progress. You might be able to clean up the spindle taper with Scotchbrite, but do not get carried away with it or it will go out of true. It could be lightly reground with a setup sort of like a tool post grinder, but that is not for the faint of heart or the impetuous.
 
That was a good buy. The KO Lee is a pretty old model from what I can see, but it will still work. You won't really know the condition of your SG bearings until you run it under power. If it's noisy, look for the step by step bearing replacement instructions I wrote up over at Practical Machinist (I forget the rules about whether I can mention other sites or not, but moderator, remove the name if I wasn't supposed to put that there.
 
My experience with taper pins is that you have one chance after you determine which end is which; my experience is that you need to get one very solid whack at it with a sufficiently heavy hammer; tapping it lightly tends to expand it in the hole making it all the harder to remove.
 
A PS to my first post. If your bearings are noisy, it's better to do a teardown in your shop and try regreasing them rather than to keep running them and destroy them. The 40-50 year old grease dries out and is no longer doing its job. Others have had the experience of regreasing old bearings and silencing them. Obviously, if the bearings aren't noisy, don't open the spindle. You don't need expensive Kluber grease. There's a Chevron grease that satisfies the needs of these bearings. I forget the name, but it's in my step by step instructions on the spindle rebuild. New bearings don't have to be $1000. There is an older style front bearing for the Boyar Schultz that is the same as the bearings used in a Bridgeport spindle. It's substantially less expensive than what BS used in later models of their grinders. The old and new style bearings are the same size. Be careful in your shop and you can change or grease these bearings yourself. You won't be running your grinder in a production environment where it's working 40 to 80 hours a week so even if the bearings weren't installed in a clean room, they'll still last almost forever in a home shop environment.
 
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