Sanford Surface Grinder

I just bought a Sanford Surface Grinder via eBay, even though I've never even seen one. I just decided I needed (OK, wanted) a surface grinder and the ONLY place in the shop where one could possibly be located meant a benchtop unit and that was that.

So, halftime of a boring Monday Night Footbal game, I was trolling eBay and lo and behold, there it was, with a "Buy It Now" price I couldn't resist.

But now for SHMBO ...

"Honey, have you bought me a Christmas present yet ?"

A somewhat angry reply

"No ! You haven't told me what you want and you don't need anything and I don't really have time to go shopping and so, no !"

A meek rejoinder

"How about buying me a surface grinder for Christmas ?"

And the next angry reply

"If you want a surface grinder, buy it yourself !"

CLICK went the ENTER key, and now somewhere between Florida and Washington State is 250 pounds of grinder.

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me Merry Christmas dear Alan Merry Christmas to me !

Next step was to scour the 'net looking for info on Sanford, with a staggering lack of success.

I went to DejaNews and looked up and read all the posts from this group, but didn't find all that I was looking for.

SO, in the hope that there's someone out there with hitherto unpublished or unannounced information, can anyone point me to online verions of

an owner's manual a part manual a list of tips and "look out for"s

Thanks in advance.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Rothenbush
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I suggest you look it over carefully, maybe clean the machine, level it, and figure out how to lube it. Then figure out how to change wheels. A word of caution: many little grinders have a left hand thread on the flange on the wheel adapter. If you're lucky, it will use Sopko adapters and if you're real lucky, it will have the Sopko wrench. Get in the habit of trying to tighten things as little as possible. You don't want the wheel to spin on you but you don't need to crush it.

Wire it up and fire it up. It should sound smooth and even. If it sounds gritty, you got screwed. Little grinders are only as good as their spindle bearings. If it seems great, then put on a wheel and start thinking about how to dress it. Read up on dressing surface grinder wheels. I don't see any reason not to use the el cheapo grinder dresser fixture from HF. It's just a hunk of iron. You will definitely want a "dressing stone" too - this isn't something that goes on your mag chuck, it's a piece of "stone" that you hold in your hand and manually dress the face of your wheel when it loads up. If you're grinding hot rolled steel and it starts grinding a little funny, check your wheel for glazing right away - if you try to grind with a glazed wheel it just gets hot. Hot means bigger, and bigger wheel means deeper cut and *maybe* a wheel shattering. Get a dressing stone. Norton makes one called "norbide" or something like that, and they're dirt cheap.

With the ways lubed and the wheel properly trued and dressed, put a chunk of steel on the mag chuck. It's smart practice to put other pieces up against the workpiece - these are called "blocking pieces" and this is to take advantage of more of the mag chuck's holding power.

It's good to go REAL SLOW when touching down. If you don't know where the high spot is, and are too lazy to mount a DTI to find out, then put a piece of paper on where you guess the high spot is. Stick it down with um, spit. Lower gently until the paper whisks away, then crank the whole part around. If it starts sparking anywhere, go up a little. Here's a very important point. You have to get this drilled in:

HALF A THOU IS A HUGE HOGGING CUT ON A LITTLE GRINDER.

Go much deeper, and you will shatter the wheel.

Anyway, that's my take on it. No, I don't have any parts or manual for it, but these machines are usually simple. Leveling is important because the ways probably won't lube right unless the machine is level.

Grant

Alan Rothenbush wrote:

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Grant;

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll take them all to heart, especially the one about a glazed wheel. Hadn't thought about that.

(Or about the extra "blocking" piece .. or the DTI .. or the ... )

I understand about the depth of cut.

In fact, I plan to "CNC" this machine, largely for this reason. Twenty thou, 1/10 at a time, is less onerous if the machine is doing the work. (And being an electronics guy, I can't resist)

I'm thinking about a stepper on the "Y" and "Z", with a DC servo on the "X". A VERY simple program composed of variables and loops and I'm done. I'll probably do this with a microcontroller and a small LCD, as I'm VERY short on space, I'm pretty good with micros and mostly, I have a bunch around from previous projects.

The good news is that I'm never more than 10 feet away, so any "funny noises" should be quickly captured.

( I wonder, maybe an accurate tach on the spindle or an accurate ammeter in the motor circuit .. surely, if the wheel started to load up, the spindle would slow OR the motor current would rise. Either event could then trigger an EStop ... )

Anyway, thanks again. I will read everything I can get my hands on, but there's nothing like experience to tell you what chapters to read twice !

Now, to find a mag chuck at an affordable price ...

Alan

Grant Erw> I suggest you look it over carefully, maybe clean the machine, level

Reply to
Alan Rothenbush

AH!! No mag chuck. Well then! You are going to want the procedure for "grinding in" a new mag chuck, Alan. Here's the deal: it HAS to be done with full flood coolant. So you are going to need a pond pump, a bucket, some tubing, and some coolant fluid. Then you clean the place where the chuck goes so it's CLEAN. Then you lightly bolt the chuck on upside down, turn on the coolant, and grind until it comes clean everywhere. Then you remove the chuck, again CLEAN, install the chuck right side up to correct torque, dialing in the sides so they are dead parallel, then again turn on the coolant and grind clean. You don't want a mirror finish, just a commercial grind finish. This should be done by about a 46 grit stone dressed so it is as open as possible.

It took me about 4 hours to grind in my 6x12" chuck. You *might* want to do your CNC thing first. Oh, and when you do the CNC thing, you might also consider automating just the X and Y feeds, and do the downfeeds manually. You can get into a lot of trouble downfeeding! That's what the big hydraulic grinders I've run are like.

Grant

To email me see http://www.t> Grant;

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Oh, Alan, you beat me to it! So where's it going? Gonna move a wall and move the South Bend and the horizontal mill into new quarters? Or, my (first) marriage survived a Porsche engine under the bed for a few months - perhaps move something into *her* ("our") living space? Having witnessed the pain you went through disposing of those compressor parts, I don't really see you actually SELLING anything...

I rather liked my line - borrowed from a friend of Guy Lautard - "A lathe followed me home and I think I'll keep it....."

/mark

Alan Rothenbush wrote:

Reply to
Mark

[ ... ]

Congratulations!

And the company went incommunicado shortly after I got mine. (But not before I got a manual from them -- perhaps the last.)

Yep.

Sort of a part of the owner's manual, but not complete.

How about some advice on a modification to the power supply for the magnetic chuck?

For the manual, and some flyers and quote sheets, check out:

formatting link
You'll also find the rewiring information there.

*Please* -- don't ask your browser to download multiple things at once. *You* may have a lot of bandwidth, but you will be limited by my end, which has to work with a 56k Frame Relay connection, and other things have to share that bandwidth, including my e-mail and news feed. Asking for a second thing before the first is complete will mean that you will be slowing down the download of the first thing, so you will take about the same time as before, and possibly choking off my bandwidth so nothing else can go through.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

And, yes it *does* have a left-hand thread on the spindle nut. A hinged two-pin spanner is needed to loosen/tighten it.

[ ... ]

The trick is finding one which is not too large for the machine. Most are.

Mine came with a electric mag chuck. Note that the manual warns to not use coolant with the electric version of the chuck -- just with a permanent magnet version.

Also, note that the manual (at least the last ones) warn to interchange the connector halves on the mag chuck, as the original had a male connector on each end, which means that you have 150V or more on the bare pins if you disconnect it from the chuck end.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

---------- A professional machinist friend of mine rebuilt a Sanford and he had a heck of a time finding new spindle bearings.It seems they used "magneto" bearings which haven"t been manufactured since the 30's and Sanford wanted over $300 for a pair of replacement bearings, but he finally found a bearing house that had a substitute. Don Warner

Reply to
Donald

Sorry about that Mark. I've been watching, kinda casually, for benchtop SGs on eBay, and they all seem to go for way more than I'm willing to spend, typically in the $800 - $900 range.

So when I saw this one with a BuyItNow of $350.00, I couldn't resist. Reading the archives, though, this seems to be slightly on the high side for _private_ deals of a couple of years ago. itseems like eBay has run up the prices on these things a whole bunch.

I wasn't TOO worried about finding a place for it ( until last night ). You see, I have one corner (by the stairs), where the hydraulic press sits. I've been planning on moving the press anyway, and so I though this was a perfect item to go in its place.

But then last night, I found another Sanford on eBay (for $800) with a bunch of pictures. For the first time, I saw the back of a Sanford .. and there's a motor sticking out !

Now, of course there would be, but I just wasn't thinking about that. This motor sticking out in this corner would effectively block the stairs.

So, I may be adding a fourth motor to go along with the three "CNC" motors.

That fourth motor will likely be a DC motor ('cuz they're smaller for the same power) mounted _above_ the spindle pointing forwards (where I can bang my head on it) with a belt running down to a pulley located more or less where the original motor lives.

Or I may just punch a hole in the wall ( a slot, really ) and build a little weatherproof box around it.

But I WILL find room for it .. sorry.

Alan

Mark wrote:

Reply to
Alan Rothenbush

Don;

Many thanks for taking the time to write.

I tried quickly to connect to your web site, but to no avail. I'll try again later on tonight (10:00 or so PST), which may be a "more polite" time to download things.

( Swamping the connection of a guy doing you a favour is pretty darn rude )

As far as mag chucks go, there's an eBay guy selling a 4x7 for $100.00, which doesn't seem too bad. There's a cheaper 5x10, but I suspect a chuck that size might be more trouble than it's worth.

Any thoughts ?

Thanks again.

Alan

P.S. email sent to the address on your news post bounced ...

Reply to
Alan Rothenbush

Thanks for the grins!

Harold

Reply to
Harold & Susan Vordos

Thanks. I hope it works out. I've bought multi-hundred pound lumps of scrap cast iron for dollars per pound before.

Yeah, that's occurred to me as well. Reading the Sanford blumf

(thanks Don !)

there are frequent references to "precision balanced motor". One reference, marketing crap .. numerous references, a guy might want to pay attention.

Starting to look like a last resort. If I do it, some sort of flywheel will be part of the solution, as well as tach feedback for speed control.

I will.

Frankly, I'm surprised more people haven't done this with manual machines. I wonder if I'm missing something here, or if I'm just the laziest guy around.

( Don't ask my wife, I know how she'd vote. )

Alan

Reply to
Alan Rothenbush

I have to agree with him.

Oh -- good! You got it *before* I lost power for most of yesterday. I was afraid that you'd be banging on the IP address and reaching nothing. (You probably get up earlier than I do. :-)

Note that even better would be a three-phase motor -- they run smoother than the single phase which comes on the machine -- but I guess that the relatively large diameter makes for a bit of a flywheel effect.

Note also that the belt is protected inside the housing, and is a specific type of flat belt -- which seems to be common for surface grinders.

I've been running it manually in part because I'm still learning about surface grinding, and I figure that I learn faster with my hands on the machine. however -- if I ever go into production on reeds, CNC would make sense for getting the precise contours needed.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Their manual said that the only source these days was from a Japanese firm.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Any chance of getting the replacement bearing identification numbers? Seems they went from a ball bearing to a taper roller bearing sometime during the SG's production run. I have a Standford with the roller bearing. My understanding is this change happened close to when they changed from a flat belt to a "V" belt. Rick in WA State

Reply to
Accelo

Rick,

I am an unofficial historian for Sanford Manufacturing. I have been compili ng data on all the Sanford SG grinders I can locate. Hopefully someday I wi ll have a tribute website. If you can post your serial number I can date yo ur machine and add it to the database, I don't have many from the west coas t.

To the best of my knowledge, Sanford SGs only used regular ball bearings. T here were several design changes to the spindle to accommodate newer style bearings. If your spindle does not have oil cups, it is the later style. Sa nford specified 202 type bearings, 35mm OD, 15mm ID, but instead of an 11mm width, the spindle allows a 5/8" bearing. That is a legacy bearing size fr om when bearings used thick seals.

6202/7202 sized bearings can be used with a spacer and are available in abe c 3 at least. There are bearings available in the 5/8" width also, exact re placements for the extinct bearings. They have offset inner and outer rings . There are also double row, 15mm x 35mm x 5/8" bearings, type 3202. McMast er-Carr carries them in abec 3.

I haven't determined a changeover point for the vee belt drive, but it prob ably occurred with the switch from the external vertical leadscrew SG to th e internal model SG-48 in 1961. All that Sanford notes is that they used va rious sizes of belts over the years. The flat belts are available from Sopk o.com

Dennis

Reply to
mixdenny

Hmm ... I presume that you have the manuals? I have one for my S48 -- I think it was from just before the factory closed. If you don't have it -- drop me an e-mail and I'll give you a URL for it.

Useful information, and sent to the printer. Thanks.

Also useful information.

I can't get to whatever surface hides my serial number at the moment. Flat belt, FWIW. I've got to pull off the guards on the vertical ways and de-rust them -- thanks to a rather acidic smoke attack from a Vactra No. 2 fire a couple of years ago.

Thanks, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

I do have a manual, DoN, thanks to you. Your information was some of the m ost helpful I located when I started researching Sanford a couple of years back. I have passed on your design for an improved power supply for the mag netic chuck to several people. I spent a lot of time searching for all the information and photos I could find. I do have several photos of your Sanfo rd's motor mount. Your machine is listed in my database with limited inform ation, but no serial number.

I posted a survey on all the machining forums for Sanford owners to list th eir machine's features I has asking about along with the serial number. I g ot a good response then and I add every new machine I come across. From tha t database and the hundreds of photos I have saved, I was able to generate a pretty thorough time line for all the changes.

I still spot a running change every now and then, and go back to my photos to see if I can figure out when it occurred. The last one I spotted a few m onths ago was the placement/number of oil cups on the traversing table.

I researched Sanford in major libraries, colleges and museums like the Smit hsonian. From that research I have copies of sales brochures going all the way back to the introduction of the SG in 1941. It is surprising how diffe rent the original was, I can spot one from just a photo. They made less tha n 400 original spec machines, but I have located a half dozen, including on e completely disassembled and the owner photographed all the pieces on all sides for me.

I have 3 SGs on the bench right now, although 2 have undergone a complete r estoration and will be for sale. I was lucky enough to get a bunch of NOS p arts when I bought the 2 at auction along with all their spares.

Dennis

Reply to
mixdenny

Great! I'm glad that it can be of help to more through your efforts.

O.K. I remember that -- and I thought at the time that you were trying to figure out how to mount a motor to your own machine, not collect information about all of them. (Or did the collecting information come later?)

Right now mine is on the floor -- waiting for more bench space to appear in the wake of the fire. And I can't lift it right now because I am (very slowly) recovering use of my right arm after breaking it about a year ago.

Looking at the three surfaces which I can see fairly easily (the back and two sides), I can't see a serial number. The front is facing the wrong way -- though I could probably tilt it back enough to see the number if you tell me that is where it is.

Great!

FWIW, mine has two oil cups very close together at the center front of the table.

For the back-front ways, there are four cups, one above each end of each V-way.

Hmm ... it was introduced in the same year that I was. :-) (Any clue as to which month?

Amazing that that high a percentage is still around and findable. Over 1% so far -- and probably others to be determined.

Great! I figured that no parts would be available anywhere after I got the manual from the factory -- and nobody else could contact them subsequently. I guess that the impending closure of the factory explains the rather gruff manner of the fellow on the phone.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

You weren't posting the photos for me, DoN. I just came across them later. Hope he figured out a mount, although on the Sanford it isn't just a motor mount, it is a precision ground part of the spindle carrier.

I don't have a month for the introduction of the machines. By the way, the serial number is on a plate on the lower front of the machine, right under the cross feed handwheel.

Dennis

Reply to
mixdenny

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