Tool & Cutter grinder?

Sharpening end mills & milling cutters & reamers. End mills you can sharpen on the ends only unless you have a special "air bar" attachment. Reamers you can sharpen on the end only.

Do not consider this tool as a replacement for a surface grinder.

Do not consider purchasing this tool if it does not come with a boatload of tooling including stuff like centers, indexing fingers, tool head.

If you decide to think about this tool, you will need about 4x6 feet of floor space dedicated to it, and need 3phase power for it. Do not consider replacing the 3phase motor with single phase.

Before you buy this tool look at clones to see what tooling you should be getting, and also search ebay thoroughly to see how KO Lee T&C tooling is priced lately.

This was once a nice tool & cutter grinder. What kind of shape it's in now, I cannot say. T&C grinders are sweet, but floor models are not very space efficient in a home shop.

There is a book that was once published by KO Lee on how to set up and use their grinders including T&C grinders, best reference I've ever seen. Very hard to find and pricey if you can find it. It is titled "Instruction Manual - A Handbook For Use With K. O. Lee Universal Grinders And Tool And Cutter Grinders". Many years ago they cost $6, now they can cost 30 times that.

Been there, done that.

GWE

Doesn't sound like something I need

Thanks, grant.

- - Rex Burkheimer WM Automotive Fort Worth TX

Grant Erw>> Looking at a tool local to me, have not seen it yet.

KO Lee still sells that manual or something like it for $75 and I believe that it is a photocopy, although one with pretty decent reproduction. For less than $10 one should be able to find one of the old Norton T&C grinding booklets on Ebay which has comparable info. John Stevenson in the UK also sells a CD with several T&C grinder manuals on it and I think that he sells on ebay as marypoppinsbag.

BTW, a T&C grinder can also be useful for grinding HSS lathe toolbits and a Delta Univise can be handy for that. I've got a 1980's bench top universal T&C grinder complete with air bearing fixture with 5C collets and a few other accessories that is pretty decent and takes up much less room than the stand alone T&C grinders without giving up much in work envelope. It's similar to the Darex end mill grinders and I think that they actually sold a version of the Enco T&C grinder at one time as did Chevalier. Gromax still sells what looks like the Enco, but list price is around $3500, with a slew of optional accessories at comparable prices.

Mike

My Monoset T&C grinder just has the spinner and finger like you have. It works just fine. The pros will want the air bearing - very smooth and much faster.

There's a GREAT section on how to resharpen endmills on the Hanita End Mill web site. Sorry, I'm travelling and don't have the exact link on this computer.

Karl

Hey Karl.

WOW!! Lots of information about milling there!!

General question: Can't the 5-C collet holding "spin indexer" be used for sharpening the flutes of end mills?

Yes, occasionally. Do much more than that and the grinding swarf will find its way into the unshielded mechanism, and you will be buying a new indexer. A good friend of mine, excellent machinist, had this happen to him so I know this is true. Maybe it might be possible to modify an indexer with a plastic seal ring or something to help keep grinding grit out, dunno.

GWE

Got a scanner??

Gunner

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3

Thats what all those miscl o-rings we all have kicking around are for..pull a plastic sandwich bag over the work, pull till it pops through the plastic..and hold in place with an o ring

Gunner

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."

- Proverbs 22:3