There was a request to see a few details of the crankshaft grinder and cam grinder machines I built a few years back so here we go.
Anyone feel free to add your bits here as well as I am just as interested in your setups also.
Firstly the both machines shown were born out of necessity and probably just as much a test to see just what I could achieve.
Building the little 25cc 4 stroke 4 cylinder was the original catalyst for both.
George Punter whom some of you may know,had given me a casting he made years before but never managed time to get any further with the build.
Plans were not around anymore so I had to work with what I had been given (the casting) and just experience from a past single cylinder 7.5cc 4 stroke, also from George's (at the time) little 2m x 3m tin shed out back.
Both the crank and cam grinders run automatically once set-up for a particular grind project. Use was made of the accurate ( I found) nature of the basic optical slot sensor found in many old printers and the like, as limit sensors. Machines are set to look at these in the setup as "end of grind" positions.
The cam grinder mechanics are wound back to a start position a small amount clear of the new job, and then when grind starts, a rotation pulse automatically feeds the grind "in" a little each time until complete, and then the machine shuts down and "ejects" the grind mechanics for access to measuring.
George built a similar machine but using mostly mechanical gearboxes as opposed to my "electronic" sensors and mechanics.
He has since built a new grinder based on a horizontal feed arrangement. This copes with the problem of grinding complex cam shapes that the "rocking" mechanics of the orignals just cannot reproduce. As such, he is often asked to build cams for old turn of the century motorcycles from all over Australia.
I'll see if I can get a photo of that machine later.
The crankshaft grinder is a little more complex and as well as using the above, it also uses a PC driven (free stuff off the internet)PLC.
Reason is because the grind sequence when started, feeds the grind "in" a small amount (adjustable) and then along the journal length, and then feeds "in" once again and traverses back along the journal. Routine continues until "end of grind" is tripped and the machine does one more traverse cycle without feed-in for finish and then retracts the grinding head. Grinding is done with the journals set as centres. Attachments allow the grinding of the crank webs after journals are completed. You will see the results of this in the parts of the 4 cylinder engine.
I had quite a large setback during and after the January 2013 floods we had here when all my house and workshop were pretty much destroyed. I had the house up and running again in 6 weeks but the workshop and all the gear (models included) had to be rebuilt/renovated and here we are in 2017 slowly getting everything back to square 1 again. Many thanks to all those who helped out and especially my mate George Punter who came and "stopped the rot" with most of my gear by dismantling, cleaning, drying out and generally swamping my workshop with CRC, emery tape, rags and steel wool.
A couple of short videos of the machines and a couple of the other engines are shown in youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYI-CCoY-M9bN-JY-r3_PXg?&ab_channel=JeffBluejets
Anyone feel free to add your bits here as well as I am just as interested in your setups also.
Firstly the both machines shown were born out of necessity and probably just as much a test to see just what I could achieve.
Building the little 25cc 4 stroke 4 cylinder was the original catalyst for both.
George Punter whom some of you may know,had given me a casting he made years before but never managed time to get any further with the build.
Plans were not around anymore so I had to work with what I had been given (the casting) and just experience from a past single cylinder 7.5cc 4 stroke, also from George's (at the time) little 2m x 3m tin shed out back.
Both the crank and cam grinders run automatically once set-up for a particular grind project. Use was made of the accurate ( I found) nature of the basic optical slot sensor found in many old printers and the like, as limit sensors. Machines are set to look at these in the setup as "end of grind" positions.
The cam grinder mechanics are wound back to a start position a small amount clear of the new job, and then when grind starts, a rotation pulse automatically feeds the grind "in" a little each time until complete, and then the machine shuts down and "ejects" the grind mechanics for access to measuring.
George built a similar machine but using mostly mechanical gearboxes as opposed to my "electronic" sensors and mechanics.
He has since built a new grinder based on a horizontal feed arrangement. This copes with the problem of grinding complex cam shapes that the "rocking" mechanics of the orignals just cannot reproduce. As such, he is often asked to build cams for old turn of the century motorcycles from all over Australia.
I'll see if I can get a photo of that machine later.
The crankshaft grinder is a little more complex and as well as using the above, it also uses a PC driven (free stuff off the internet)PLC.
Reason is because the grind sequence when started, feeds the grind "in" a small amount (adjustable) and then along the journal length, and then feeds "in" once again and traverses back along the journal. Routine continues until "end of grind" is tripped and the machine does one more traverse cycle without feed-in for finish and then retracts the grinding head. Grinding is done with the journals set as centres. Attachments allow the grinding of the crank webs after journals are completed. You will see the results of this in the parts of the 4 cylinder engine.
I had quite a large setback during and after the January 2013 floods we had here when all my house and workshop were pretty much destroyed. I had the house up and running again in 6 weeks but the workshop and all the gear (models included) had to be rebuilt/renovated and here we are in 2017 slowly getting everything back to square 1 again. Many thanks to all those who helped out and especially my mate George Punter who came and "stopped the rot" with most of my gear by dismantling, cleaning, drying out and generally swamping my workshop with CRC, emery tape, rags and steel wool.
A couple of short videos of the machines and a couple of the other engines are shown in youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYI-CCoY-M9bN-JY-r3_PXg?&ab_channel=JeffBluejets
