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Thompson 2F

d_m_

Plastic
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Location
oregon
I just acquired a Thompson 2F surface grinder. I would like to date it it has a war tag on it also there is a micrometer stop on the down feed wheel that I cant seem to figure out what it does. Any help would be appreciated.
Dave
 

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Here are the pics F42494 is the serial ##
 

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Thompson grinders built during the '40s had a 5 digit serial number. The first digit indicates the particular year. Your machine was built in 1944, mine was just a little ahead of yours with a serial F41240. I have a manual for mine, I'll dig it out after work today and see what the parts breakdown looks like. Very well built machines, I own 2 Thompsons. A 6x18 like yours and a 12x40.
 
Be sure to move the wheel head all the way back and clean the saddle ways be sure to clean the ways in front before hand. The saddles are so hard to rebuild so be very careful to keep it clean. I had a Thompson once to. I loved it. A general clean up would be a smart idea too...inside base hydraulic tank, table ways, etc. I had an odd ball 8" x 60. Narrow, I figured it was made to grind long parts. I was just able to grind Bridgeport tables on it. Rich
 
My manual was likely a copy of a copy, the illustrations are pretty fuzzy. The hand wheel looks like it's pulled out away from the pointer ? Something missing ? Jim
 
jljim
Thanks for the info in advance it's nice to know the year and looking forward to see what parts are missing or the figuring out the Mic stop. The machine is cleaning up well and runs quit and smooth on my rotary PH converter. At some point in its life someone rewired the spindle motor for 220 3 PH it was 440 really happy about that I really dident want to go the step up transformer route.
Dave
 
Thank you Richard
I have spent the last few weekends doing a tear down and cleaning yesterday the table came off and the ways and return oil catches were cleaned. i removed all the way covers and thoroughly cleaned all exposed ways as well as flushed with solvent and lubricated. This poor girl was used hard and was a pig pen when I got her home. I did some checking on the table were the chuck mounts and I am looking at less than .002 out but not sure if I should leave that and dust in the chuck or would it be better the do the bed, chuck base, and then the chuck surface.
THX Dave
 
My manual was likely a copy of a copy, the illustrations are pretty fuzzy. The hand wheel looks like it's pulled out away from the pointer ? Something missing ? Jim

I have it pulled for cleaning. Im in the shop now I will grab some pics and post.
Dave
 
Some pics of the handle area.
 

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That unit near the down feed hand wheel looks like a fine feed device graduated in tenths. There must be a reaction bracket that attaches to an anullar slot on the inside face of the hand wheel.
 
Some Nortons and Thompsons (and others) had a down feed stop.. The down hand wheel had limited accuracy because of guessing at tenths like using a non tenths micrometer...the micrometer stop allowed a positive end of down feed to the tenths. Is was used if incrimential cross grinding and for down grinding.
Not uncommon to find the wheel wear for one part, or a run of parts and micrometer another .0002 or .001 after a certain number of parts. A very handy feature.with the stop and a spotter one could run a number of chick loads wit not checking a part.

Yes brown and Sharpe had the fine feed hand wheel for the same but that was not an fast as the micrometer stop..Yes it took feel to make it work....not just looking at the numbers as with the B&S
 








 
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