Pratt & Whitney tool grinder

I just brought home a WWII vintage Pratt & Whitney tool and cutter grinder, at least that is what I think it is? Here is the information on the machine.

Mfg by Pratt & Whitney
Keller Division
Hartford, Connecticut USA
Type R6 Serial No 5888

On a separate tag it says:
Property of
Defense Plant Corporation
an instrumentality of the
United States Government

Naval Turbine

Here is a link to the Ebay auction.

Ebay tool grinder

I would appreciate any information you might have on this machine and of course pointing me towards a manual would be really appreciated.

Cool Dave

There was also a R8 - not sure what the difference was.

I think both are intended to be for grinding milling cutters with a radii on the end among other things.

John

Your grinder may be for sharpening cutters for Keller tracing mills. They were pre-NC technology die sinking machines, using electrical tracing probes to follow wooden master die models. I saw some in action in Detroit in 1964 in a shop that made automotive sheet metal forming dies. The cutters had to match the curve of the probes.

Our styling people made drawings of a new truck. Then the clay modelers carved full size models and tweaked them until they looked right to the stylists and a committee of top brass. That much is still current practice. But in the old days, pattern makers measured the clay and built full size die models out of a hard wood-plastic laminate material.

The wood models went to Detroit, where the Kellering machines carved huge blocks of die steel to match the models. The Kellers left parallel ridges in the dies, which were removed by hand with air die grinders in the "barbering" process.

Larry

I've been around the P&W machines but really know little about them. The R-8 was P&W's answer to the Cinc. Monoset.... or maybe it was the other way round; I don't know which came first.

I've seen R-6's and R-8's that look older than any of the Cinc. Monoset's I've seen... so perhaps the P&W is the original incarnation.

I usually opted for the Monosets for no other reason than they were better tooled than the P&W's in the same shop. My dad who owned the shop thought the P&W the better of the two machines, by a significant margin. However, collets for the P&W were (1960's) and continue to be quite rare.

Like many of the tool room grinders, I think the ultimate value of the machine is limited only by the available tooling and your imagination and skills in plane geometery.

There is a guy out on the web that rebuilds the P&W machines, so spares are still available. Sorry I can't offer up more information.

Very nice price! Looks to me like it could be adapted to most cutters even if it was designed, as Larry says, for a certain job. I looks to have enough moves to be useful and will be able to do ball end mills and radiused corners if the radial table can be offset for tangents.

Thanks very much for the responses. Will do a web search to see what I find, but wanted to post here first, because there is so much knowledge in the membership.

I did get eleven collets with it and can readily understand that they are not something you normally see on Ebay, as very proprietary. I have to play a bit to see what all the hand wheels and features do. Movements for straight line cutter face sharpening is easily seen, but will have to look at potential radius capabilities.

Received an off forum offer from someone who must have read this post and who has a manual, which will be a real plus. Will take a few better photos and post them, but will probably have to be after Christmas.

The seller has to move from the building he has been in for years and will be selling at least one more machine. He has some very interesting machines, some I have never seen before. One item he will be selling is a Le Blond #2 surface grinder that is in almost new condition. I didn't have a camera with me (sorry) but it is different than most grinders I have seen. It has a universal milling table about 7x24, with a motor and lathe type chuck on one end and another motor offset to the back. I am assuming it does some form of cylindrical grinding and would use a tailstock mounted to the table??

Is this something I should have bought while there?

Dave

Le Blond #2 surface grinder

Click to expand...

Sounds like a "universal" grinder but is more likely a tool and cutter grinder, which LeBlond did in fact make some of.

John

Hello Dave;

Yes, it's probably a LeBlond #2 Universal Tool & Cutter Grinder, which has been set up with the motor-driven workhead to do cylindrical grinding. I have one, and it's a very useful machine. With the LeBlond and the P & W, you could open a grind shop! Between those two, you could grind almost any kind of cutter. The LeBlond can be set up to do linear blades (like woodworking planer knives and broaches) as well as round cutters, including tapers.

If the price is right and you have the space, grab it. There aren't too many of them around. It weighs about 1200 lbs. Reprint manuals for them are available.

Bruce Johnson

Thanks Bruce - Now I am really on the horns of a dilema - I guess since the sellers phone number is still in my posession a call to discuss price would be in order. He threw out a number when I was there, but I thought it was a bit high since a collet for the smaller motor was missing.

Dave

Dave:

The Leblond #2 T&C grinder uses roller bearings on the longitudinal travel giving a smooth as silk and easy movement.

In addition to the powered workhead, a power feed option was available on the longitudinal travel. The motor and gearing are located on the right hand side of the y slide.

Jim C.

Dave;

That whole assembly that's bolted down to the table on the left side is called a Universal Work Head. You can rig it up with its motor to do powered cylindrical grinding (like the OD of endmills), or you can the work head alone to position cutters for grinding teeth. The spindle of the work head has a 40 taper on one end and a B & S #9 (if I remember correctly) on the other end. It can be flipped over to use either end. The point is that it isn't too hard to find or make up various things to fit it.

I haven't even assembled and used the work head on mine yet. I'm thinking of eventually making up a 40 taper adapter to take 5C collets, and a 40 taper adapter for a small 3-jaw chuck. That should cover most things I would want to use the work head for.

I primarily use my LeBlond for touching up woodworking router bits and end mills. I found a nice small milling vise that tilts in two axes and rotates. I made a special aluminum base for it, and long offset jaws with end stops. I put the cutter in a 5C collet in one of those square 5C collet holder blocks, and clamp the block in the vise against the stops. That way I can quickly pull the block out of the vise for a close look at the tooth, and pop it back in without changing the indexing or depth. Indexing to the next tooth is done by flipping the block one or two flats. This rig is much faster than the traditional setup of the collet in the workhead with the tooth stop. I usually keep a white (for HS steel) wheel on one side of the spindle and a green (for carbide) wheel on the other.

Jim's right that the table rolls side to side with almost no effort. With the handle in the "fast crank" drive mode, you have to be very careful not to bump it and crash something into the wheel. Also, you may not have noticed, but the entire table and knee assembly rotates 360 degrees around the center column. This can be used to set up for grinding steep tapers, or the table can be rotated to perpendicular to the spindle for cylindrical or surface grinding. And the top of the table rotates over a few degrees in relation to the rolling table to set up for long tapers. It's a very complex and flexible machine. I'm just beginning to learn how to use it.

I hope this helps to push you over the edge!

Bruce Johnson

Dave,
I have spent many an hour standing in front of a P&W R-6. It had a Harig air bearing fixture in place of the factory fixtures. It is a good machine for cutter grinding.

I purchased one last year for my shop. Mine didn't have the factory fixture. However I have a new Morgan Denver air bearing fixture waiting to sit on it.

I did the information hunt also. As I recall Cincinnati Machine did own the rights to the P&W grinders for a while. However they sold the rights to a company in NH. Who sold to a company in VT. The company in VT is:

OK Tool
Radius Grinders
Fred Bulock
tel/fax 802-869-1610
P.O. Box 422
Saxtons River, VT 05154

I did acquire an original instruction manual off ebay, fortunely??? from the Al Babin group in CT.

And did also get a fair partical photo copy of instruction manual and a parts manual from the company above. I called a couple of times and left messages. No reply until several weeks later a big envelope arrives with the literature, with the previous rights owners contact information marked through. I understand it is a one man operation and he hadn't gotten fully organized at my time of contact. May '06

I've never seen one with the square base, or coolant trough like yours. Not even in the parts manual. May not be a R-6 or R-8? But otherwise the working parts look like a R-6 Also, Mine and the one I worked with years ago had handles, not hand wheels on the rapid x-y slides.

As a side note, the shop I worked, we free handed radii on cutters because we didn't know the capability of the R-6 machine. The day the R-6 sold at auction just over a year after I left, the buyer explained to me how to set it up for radii gringing. He had a cutter grinding shop and had been free hand grinding radii waiting to purchase a proper grinding machine.

Ray