New LeBlond No1 and No 2 Cutter Grinders

I won the LeBlonds in the Hilpipre Auction. (I paid half of what I expected to for them, but lost 10 other items I was bidding on to folks who wanted them much more than I did!)

I have the LeBlond brochures from Mr Honey, and the manual from Carbide Bob. What other resources are there to help me restore and use them? My mission is to no longer have an excuse for having dull tools.

PS for my line-shaft friends, the No1 was originally, and will remain line-shaft driven!

Nice grinders. You shoul have a work head of sorts that might hold colets, a set of centers, a tooth rest holder. some straight fingers and some hook fingers. A chuxk is handy so you can taper shank tools and odd ball stuff.
Free download the Cincinnati TC manual as it has a ton of good setups for a cutter grinder.

*You might post some photos.

If they have been setting for a time slow spin the wheel spindle a number of times before running it at speed.

michiganbuck said:

Nice grinders. You shoul have a work head of sorts that might hold colets, a set of centers, a tooth rest holder. some straight fingers and some hook fingers. A chuxk is handy so you can taper shank tools and odd ball stuff.
Free download the Cincinnati TC manual as it has a ton of good setups for a cutter grinder.

*You might post some photos.

If they have been setting for a time slow spin the wheel spindle a number of times before running it at speed.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I retrieved the Cincinnati manual from VM.
I will pick the machines up on Sat., and will post photos after that. The price was low so I took them as-is. Who knows what is missing...
I have the manual for the No2 now, but if anyone has the manual for the No1 let me know.

michiganbuck said:

Nice grinders. You shoul have a work head of sorts that might hold colets, a set of centers, a tooth rest holder. some straight fingers and some hook fingers. A chuxk is handy so you can taper shank tools and odd ball stuff.
Free download the Cincinnati TC manual as it has a ton of good setups for a cutter grinder.

*You might post some photos.

If they have been setting for a time slow spin the wheel spindle a number of times before running it at speed.

Click to expand...

On the trailer
The No2 is apparently a later one as it has 4 speeds rather than 3
The No1 has an interesting spindle, for V-belt rather than flat belt, but the motor-bracket appears OEM
The welded wheel adaptor is not OEM
Both grinders are missing all attachments. I posted a request to other bidders at the auction asking whoever ended up with them if they wanted to sell...
The forecast was a 6% chance of rain so I did not tarp the machines last night when I got home with them, late, and tired. Then it rained all night. I normally try not to abuse my machines like this!
Any idea where I would find the serial numbers?
The spindle on the No2 spins too easily. I guess the belt is broken, but at least the roller bearings in the table are silky smooth.

Spindles should turn smooth as silk with having no dry sound. Oil with spindle oil if they have oil inlets.
getting them up you might make a surface grinder of one and a cutter grinder of the other.

Figure out the wheel rpm to be sure you don't over speed wheels.

Weak point on the #2 besides the belt is the transmission.
Yours seems not quite in gear yet.
The lever lifts the entire motor and moves it to differing dia. flat circles on the driven side. This is done with a rubber wheel on the motor shaft and these rot and go bad.
Spindle teardown and rebuild is easy and super high precision bearing not needed, Keep the oil cups full not only on the spindle but on the slides.
The side to side axis usually good but the in/out has a tendency to crab. Assume you have found the fast and slow feed "button" for side to side.
This was my very first T/C grinder and I have the motorized workhead to use it as a OD grinder.
Problem as a T/C is that the spindle does not tilt so one has to get creative.

Not many parts in this machine tool and none heavy weight or complicated. I would tear it to shreds and clean everything.
Bob

CarbideBob said:

Weak point on the #2 besides the belt is the transmission.
Yours seems not quite in gear yet.
The lever lifts the entire motor and moves it to differing dia. flat circles on the driven side. This is done with a rubber wheel on the motor shaft and these rot and go bad.
Spindle teardown and rebuild is easy and super high precision bearing not needed, Keep the oil cups full not only on the spindle but on the slides.
The side to side axis usually good but the in/out has a tendency to crab. Assume you have found the fast and slow feed "button" for side to side.
This was my very first T/C grinder and I have the motorized workhead to use it as a OD grinder.
Problem as a T/C is that the spindle does not tilt so one has to get creative.

Not many parts in this machine tool and none heavy weight or complicated. I would tear it to shreds and clean everything.
Bob

Click to expand...

It was in low gear when I picked it up. I tried to shift to other gears and it objected.

The belt to the spindle is not broken, but brittle and loose.

This is the "workhead" I built for my Hendy-Norton (a boring bar holder from an old Mori, bored out and bushed, the spindle is MT3), I guess I will throw a poly-phase motor on it for the cutter grinder

No, I have not found the button for ludicrous-speed, or a serial-number.

The No1 once had power feed. But the bracket looks shop-made, is on top rather than underneath, and is much to large. (see below)


Neither machine appears to have been operated in decades. The "shop" they came out of did not have a single chip on the floor, just old machines piled on top of each other, and not under power.

The No2 has a power plug for 3-phase as it should, but the catalogs I have indicate that the motor could be 220v or 440v, but the machine has no markings to indicate which - one more reason to tear it to shreds and determine what is in there...

The No1 has a 110v power plug, but the motor tag states 230, single phase

Both machines are sort of green, but very different shades. What was original?

I bought a 6" piece of solid rubber from McMaster Carr to make my drive wheel and some for spares. After clamping it onto the drive arbor I ground it true. Don't remember the Durometer. One member here used a hockey puck.

I just replaced the leather belt with a Habiset hot melt endless belt.It uses a finger joint and a heat press to melt it together.They wont stretch like a leather one.
They do make Nylon lacing for them if you don't have a heat press.

Mine also has change gears for the table feed. I'm probably going to put a dc drive and motor on it.

I think mine has original color , a medium gray. I have the parts book and a sales brochure and the color in the brochure looks a similar gray.

he Gallmeyer and Livingston universal grinders were quite similar to the LeBlond
The ones in this thread are larger sizes but may give you some ideas.
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...al-grinder-no-4-a-216865/?highlight=Gallmeyer
Gallmeyer made some smaller sizes too but I have only seen one and don't remember the size
Finding LeBlond attachments may be hard but many from other grinders can usually be adapted .
Sometimes you may have to alter the keeper keys in the attachment bases to fit the table t-slots or add a riser block with perhaps offset T-slot to bring them closer or farther away from the wheel head so you don't run out of cross travel by being too close or too far away in some operations.
Jim

Jim Christie said:

he Gallmeyer and Livingston universal grinders were quite similar to the LeBlond
The ones in this thread are larger sizes but may give you some ideas.
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...al-grinder-no-4-a-216865/?highlight=Gallmeyer
Gallmeyer made some smaller sizes too but I have only seen one and don't remember the size
Finding LeBlond attachments may be hard but many from other grinders can usually be adapted .
Sometimes you may have to alter the keeper keys in the attachment bases to fit the table t-slots or add a riser block with perhaps offset T-slot to bring them closer or farther away from the wheel head so you don't run out of cross travel by being too close or too far away in some operations.
Jim

Click to expand...

Jim, I particularly like your recycled countershaft as a lamp stand! I have been known to use flywheels as end-tables.