I recently came into possession of a nearly unused Kao Ming tool and cutter grinder. It had some of the fixtures, but not all and mostly had been slathered in grease once, 40 years ago, and never really run. (previous owner had wired it incorrectly, using one of those phase-a-matic things, and I don't think ever got it to run).
I took it apart and cleaned it up recently, and got a VFD installed on the main spindle motor. All of that is working great now, so i'm almost ready to run it. Here's the problem: Kao Ming/Makino used a "non-standard" spindle taper, and wheel adaptors for this taper are not really available. William Sopko and sons would make custom ones, but the price of those is more than what I paid for the machine.
It looks like my best option is to regrind the spindle. The large diameter end of the taper is the same as the Cincinnati #2, which used a 4.5"/Ft taper. (looks like about 2 degrees different from what Kao Ming chose to use...). The folks at William Sopko recommended I regrind to 3"/Foot because that is the standard. So, I'm asking the hive mind here, should I regrind 3"/ft or 4.5"/ft or do something completely different?
Also, I am a hobby machinist. I want to hold good tolerances, but, I also don't want to break the bank. I think that leaves me with doing the spindle regrind myself. I figure that means I need to indicate the grinder head in very carefully to the table in all dimensions, then set the head to the taper angle. I have a good condition Dumore Tool Post Grinder which I could mount to the T slot in the table and then basically run the spindle in reverse and grind it with the tool post grinder. Does this sound like an adequate method?
I'm open to all advice/any ideas.
I took it apart and cleaned it up recently, and got a VFD installed on the main spindle motor. All of that is working great now, so i'm almost ready to run it. Here's the problem: Kao Ming/Makino used a "non-standard" spindle taper, and wheel adaptors for this taper are not really available. William Sopko and sons would make custom ones, but the price of those is more than what I paid for the machine.
It looks like my best option is to regrind the spindle. The large diameter end of the taper is the same as the Cincinnati #2, which used a 4.5"/Ft taper. (looks like about 2 degrees different from what Kao Ming chose to use...). The folks at William Sopko recommended I regrind to 3"/Foot because that is the standard. So, I'm asking the hive mind here, should I regrind 3"/ft or 4.5"/ft or do something completely different?
Also, I am a hobby machinist. I want to hold good tolerances, but, I also don't want to break the bank. I think that leaves me with doing the spindle regrind myself. I figure that means I need to indicate the grinder head in very carefully to the table in all dimensions, then set the head to the taper angle. I have a good condition Dumore Tool Post Grinder which I could mount to the T slot in the table and then basically run the spindle in reverse and grind it with the tool post grinder. Does this sound like an adequate method?
I'm open to all advice/any ideas.