Jones & Shipman 540 grinder hubs/adapters

I have one of these grinders and am confused (not a rare condition for me). I know several readers of this forum have J&S grinders so maybe one of you can un-confuse me.

My grinder came with one wheel adapter. I'd like to get one or two more. Since it's a wet grinder, it is about 3" OD, with a recess on the back to protect the spindle from coolant, and a recess on the front for the spindle nut also for protection from coolant. Sopko lists an adapter for J&S grinders with exactly the correct configuration except that its internal taper is 15 degrees. My grinder has a 3"/ft taper (14 degrees and change). I'm confident of this because I tried three things: a) I measured it carefully with a vernier protractor, b) setting the vernier protractor to 15 degrees gave a poor fit to the spindle, and c) a wheel hub for my Parker Majestic grinder which has a 3"/ft taper fits the taper on my J&S perfectly. Sopko makes a 3" or so wheel adapter with 3"/ft internal taper, but the recesses are too small to fit correctly on the J&S. Sopko will make me adapters for what is probably a fair price for a custom item but still a lot of money.

The grinder spindle and adapter appear to have come this way from the factory.

My questions are:

Is this grinder unusual in having 3"/ft taper but other dimensions the same as a "normal" J&S grinder?

If not, the solution to getting adapters made custom from Sopko seems silly; what have others done?

I haven't contacted either Andmar or Jones & Shipman yet. Andmar lists wheel flanges on their web site as N/A. No clue if they were available what the taper is. For that matter do you contact Jones & Shipman in England, or Hardinge?

-- Greg

When I was equipping mine years ago the new price was ridiculous so I turned to Ebay and got a few originals. But even Ebay one these days are pricey.

I did however get some very cheaply that had a 'very close' taper that sounds like the other ones that you have found, and I tickled the taper using my J&S 1300 EUIR cylindrical grinder,bluing them against the balancing spindle.

Greg, see this post.

There are two different standard tapers for this grinder spindle. In Europe it is a 15-degree included angle. In North America it is 3 inches per foot, which is a 14.0362-degree included angle.

I believe that Sopko can make these hubs with either internal angle.

First, thanks for the replies.

Ballen,
I talked to Bill Sopko Jr directly. Yes, Sopko *can* make one with a 3”/ft taper as a special at a commensurately high price. Over $800 per adaptor may be about right for a custom piece, but I thought it would be a more standard item.
— Greg


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I have a balancing arbor that had the wrong taper. With the benefit of hindsight, that was almost certainly 3"/ft rather than 15°. I turned it to the desired taper on the lathe, using a CBN insert, since it was file hard.

To be honest, wheel adapters are normally fairly soft. If you've got a lathe and some HiSpot blue to check how good a match you are getting, it's probably more economical to get 15° adapters from Sopko or others, then 'adjust' the taper on the lathe. Once you've got the compound slide dialed in for the first one or a sacrificaial lump of steel, subseqent ones are a simple repitition job.

depmco said:

Over $800 per adaptor may be about right for a custom piece.

Click to expand...

Do you know how much they charge for the other (15-degree) type?

FWIW there are a couple of new 15-degree flanges for sale on German ebay. Note however that these are for 2" ID (50.8mm) wheels rather than for the more standard 1 1/4" (31.75mm) ones.

The correct flanges also turn up on Ebay UK from time to time. But I think for the 3"/foot ones you will either have to buy new at prices like Sopko or wait for them to turn up on US Ebay.

Mark Rand said:

It's probably more economical to get 15° adapters from Sopko or others, then 'adjust' the taper on the lathe.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about this, but I think the two tapers have got the same larger diameter, and different smaller diameters. In which case it's easy to enlarge the US 3"/foot taper ones (14.0362 degrees) to match the European 15 degree standard. But you can't go the other way.

Note: I may be wrong about the tapers sharing the same larger diameter. Some research or some measurement may be needed.

Well as I posted above, that's what I did and it really didn't take much doing once set up on the cylindrical grinder

Mine were actually pretty hard stuff though as Mark says a CBN insert should do it.

andrewmawson said:

Well as I posted above, that's what I did

Click to expand...

Yes. I was pointing out that the OP needs to go in the other direction, which might not work.

ballen said:

Do you know how much they charge for the other (15-degree) type?

Click to expand...

Looks like around $200-250

— Greg


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I may have one or two lying about. We had our J&S spindles reground to a Brown & Sharpe taper, now use std. Sopko hubs. PM me if interested and I'll try to find them.