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Thompson 6x24 Surface Grinder

dalmatiangirl61

Diamond
Joined
Jan 31, 2011
Location
BFE Nevada/San Marcos Tx
6am came early Friday morning, not too often I have to be up that early anymore. Pulled out of driveway at 7, set the cruise control on 70, and enjoyed a quart of coffee and great desert scenery for the next 4 hours. Machine was loaded and tied down by 1, just enough time to get out of sin city before the friday traffic madness. Trip home was 5 hours, same scenery in reverse with different lighting, rolled into driveway at 6pm, walked to pub and had a few, and I was done for the night.

Started to unload down by basement door, but with no help, weak parking brake on forklift, it just seemed too sketchy. Unloading in back parking lot was mostly uneventful, the next trick was getting down the driveway to basement door. Forklift is a well worn Clark, 5000lb cap, brakes are fine on level ground, barely adequate for just driving down driveway, not good enough for me to trust with 3000 maybe 4000 lbs strapped to mast.

Decided the way to do this was use the Toyota for braking, needed a driver for that so called neighbor over, I put truck in 4 low and instructed him to just put it in first and ride the brake to control speed. It all starts out well, notice I'm not needing to brake much, but whats that funny grinding sound? Look over shoulder and see neighbor has freaked, he disengaged the clutch and is standing on the brakes, all 4 wheels are locked and we are slowly going down driveway, it worked perfect:D.

Here is the ebay ad Thompson surface grinder | eBay

Here is a video someone shot of this machine a few years ago when it was running YouTube

And a few pics from today
 

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This machine is going to sit outside for next week as I do an initial cleaning, top to bottom wipe down, drain sumps etc. Previous owner(s) ran this machine without wheel guard or top cover in place so its pretty dirty up top, ideally I'd take it all apart, but not sure how feasible that is. I'm thinking a pump sprayer full of diesel, an assortment of brushes, and a bag of rags. Spray, scrub, spray again and mop the sludge.

Neighbor that drove the Toyota yesterday loaned me the trailer to haul machine with, he commented on the oil slick in his trailer, I had to explain to him that that is an inside joke with machinists, any time you sell a machine you make sure sump is full to the brim with nasty rancid oil before loading it on buyers trailer;)

Motors on this machine are 440v, there is a transformer on back of machine to step 220V to 440V, quick look at wiring yesterday, need to double check, but it looks like its been connected with 220V going to 440v side of transformer, and taps from 220V side of transformer to machine, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect, might be why seller could not get it to work, or explain how he burnt out motor....more checking is in order.
 
Getting ready to make a spanner to get grinding wheel off, anyone know if its LH or RH rotation to remove? Not seeing any way to lock spindle, what is sop, hold wheel by hand, wedge wheel with block of wood, or?
 
Wheel direction goes clock wise so the spindle nut and the wheel holding nut go counter clock wise. don't hammer chisel lose the nuts to avoid damage to the spindle bearings.
Once lose run the nuts well past where thy should tighten to know they go easy to past that place.
Hand spin the spindle a number of times if the machine has been setting for a few months or more, Then jog start a few times..Don't take a chance on the motor but hire a motor guy to figure it out.

Yes you should be able to hand hold the wheel. hard set then put a wood block on the table and two hands on the wheel.Wheel holding nut sees on the wrong way, perhaps for a wider wheel. Even more reason to be sure that nut goes smoothly past the lock-up place. A little rouge will restore the thread and nut to travel smoothly.
Thompson is a great grinder.

looks like your dog doesn't trust your rigging.
 
In BFE podunk Nevada, pop 1000, how many "motor guys" do you think we have? Pretty sure I can handle 4 wires, the green one is ground right, LOL.

Wheel came off easy enough, had to wedge a block under wheel, spanner was piece of flat stock, drilled 2 hole 2.7" apart, 1/4" bolts and nuts and I had a working spanner.

Spent a few afternoons this week cleaning, not perfect but good enough to move inside. Found an interesting tag on motor, guessing Douglas Aircraft is where this machine began its life, gotta wonder where its been since then. Was it a cared for machine, or the back room wh___ for every shop from here to Barstow:eek:

A few pics from today, strapped a couple of 2 x 8's to fork and tickled it thru the door:)
 

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Too obvious, too hard, just no love for the old Thompson grinders?

There are 2 things wrong in pic above, one non critical, other critical. The non critical is one of the spring is in wrong, the critical is the missing set of contacts and missing spring. I looked all over, not finding the missing parts, have yet to fish thru hydraulic sump.

Pulled part# off contactor, found 1 on ebay, cheap enough. I'll just rob one set of contacts out of it.
 

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I've got tool envy! I've been wanting to replace our oddball Elliott (British) 8x20 hydraulic surface grinder with an 8x24 American Iron equivalent. Those 4" are sorely missed at times.
 
I've got tool envy!

Be envious no more, Thom ain't 24, he is just a wee 18. Damn, sounds like I'm cradle robbing:eek:

Seller originally said it was an 8 x 24, but only had an 8 x 18 mag chuck. When I got there it was clearly only 6" wide, but T-slot section of table was 24" long, turns out 3" on either end is only for bolting down the mag chuck, bummer. This is my first horizontal spindle surface grinder, so I guess we chalk it up to being a newb mistake, on that note, this is smallest surface grinder I've owned, sure seems like a lot of iron for such a small capacity. I've got one job waiting for it to do, so long as it can do that job, it will have paid for itself. Maybe I'll find something bigger, maybe I'll just live with its capacity, shop space is getting tight, there are still machines on my wishlist, and dragging home another on Monday:nutter:.

Spent last 2 weeks scouring interwebs trying to find a 100amp breaker to fit my 1950's breaker panel so I can wire in the rpc, no luck, looks like its time for an upgrade.
 
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What do you see wrong in this pic?:D

That looks like an electricians night mare! First, I thought that was a two speed contactor that I've dealt with years back on the old Gorton mills we had. Since you mentioned that there is contacts missing, I see that now.

Personally, I would strip all that old crap out of there, drag out a newer A-B reversing starter out of storage (I know you don't have one laying around, I had a couple up in the attic i keep on hand just for stuff like this) and rewire the entire grinder. Yeah, I know, you're not up to that task. Just a thought here.

Ken
 
drag out a newer A-B reversing starter out of storage (I know you don't have one laying around, I had a couple up in the attic i keep on hand just for stuff like this) and rewire the entire grinder. Yeah, I know, you're not up to that task. Just a thought here.

Ken

Upgrading contactors was my first thought, and I'm pretty sure I have a few to select from, but I don't know what I have until I sit down and catalog it into inventory. I walked into gymnasium, look at the mountain of boxes labeled contactors, and decided it would be quicker and easyier to buy one off ebay to rob some contacts out of it:nutter:

Working on these contactors I will say the quality is impressive, silver contacts, and all made so you can replace them, don't see that in the plastic crap of today, of course, finding new contacts might be a problem. Replacement contact is in, nothing more to do on this machine till I get rpc running, and that is going to require a new service panel. Largest breaker I can find for existing panel is 70a, for $150:eek:, and to get max power out of my rpc requires 125a.
 
Nice machine. We just acquired a 12 x 48 Thompson from an auction. Machine sat for some time. Got it all working. We need to replace the 65 gallons of hydraulic fluid in it. What are you running in your machine?

Thanks
 
Have not gotten to changing hydraulic fluid yet, still waiting for new panel. I found a re-printed manual for my machine on ebay, it specs Shell Tellus 27 or Socony Vacuum, in another section it just says 150 ssu @ 100 degrees. Not sure what a modern equivalent would be.

Sparky showed up a few weeks ago and surveyed what the new panel install is going to take, but our schedules don't line up till spring. The upside is we are going to barter his labor for time on my boomlift.
 








 
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