What's new
What's new

Nasty New Yankee Drill Grinder - Worth Using or Converting or Scraping???

HurleyByrd

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Location
WV United States
I recently bought out an old machine shop, have moved all the "Stuff" into my shop and one of the last items arriving was a New Yankee Drill Grinder by Wilmarth & Morman as shown in the photos.

Questions are.........

Is this grinder worth using for bits?
How does one use it? It appears to only grind larger sized bits, say 1" plus, which came with the shop. Largest bits are over 2".
Would it be better to convert it to a basic grinder or polisher or ??? It has an 1&1/2" spindle.

OR..... just scrap the old beast?

Your thought will be appreciated.
Thanks
Pete
 

Attachments

  • G5.jpg
    G5.jpg
    66.7 KB · Views: 695
  • G1.jpg
    G1.jpg
    72.2 KB · Views: 667
  • G2.jpg
    G2.jpg
    69.9 KB · Views: 903
  • G3.jpg
    G3.jpg
    75.8 KB · Views: 914
  • G4.jpg
    G4.jpg
    62.9 KB · Views: 749
Looks like everything is there except for a clamp to hold the drill in place. Could be useful if you have large bits to sharpen. Cleaned up and painted it could get a few $ on Ebay.

Tom
 
A friend of mine's father got hold of one of those "New Yankee" drill grinders many years ago, and it was old even then. They set it up in their machine shop, using an added electric motor/vee belt drive. The old drill grinder worked fine for sharpening larger twist drills, and 40 years later, is still in use in that shop. That shop does do a lot of heavier work, including some structural fabrication and work on heavy equipment, so larger diameter twist drills do get sharpened regularly on that grinder. The New Yankee drill grinder in my friend's shop was one of those similar things, where some other shop had it shoved off in a corner and was clearing stuff out, so gave it to my buddy's dad. I think they were surprised at how well that grinder worked for them, given its appearances and lack of fine measuring devices or stuff people expect to see on a precision grinder.
 
A friend......The old drill grinder worked fine for sharpening larger twist drills, and 40 years later, is still in use in that shop. ............I think they were surprised at how well that grinder worked for them............

I've been tinkering with it and it seems to have some merit. It's as tight as a machine comes and I can see where it may be of value at some point. I think I might just clean it up, figure it out and run a few tests. If it works as it should....... I'll hang onto for the time being.
 
HurleyBird,

The "other end" of the spindle looks "very interesting".

There is what appears to be a mount for a general-purpose grinding rest, like a bench grinder, but it is on the same side as the motor

Is it possible that when the motor was added, it was added on the "wrong side?" Meaning, the ability to mount a grinding wheel on the "other end", and just use that end as a regular grinder, may have been lost?

Is the "other end" threaded and equipped with grinding wheel mounting disks? (Hard to tell in the photo whether that's just a pulley or a threaded arbor with two disks)

The choice of which side to mount the motor may have been based solely on the direction of rotation of an available motor.

I think its neat! I would urge you to try it on a 1/2" drill, to see if it can sharpen one that small.

John Ruth
 
If you plan on keeping the grinder, you will need to know how to set it. There should be a way to set the angle of the tip and set the primary relief angle which changes for each size of drill and material to drilled with it.Setting the primarly relief angle wrong will give you bad feelings about the grinder.

Tom
 
I used one of those regularly from about 1983~1989, sure made sharpening the big drills easy! I'd hate to hear about it being scrapped so don't post it if you do!
 
Absolutely do Not scrap or modify or convert this grinder!!!
It is a very useful tool to have and hard to come by.
Yours looks fairly complete.
No clamp is needed to hold the drill bit in the grinder.
According to your tag you have a model P which has a capacity of 1/8" to 2 1/4" drill bits.
Wilmarth made several attachments for the other end of the spindle, such as a a swinging grinding attachment and a point thinning attachment, which I think this one had.
I have three Wilmarth catalogs. Two of them show the model P.

Rob
 
My father has a similar drill grinder that I've always admired. His power source takes a little time to get up to speed, so we try to save up all the drill sharpening for one afternoon!

-A.
 

Attachments

  • WP_20140913_005.jpg
    WP_20140913_005.jpg
    102.4 KB · Views: 377
John,

The motor had been mounted in such a way as to drive the wheel for sharpening in the counterclockwise direction.... as you noted, the wrong direction for grinding..... yet appropriate for the task it was made. If I were to convert this to ????... I'd have to mount the motor on the opposite side. Or do all the conversion work on the "backside" and reverse the three phase wiring for proper rotation.

The spindle's threads are left hand on the side in question and right handed on the sharpening side, of course. The left handed side does have two flanges and made for another wheel.

HurleyBird,

The "other end" of the spindle looks "very interesting".

There is what appears to be a mount for a general-purpose grinding rest, like a bench grinder, but it is on the same side as the motor

Is it possible that when the motor was added, it was added on the "wrong side?" Meaning, the ability to mount a grinding wheel on the "other end", and just use that end as a regular grinder, may have been lost?

Is the "other end" threaded and equipped with grinding wheel mounting disks? (Hard to tell in the photo whether that's just a pulley or a threaded arbor with two disks)

The choice of which side to mount the motor may have been based solely on the direction of rotation of an available motor.

I think its neat! I would urge you to try it on a 1/2" drill, to see if it can sharpen one that small.

John Ruth
 
Hi Holescreek and Rob,

Great info and advise. If you have an opportunity, I'd like to see the advertisements and could most certainly use an instructional guide.... The basic idea is simple to grasp and I venture to guess a person could figure it out. Yet, there are a number of adjustable components to this tool and a guide or a walk-through would be helpful and appreciated.

I used one of those regularly from about 1983~1989, sure made sharpening the big drills easy! I'd hate to hear about it being scrapped so don't post it if you do!

Absolutely do Not scrap or modify or convert this grinder!!!
It is a very useful tool to have and hard to come by.
Yours looks fairly complete.
No clamp is needed to hold the drill bit in the grinder.
According to your tag you have a model P which has a capacity of 1/8" to 2 1/4" drill bits.
Wilmarth made several attachments for the other end of the spindle, such as a a swinging grinding attachment and a point thinning attachment, which I think this one had.
I have three Wilmarth catalogs. Two of them show the model P.

Rob
 
I would agree with everyone else that this is a machine well worth bringing back to life, and doubly so if Robert Lang is right about its ability to grind down to 1/8 drills. You are likely to wind up being quite proud to own this grinder.

-Marty-
 
Agreed Marty,

I am going to clean it up, learn how to use it and take it from there.

Thanks everyone for your input.
Pete


I would agree with everyone else that this is a machine well worth bringing back to life, and doubly so if Robert Lang is right about its ability to grind down to 1/8 drills. You are likely to wind up being quite proud to own this grinder.

-Marty-
 
Hi Holescreek and Rob,

Great info and advise. If you have an opportunity, I'd like to see the advertisements and could most certainly use an instructional guide.

HurleyByrd,

Send me your email address and give me a few days and I will scan the pages of the catalogs, of your model, and email them to you.
There is no instruction guide in the catalogs but maybe they will help.

What is rather odd about yours is that the tag on the cover shows it as a model P.
The model P was the same as model A but set up for coolant. Yours actually looks like the model A.
The model A has the same capacity as model P.

Rob
 
Agree it is a good fixture. We used the same with not having any top clamp as with care on can just hold it by hand.

Oh I see that was mentioned.
The end locator screw bumps the highest point of the shank so as that goes round makes a very accurate locator even if the end is poor.
 
Thanks Rob,

You can email me at my biz.... [email protected]

As I have become more involved with old machinery..... I have found there is a lot of cross modeling as an "A" may become a "B", etc..... I have an Index Mill, model Super 55. It is a cross-modeling between the 55 and 555.... hence Super 55. Although, the Super was suppose to have the table power feed unit mounted on the column at the rear of the machine and the 555 having the table mounted table power feed unit mounted at the table, of course. Mine has the feed power unit mounted at the table. I think in days long past, companies were not so concerned with model marketing activities as they are now-a-days. Any little improvement to a model now is............ and ALL NEW MACHINE!!! You get the point. They were more concerned with improvements and implemented them as they came out.


All the help is much appreciated,
Pete


HurleyByrd,

Send me your email address and give me a few days and I will scan the pages of the catalogs, of your model, and email them to you.
There is no instruction guide in the catalogs but maybe they will help.

What is rather odd about yours is that the tag on the cover shows it as a model P.
The model P was the same as model A but set up for coolant. Yours actually looks like the model A.
The model A has the same capacity as model P.

Rob
 
HurleyBird,



There is what appears to be a mount for a general-purpose grinding rest, like a bench grinder, but it is on the same side as the motor


John Ruth

Not sure what you mean here, John. There's a mounting point shown on the column, on the side opposite the motor, but I see none on the motor side.
Andy
 








 
Back
Top