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Wanted to buy: Spindle for K.O. Lee 360 tool & cutter grinder

Joe Michaels

Diamond
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Location
Shandaken, NY, USA
Last November, I bought a model 360 K.O. Lee Tool & Cutter Grinder from one of our members. After a year with some health issues, I am getting the tool & cutter grinder ready for use. This tool & cutter grinder is old enough to have the flat belt drive for the spindle. K.O. Lee obsoleted the flat belt drive spindles in favor of V belt drive some years ago. The spindle supplied with the tool & cutter grinder has a small female taper at one end, and a 5/8" diameter plain shaft, threaded for a lock nut, at the drive end. This drive end accepts the flat belt pulleys and also has one flat belt pulley machined integrally with the spindle end shield/flange.

The small female taper at the business end of the spindle has one (1) arbor with it. This is a collet chuck with 1/4" collet. OK for 'mounted grinding points'. The small female taper is too light to handle an arbor extension to take the usual tool and cutter grinder wheels (most typically being a 4 1/2" cup wheel).

I am in need of another spindle assembly for the 360 tool & cutter grinder. The quill is nominally 3" outer diameter. I would like to get a heavier-duty spindle with a male taper of 3" tpf, for handling the 1 1/4" bore grinding wheels.

If anyone has a grinder spindle with 3" OD quill and 3" tpf male arbor with locking nut, I would like to find out about buying it. I can adapt another spindle with 3" OD quill by modifying the pulleys or going to vee belt drive.

I had thought of making another grinder spindle from scratch, but when I priced out a chunk of 3" TGP 1141 Stressproof (and tried to find 3" diameter 4140 or 4340 prehardened TGP), the prices were way up there. I'd also be machining my own spindle, so using an unhardened spindle, and getting a set of matched high precision bearings and dust seals would be another major expense. While making my own spindle is do-able, it would be a whole lot easier, quicker, and more economical to find a used spindle. I want to go with the 3" TPF on the arbor because my Boyar-Schultz surface grinder also uses 3" TPF on its arbor and I have plenty of extra Sopko wheel adapters. I would like to keep the 'high speed' spindle that came with this tool and cutter grinder, as having the collet chuck for ID grinding is going to be of use to me.

If anyone has a grinder spindle to sell, please PM me.

Thanking you-
Joe Michaels
 
Not this one but similar you might advertise for a tube spindle 3" or less and xx inches long.
PARKER MAJESTIC GRINDER SPINDLE 4 1/8 OD | eBay

Having access to a lathe you can make a new spindle shaft with any end design you wish.
We had a fellow at the big shop who made a spindle shaft between centers for a Cincinnati #1 TC grinder and it worked just fine..not even balanced

I have that KO lee in my shop but don't have an extra spindle... a small diameter tube spindle can be bushed up to the 3" you need. I have a couple of Cincinnati #2 tube spindles but think they are greater than 3"..I will check.

I think a chunk of heavy wall pipe would be OK for a spindle tube.

re:2-1/2" Schedule 40 Steel Pipe (2.875" od x 0.203" wall
 
Joe,

while it may seem a bit flimsy for heavier grinding if you don't find what you are hoping for and to get you by for now I think you could make and adapter like the B936B shown second from the top of the page in the center of this link http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/1738/17405.pdf
To adapt your surface grinder hubs on your current spindle.
I had posted this in your older thread about your grinder.
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...er-questions-384349/?highlight=Cutter+grinder
You might also try asking on the abrasive machining section of the forum for a spindle since perhaps not everyone who visits there looks at the antique section.
I don't look over there too often my self.
If you would like some measurements from my adapters send me a PM or an email through the forum email.
Jim
 
Joe, I have a spindle for a KO Lee 960, at least I think that is what it is. If you would like some pictures, please pm me, because I tried to post some here but don’t see any options for doing so.
Bob
 
Here is an update on my K.O. Lee tool & cutter grinder:

Bob/'Olcat" sold me a very good K.O. Lee spindle assembly. From a phone conversation with Bob, I learned this was a smaller diameter quill, but a complete unit with a straight threaded arbor. Olcat had intended to use the spindle assembly as a toolpost grinder, but never got around to it.

What I received was very well packed and even better in terms of pricing and condition. K.O. Lee had apparently built a toolpost grinder at some point in the past, and, minus the motor and guards, this is it. Looking things over, I realized this toolpost grinder spindle had the same female taper as my tool and cutter grinder spindle. It also had an arbor in it with a straight shank and locking nut. I removed the arbor and it has the same male taper as the spindle on the tool and cutter grinder, even to having the 'obsolete' design of the male threaded stub end. Later K.O. Lee arbors have a tapping in the small end and use a socket head screw to draw the arbor into the spindle. The arbor I got out of the toolpost grinder even has the correct adapters on it to mount 1 1/4" bore wheels. I quickly mounted a 4 1/2" flaring cup wheel and was quite surprised at how solidly it mounted up. I started the tool and cutter grinder under power with the un-dressed cup wheel and it ran smoothly and quietly with no perceptible vibration. That puts my tool and cutter grinder available for use and my learning curve for re-grinding end mills is about to begin.

As for the toolpost grinder, I have a "Haskins" high speed 1/5 HP universal type motor. I fished it out of a box of junk from the old thermo lab's machine shop when I was in engineering school. 50 years of holding onto that motor was not in vain. It is a very well made motor with large ball bearing housings. It's original use was for a flexible shaft such as tool and die or moldmakers used. The Haskins motor will be mounted to drive the K.O. Lee toolpost grinder.

Now the story gets better: the arbor that was in the K.O. Lee toolpost grinder's spindle has a 1/4" collet. This fits handily into the toolpost grinder spindle. The combination of the K.O. Lee toolpost grinder, Haskins motor, and the arbor with the collet set me up for small internal grinding jobs. Re-grinding some of the lathe chuck jaws in my shop is on the list.

Needless to say, I am a happy camper, thanks to 'Ol Cat. I did speak with Ol Cat by phone, and he is a real fine gentleman. I asked him about his 'handle', since our own old cat is literally that- a 21 year old tabby who still gets up and around the house. Ol Cat explained he has a couple of old cats- the kind with yellow paint, originally from Peoria and consuming diesel fuel instead of ground up meat or fish.

I've got the K.O. Lee 'sensitive work head', found in my buddy's automotive shop on a dusty shelf. I also have the K.O. Lee diamond dresser for the tool and cutter grinder. I have a number of dull and some chipped high speed steel end mills, so plenty to play and learn on. I suppose I could use a cliche here and say: "cut my teeth with" rather than 'play and learn on'.

Thank you again to everyone who offered advice and especially to Ol Cat. It's things like this that bring us together and just leave me feeling quite good.
 








 
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