More About ID / OD Grinding (2024)

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Inside diameter grinding

Want to learn more about ID and OD grinding? Well, for starters, ID grinding is grinding occurring on the inside of an object. The grinding wheel is always smaller than the width of the object. The object is held in place by a collet, which also rotates the object in place. Just as with OD grinding, the grinding wheel and the object rotated in opposite directions giving reversed direction contact of the two surfaces where the grinding occurs.

Outside diameter grinding

OD grinding is grinding occurring on external surface a of an object between the centers. The centers are end units with a point that allow the object to be rotated. The grinding wheel is also being rotated in the same direction when it comes in contact with the object. This effectively means the two surfaces will be moving opposite directions when contact is made which allows for a smoother operation and less chance of a jam up.

Thecylindrical grinderis a type ofgrinding machineused to shape the outside of an object. The cylindrical grinder can work on a variety of shapes, however the object must have a central axis of rotation. This includes but is not limited to such shapes as acylinder, anellipse, acam, or acrankshaft.

A cylindrical grinder.

Cylindrical grinding is defined as having four essential actions:

  1. The work (object) must be constantly rotating
  2. The grinding wheel must be constantly rotating
  3. The grinding wheel is fed towards and away from the work
  4. Either the work or the grinding wheel is traversed with respect to the other

While the majority of cylindrical grinders employ all four movements, there are grinders that only employ three of the four actions.

History

The origins of the cylindrical grinder, as with all other modern machine tools, stem from the experimentation and invention ofJohn Wilkinsonand laterHenry Maudslaywho built the first horizontal boring machine and the first enginelathe, respectively. The cylindrical grinder owes much of its development from the onset of theIndustrial Revolution, particularly to the advent of reliable, inexpensivesteelproduction and later the improvement of thegrinding wheel. The basis for the modern day cylindrical grinder was first built in the 1830’s by two men working independently, Jonathan Bridges and James Wheaton . It is unclear as to which man had first produced the machine but both are closely tied to the first historical appearance of the modern day tool. It took another 40 years before further improvement and refinement of the tool occurred.

The Brown & Sharpe company in Providence, RI was one of the first builders of theWillcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine, one of the first piece of precision machinery to be used in a residential setting. Joseph Brown believed that the shaft and needle bars of the sewing machine must be crafted from hardened tool steel. It was this desire that led to their experimentation with building a cylindrical grinder. The first attempt was simply a small lathe with a grinding wheel mounted to it. Subsequent attempts led to the cylindrical grinder displayed at the 1876Centennial Expositionand the subsequent patent.

It is important to note that Brown & Sharpe cannot be given sole credit of pioneering advances in cylindrical grinding. A man in Waltham, Massachusetts, Ambrose Webster had created a small grinding machine in 1860 that contained all of the improvements Brown & Sharpe claimed to be their own original invention. Even more so, the emphasis on precision, accuracy, and reliability was championed byCharles Norton.

Norton was an employee of Brown & Sharpe who quit the company with the desire to further pursue his belief that the cylindrical grinder is not merely a finishing tool but could be a staple of the machine shop. He founded theNorton Grinding Company, where he continued improving the cylindrical grinder to use faster rpm values and more precise grinding tolerances. He was acknowledged for his work on April 18, 1925 when he won The John Scott Medal and Premium for his invention of “accurate grinding devices of high power”. These standards developed by Norton were the status quo until about the middle of the 20th century.

The remainder of technological innovation applicable to the cylindrical grinder is almost identical and entangled in a sense, to the rest of machine tools. The innovation of the last 70 years can be characterized by three waves of change.The first wave was the creation ofnumerical controlbyJohn T. Parsons in the 1940’s. The U.S. Air Force, looking for a faster, cheaper, and more efficient means of part and tool production for airplanes, played a large role in developing NC both politically and financially. The first implementation of NC in machine tools occurred in the 1950’s and continued through the 1960’s. The second wave of innovation, occurring during the 1970’s and 1980’s, is marked by the massive demand for microcomputers to be used to direct NC.The joining of computers marked the birth ofComputer Numerical Control which once again revolutionized the ability of the cylindrical grinder. Now the machine was able to receive instruction from a computer which would give it precise directions on every imaginable dimension and measurement needed to produce the desired product. This was a completely different work environment in comparison to mid-century production where a worker had to direct the machine at every point on how to manipulate the work. The third wave of change came in the 1990’s with the advent of thePersonal Computer. Integrating CNC and the PC into one dynamic system allowed for even further control of the manufacturing process that required little to no human supervision.

More About ID / OD Grinding (2024)

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