Part 1 - Discovery

The Blanchard Grinders

For this week's Seek & Geek, I wanted to learn more about a type of grinder I heard of during my group's peer review session. These devices came into conversation due to a note I had made on my design notebook, about possibly adding a buffing or polishing wheel as a tool-bit for my machine.

As it turns out, Blanchard grinders are a special flavor of machines that allows for fast removal of material on large stock. In principle, they work the same as standard grinders, but use higher power and a double-rotary system to get the job done in a smaller production timeframe. And what is this double rotary system? The basic idea is, the grinding tools are mounted on a vertical spindle, which rotates in the opposite direction to the rotation of the chuck on which the stock is mounted. The resulting parts can have a tolerance of 0.001", and the ground surface will likely display a specific finish pattern due to the way the tool and stock rotate.

Here is a link that I thought illustrated this mechanism fairly well:

• TCI Precision Metals - Blanchard Grinding