Edward Blake No 2 Tap Grinder

Brian Hutchings

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I live in England and have just bought this machine which is of American manufacture but made for the English market as it has English electrics and the screw threads are Whitworth for the most part.
It may have been supplied to the Royal Ordnance Factory as there is a stamp on it showing an old style of hand grenade as a ball with flames coming out of the top but more research needed.
There appears to be some parts missing but these may no affect what I want to use it for which is to sharpen milling cutters and lathe tools etc.
If anyone knows anything about these machines or has an operators manual then I would be very please to hear from them.
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I'am very familiar with the blake flute and gun grinder but not the thread grinder. Worked for Besly taps for 37 years and rebuilt lots of flute grinders. We used jones & lamson thread grinders.
 
I'am very familiar with the blake flute and gun grinder but not the thread grinder. Worked for Besly taps for 37 years and rebuilt lots of flute grinders. We used jones & lamson thread grinders.

My Blake is described as a No 2 Tap chamfer grinder on ebay where a similar machine is for auction in the USA ,ebay item No 361549208446. The chuck is different on mine and it is missing the long bar along the top which I am assuming is a handle to rock the tool against the grinding wheel. the geared part also has a hole with a key and thumbscrew at the front but I have no idea what would fit in there. Any help you can give would be most welcome.
Brian
 
Brain, you may check with Tony at lathes.uk and see if he has a operations manual for this tap grinder. My family had one years ago, which belonged to my brother. He lost track of it and has no idea what happen to it. Anyways, I still know a little bit about the operation of it. First of all, it's only set up for chamfering the leading edges of a tap for sharpening and resharpening. It will not sharpen a end mill as set up. I bet a person can remove the tap sharpening portion of the grinder and rig up some kind of air spindle for sharpening endmills. The grinder portion of the unit must be set 90 degrees to the axis of the air spindle for sharpening end mills, if using cup type grinding wheels.
Back to the tap grinder. The hole with the key shown in it, this had a long bar mounted in it that on the sharpening end, had a bracket that did two things for you. 1) first arrangement allow you to set the flutes on the tap for sharpening. 2) second arrangement had a center for supporting large taps for sharpening. I don't recall using this arrangement for sharpening larger taps. Also, when this tap grinder was bought originally, it should have came with a Jacobs rubber flex collet attachment for holding taps. Blake also offered a collet attachment for holding 3C collets for holding smaller taps under about 1/4".
I did use it once to grind relief on a 45 degree chamfering end mill which worked out fine!

Ken
 
Brain, you may check with Tony at lathes.uk and see if he has a operations manual for this tap grinder. My family had one years ago, which belonged to my brother. He lost track of it and has no idea what happen to it. Anyways, I still know a little bit about the operation of it. First of all, it's only set up for chamfering the leading edges of a tap for sharpening and resharpening. It will not sharpen a end mill as set up. I bet a person can remove the tap sharpening portion of the grinder and rig up some kind of air spindle for sharpening endmills. The grinder portion of the unit must be set 90 degrees to the axis of the air spindle for sharpening end mills, if using cup type grinding wheels.
Back to the tap grinder. The hole with the key shown in it, this had a long bar mounted in it that on the sharpening end, had a bracket that did two things for you. 1) first arrangement allow you to set the flutes on the tap for sharpening. 2) second arrangement had a center for supporting large taps for sharpening. I don't recall using this arrangement for sharpening larger taps. Also, when this tap grinder was bought originally, it should have came with a Jacobs rubber flex collet attachment for holding taps. Blake also offered a collet attachment for holding 3C collets for holding smaller taps under about 1/4".
I did use it once to grind relief on a 45 degree chamfering end mill which worked out fine!

Ken
Many thanks for the reply Ken. There is nothing on the Lathes site and I have emailed Tony to see if he has anything but I think he may be away on holiday.
The machine is still in pieces while I clean and paint it but it seemed to me that it may be used for sharpening the ends of endmills providing the chuck can be prevented from revolving.
There seems to be other parts misssing apart from the above mentioned bar. I'll try and put up some more pictures of the area concerned.
I think that I will make up the bar as it would be useful to be able to sharpen taps on the flutes and perhaps a supporting finger arrangement could be incorporated to allow flute grinding of endmills and slotdrills.
This machine came with a 3 jaw chuck instead of the Jacobs one but it was fitted to a 3C size holder.
I'll let you know how I get on with it and thanks again.
Brian
 
Made some progress on the restoration but am VERY puzzled by this. This is at the back of the main spindle and there appears to be parts missing. The dog clutch at the left was a surprise. When dismantled there were a pair of US made Timkin angled roller races inside and grease that had turned to wax and had to be dug out. There is no provision for injecting new grease. The part facing you is not connected to anything apart from the pivot at the bottom of the spring. (almost) any suggestions welcome.
Brian
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Many thanks for the reply Brino, the one on Bidspotter seems to be back on eBay again but the pictures show nothing new but the picture showing the collets is useful.
 
Yeah, I can't for the sake of me remember how all of that worked. I don't even remember taking any of it apart. The only thing I remember is changing out the gearing for the different flutes on a tap. There should be some kind of cam under that, so when it is indexed, it moves the head in and out according to the number of flutes on your tap. There's a very good chance someone has repurposed this grinder to sharpen other things in it's life.
 
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