Surface grinder

The family of machine tools dedicated to grinding operation reckons many types of equipments. Among them, the surface grinding machine allows, as its name indicates, to realize grinding operations on flat surfaces. Being vertical or horizontal, the surface grinding machines are mostly used to have mechanical workpieces with precise dimensions of the order of microns and which surface roughness is controlled. The workpieces produced using these machines are most often utilized in high precision applications such as machine tools pilots, gauge blocks, etc. The general principle of operation of a surface grinding machine is the following: the workpiece to be machined is placed on the table or on a magnetic plate and its position is adjusted via the table movements in the X, Y, and Z axes. It is then brought into contact with the rotating grinding wheel and crossings (back and forth) are applied. The depth of the crossing determines the thickness of material removed during each crossing. The grinding operation is considered finished when sparks are no longer seen. The sparks are in fact generated by the contact of the grindstone and the workpiece; they still appear as long as there is roughness on the surface of the workpiece. The surface grinder machines are mainly characterized by the diameter and dimensions of the grinding wheel (diameter x width x boring), the dimensions of the table, the longitudinal (X), transversal (Y) and vertical (Z) crossings, the spindle rotational speed, the table advance speed and the spindle power. Like most modern machine tools, the surface grinder has a digitally controlled version: the CNC surface grinder . Being programmable and automated, these machines are highly advantageous in terms of accuracy and performance. Excellent quality surface grinding machines are available on the second-hand market. They must just undergo a rigorous checking by teams of specialists, such as RDMO’s. As far as the major manufacturers of surface grinding machines are concerned, brands like Blohm, Chevalier, Jakobsen, Jones & Shipman, LGB, LIP, Okamoto, Scledum, SIT, Vojus, DanobatGroup, Toshiba Machine, Schaudt Mikrosa, Mägerle Maschinenfabrik AG, Peter Wolters, and Jung are references in the field.