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  1. #1
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    Default Churchill Cylindrical Grinder

    This thread has spawned from here //metalworkforums.com/f223/t199...nder-free-home

    The grinder arrived at my place on Saturday morning but the driver wasn't game to tackle my gravel driveway down to the shed.
    Didn't think he could make the corner around the house......no worries I have a chainsaw and the fence is stuffed anyway
    Nah !... still no good coz he had a duel axle truck, with only one axle drive he reckoned he would get stuck, maybe he would have ? I know those trucks do get stuck pretty easily. So let the tyres down on the lazy axle ? Nah !
    So I ended up with a new garden ornament, personally I thought it looked just lovely but the Mrs wasn't overwhelmed
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  2. #2
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    Default Franna

    I had quite a bit of trouble finding someone to move the grinder the last 40 mtrs to it's new home, there are a lot of pussy's out there and hiring a telehandler or a rough terrain
    fork wasn't going to be cheap.
    Anyway I rang a mate and he put me onto Karl at Garner & Wheeler, this bloke was a beauty and had that machine down into my shed without a hassle and helped me get it into its new spot.
    We sat the grinder on the fork tynes on blocks and gently skidded it into place
    We got yacking and it turned out that we had mutual mates from years ago, he charged me 200 bucks and refused to take anymore, good operator and a good bloke.
    The other bloke charged me 500 and I thought that was pretty fair also, so for 700 bucks I have a really cool Churchill grinder sitting in my shed.
    Thank you again Phil
    As a matter of interest the first truck driver reckoned that the grinder weighed closer to 4 ton than 3, the Franna man said it weighs 3.7 ton.

    I still have not had a good look at the thing yet, when it first arrived I gave it a bit of a squirt with wd40 and covered it up as it was about to rain and then I got visitors just as it was deposited into the shed.

    So here is some action shots and no doubt more pic's and questions on how to drive the thing are yet to come.

    cheers, shed
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  3. #3
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    Default I stirred this old girl up today

    Hi fella's, I decided to have a look at this toy, yeah I know it has only been sitting here for nearly 3 years.

    I have started to clean it and I flushed and changed the oil in the spindle head, repaired the leaking oil level sight glass and drain plug.

    I fired it up and it sounds and runs sweet as a bun

    It needs belts and maybe some bearings in a couple of the motors but now that I have run it I will
    buy belts and do the hydraulic oil......if i can find a drain plug....

    If anyone can enlighten me on the usage of the dwell function I would appreciate it, about the only thing that I know about dwell is that it is for finishing.
    The generator on the back of the grinder powers the electrical side of the dwell function, it is missing a sprocket and the chain so at this stage it is not working, but looking at the trouble that they have gone to to fit all the components for this I'll try to get it working again.

    I have emailed Churchill to see if they could arrange manuals ect and they will contact me again next week when
    the senior engineer returns to the office.
    What I was told is that the grinder was built in November 1946 and sold to Vauxhall Motors.

    You can have a stickybeak here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42pAZJCUl_U&feature=youtu.be

    cheers, shed

  4. #4
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    Default

    Hi John
    the dwell is the pause at the end of each stroke.

    Phil

  5. #5
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Steamwhisperer View Post
    Hi John
    the dwell is the pause at the end of each stroke.
    Phil
    Ok thanks Phil, so why does it need to do that ?

    Then the sizing gauge switch would be for finishing?

    Or am I wrong again, is that to set it to grind to a dia for production work?

    cheers, shed
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  6. #6
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    Hi John
    the dwell is used for 'sparking out' at the end of the stroke. Normally you extend approx. half the wheel width past the shaft length never going completely past as it will tend to grind a taper on the shaft end. If you are grinding up to a shoulder the dwell comes into play a bit more.
    Gauging I have never heard of or seen before but then I have only used a TOS and a Cincinnati.

    Phil

    If I am wrong on this please anyone feel free to chime in.

  7. #7
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    Default

    Thanks Phil, I will get the dwell/sizing gauge system working and take measurements of the wheel head movements.

    Fingers crossed Churchill has some info to shed light on this.

    cheers, shed

  8. #8
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    Default

    $200 for a Franna back in 2016 aint bad. From memory cost me $300 to move a truck body next to the workshop at about the same time. Needed the storage space and the body (already on site) cost me zip, so no complaints.

    2 days with a 3 tonne Tele was over $500 (forks and bucket) delivered to site about 18 months ago. Had dirt to shift and a couple of presses to get off a truck, so seemed a good choice for me at the time.

    Your grinder at 3.7 T -- the Franna was definitely a wise move.
    Frisky wife, happy life. ​Then I woke up. Oh well it was fun while it lasted.
    From an early age my father taught me to wear welding gloves . "Its not to protect your hands son, its to put out the fire when u set yourself alight".

  9. #9
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    Question Infeed hydraulics

    I have had a bit of a look at how the hydraulics for the infeed works, when the infeed lever is pulled toward the operator the valve directs the oil to the hydraulic cylinder, this has a gear rack cut into the cylinder rod that engauges with a segment gear that is incorporated into a crankshaft that rotates and pushes on a connecting rod
    that appears to be connected the Y axis nut and moves the head/grinding wheel forward about 40mm (at a guess).

    When the head moves forward this 40mm distance the end of the rack presses against the servo rod, the movement of the rack is now restricted by the servo, the oil in the servo is now under pressure and as there is a check valve
    (non return valve) in its oil supply line the oil is forced under pressure to the needle valve control on the front of the machine, this needle valve seems to be the control for the infeed speed while grinding by restricting the speed that the grinding wheel can move towards the job. The needle valve is screwed in tight at the mo and might require some work, oil pressure is leaking off somewhere because the needle valve is closed firmly and in operation the head moves forward 130 thou in about a minute and half when the end of the rack contacts the servo rod.

    Electrical...... well um.....sure beats me
    Have a look at the pictures and be amazed at the high tech ingenuity employed here in a time before semiconductors diodes and so forth.

    I have a PDF manual for the grinder that should be squishing is way down the wire into my poota tonight, supposedly there is a wiring diagram so here's hoping.
    I removed the 110 volt DC generator from the machine and I temporarily connected a 240 - 110 v transformer to the input wiring, via a bridge rectifier. Yup, as as suspected nothing happened, I didn't even get boot. The only joyful moment was when I put a screwdriver across the dwell switch contacts and the dwell light illuminated.

    Here are some pics for you.
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  10. #10
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    Default

    Wow that's some crazy stuff. Love seeing annotations like 'mystery lever'. Is anything obviously wrong with the DC Genset?

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by caskwarrior View Post
    Is anything obviously wrong with the DC Genset?
    Nothing obvious, probably brgs, brushes and clean the commie.

    cheers, shed

  12. #12
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    My knowledge is meagre here to say the least John, but just wondering if the proposed second check valve in photo 3 isn't a pilot valve, ( a hydraulic relay), and for what its worth the little globe looks like it may be a neon, although it certainly looks different to any neon I am familiar with. If so it may be some kind of voltage regulator, if not an indicator. She was certainly a sophisticated lady in her day, and a very expensive one too no doubt.

  13. #13
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    Hi Guys,

    Definitely a complex machine !

    The little globe is a neon indicator bulb. Very common on old equipment. I remember them on teleprinter systems years ago. In fact I've just resurrected a teleprinter motor in the hope that it might be useful.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  14. #14
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    Default

    Churchill have sent me a scanned copy of a manual for this grinder in PDF format, it is 27 pages and has some good information but is fairly meagre, it has no information for the 110 volt wiring or circuitry that controls the hydraulic infeed, it has no oil quantities or info how to change the oil, it states that the oil should be changed every 18 months to 2 years or more often if in constant use, no mention of an oil filter other than the fly catchers at the ends of the ways.

    The hydraulic oil change is probably going have to wait until I get a bit fitter so that I can rob a bank, I tipped in about 14 ltrs and the oil level came up about an inch.
    It is filthy in the oil reservoir so it also looks like I may even enroll in the Gymnastic School of Arts so that I will be able to contort my decrepit carcass into the unimaginable postures that will be required to clean the muck out.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ropetangler View Post
    My knowledge is meagre here to say the least John, but just wondering if the proposed second check valve in photo 3 isn't a pilot valve, ( a hydraulic relay), and for what its worth the little globe looks like it may be a neon, although it certainly looks different to any neon I am familiar with. If so it may be some kind of voltage regulator, if not an indicator. She was certainly a sophisticated lady in her day, and a very expensive one too no doubt.
    I am sure you are correct Rob, I guess it is to reduce the flow and pressure to the valve and give better (slower) flow control, that valve is not shown in the diagram that I now have, a non return valve is shown situated close to the pump and none shown on the back of the machine as shown in the picture up thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by BaronJ View Post
    Hi Guys,

    Definitely a complex machine !

    The little globe is a neon indicator bulb. Very common on old equipment. I remember them on teleprinter systems years ago. In fact I've just resurrected a teleprinter motor in the hope that it might be useful.
    Hi John, I don't think that it is an indicator bulb, it is hidden unseen inside the control box and there is an indicator light up on the spindle hsg. I think that it must be something to do with voltage regulation or switching but I need to do a bit more homework here. A bit of info about this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_l...age_regulation

    I think that I am going to pull the control panel out to have look behind it and trace all of the wiring to and from the various switches and draw an electrical diagram, from that I will have a better chance of repairing or maybe even upgrading the electricals.

    There is a mercury tilt switch pictured below, it is tilted by a linkage connected to the solenoid/relay below it, I was thinking that it might be to switch the solenoid that operates the valve lever, that solenoid is a whopper and would throw a decent spark when switched off, I don't see any capacitors to stop or reduce arcing.

    cheers, shed
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  15. #15
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    Hi John, Guys,

    Yes that bulb is definitely a neon one. It was very common to use them as voltage regulators. They strike at about 85 to 90 volts and consume 10 milliampere or so. Some actually have a current limiting resistor fitted in the base cap. Often you would see two or three in series being used to regulate higher voltages. In fact any multiple of 90 volts.

    The technique was to use them to control the grid of a large (tube (American), (Valve (English) that could supply the required current, often at voltages far higher than could be regulated any other way.

    That mercury switch is a whopper !
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

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