Hi Thomas

£200 is a very good price for you if the machine is accurately built, especially with the dividing head which can also be used on the lathe.

I look forward to seeing the pictures and can then answer more of your questions.

Emgee

Good old you.

I made mine about 20 years ago. Unless you actually want to make cutters you will not need the spiralling head but if you want to build it for the sake of completeness,personally I would fabricate it. I made one that has never been used. 100mm is a good size wheel for a quorn.

I made a stack of wheel arbors when I turned the taper in the spindle, if you do worry about matching the angles you make a load of blanks then set up the spindle as per the book (still readily available) and skim the taper and finish the blanks off with the same topslide setting. I have made additional arbors since just by angular setting without problems so take your pick. One thing I would have done differently had I realised is used split cotters (George Thomas style) instead of slitting the castings which went all ways once the stress came off them but as your is complete that is a moot point. I have an ER16 chuck with a parallel shank which is a useful fit to the tool head.

They are a little confusing to use at first with so many clamps but you will get used to it.

regards Martin

Just watch that you don't over speed the grinder wheel, they all (should) have the max RPM marked on them.

Ian S C

You're not wrong! I find that too, it can be disconcerting. Also clamping the front bar so it doesn't rotate.

There was a series of articles in Home Shop Machinist (I think) on a "Very Much Improved" Quorn that's worth reading, some good ideas for improvements. My Quorn was made by my father, and used 3C collets, as he had a set for his Southbend lathe. Most of them went with the lathe so I only have a couple, so I have made a new chunkier workhead that takes R8 collets which I use on my mill. Also a couple of other changes which make it a bit easier to use. (Not that I do use it much as I find it underpowered for forming tools and too fiddly to set up, so have made an Acute sharpener for everyday.) I'll try to post some photos.

Hello Thomas,

There IS room for an ER32 collet holder, because I've tried it. I had to grind a shoulder on the rear of the threaded portion of the holder (behind the nut) as this diameter fouled the detent knob which projects forward of the face of the Quorn toolholder.

This is the knob of the spring loaded peg, which acts as the detent for a dividing wheel located on the rear of the toolholder. It's located in the toolholder casting just below the one inch bore where the collets were designed to fit.

But it was no problem to do this, I just put a handle on the back of the ER 32 holder – on the one inch portion sticking out of the toolholder and held it up to the grinding wheel until I'd let out enough sparks to make the ER32 holder fit snugly against the tool holder where it belongs.

I don't know of any real advantage of the ER32 size over the smaller one, as either will take a 16 mm endmill to sharpen it. But the Quorn that I bought did not have the tool holder collets included, so I thought buying something to use the ER collets was an easy answer.

I also changed the original 0 – 360 calibrated dial for one which was calibrated 4 times +/-45 deg, as I only use it to sharpen end mill and slot drills with either 4 or 2 flutes.  I don't bother with the detent idea for this, it's quicker to index the cutter being sharpened on my 45 deg scale.  Oh, and I've abandoned the pretty but ineffective threaded collet thing that clamps onto the outside of the one inch tool holder, in favour of a simple split clamp with a tangential cap screw.

HTH, if you would like to see pictures I can do that but it's cold and dark out there just now!

Best rgds Simon

Edited By Simon Williams 3 on 01/02/2017 22:41:51

Edited By Simon Williams 3 on 01/02/2017 22:48:42