Controlled tool for machining compound surfaces

Abstract

Abstract A machine tool with a wheel for precision grinding of a ball end mill with cylindrically surfaced lands and a hemispherical end includes a template conforming to the lands and ball end mounted on a hydraulic driven workpiece table on which the ball end mill is held in a rotatable chuck. The grinding wheel is mounted on another hydraulically driven table, relative movement of the tables being hydraulically controlled by a stylus which senses the template. During grinding the ball end mill is supported and rotated by a finger mounted on the grinding wheel table which engages in the flutes between the lands of the ball end mill closely adjacent the wheel. The wheel grinds along the lands and then as grinding continues around the ball end a sliding block supporting the finger engages a stop on the workpiece table and retracts the finger from the path of the wheel around the ball end. To maintain the same spacial relation between the wearing edge of the wheel and the ball end mill as the stylus has with the workpiece template, the wheel is dressed with a truing tool on the workpiece table under the control of a dressing template. The grinding wheel is first advanced toward the truing tool by a stepping motor independently of the hydraulic table drive so that when the wearing edge is trued, the original spacial relationship of wearing edge and ball end mill is restored.

Inventors

• 👤 T Williams
• 👤 L Cheever

Bibliographic Details