What is a tool and cutter grinder, and do I need one?
One item of workshop equipment usually considered a luxury and often not acquired by model engineers until their workshop is thought to be almost completely equipped, is a tool and cutter grinder. Most model engineers make manage with a bench grinder, using the offhand method or at best one of the several types of drill grinding jigs available. Milling cutters are discarded once they become blunt. Like so many other pieces of equipment, once a tool and cutter grinder is acquired you wonder how you ever managed without it. With a tool and cutter grinder you can not only sharpen drills, including the four-facet method advocated by the late Dennis Chaddock, but also milling cutters, taps, reamers and even dies. Lathe tools can be accurately ground without the concave surfaces produced by bench grinders. Morse taper shanks can be refurbished and cylindrical grinding of model engineering parts undertaken. Some machines, like the ‘Stent’, are able to function as surface grinders too! The mac
