Bourdelais Grinding Shop Tour! Blanchard and Double Disc Grinding!
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- Опубліковано 18 кві 2017
- A tour of Bourdelais Grinding where they have six Blanchard Grinders and multiple Double Disc Grinders! They are next door to Pierson Workholding in Simi Valley, CA.
Thanks to Bourdelais for the tour! Check out their website: bit.ly/2phBGyE
Filmed with:
amzn.to/2otzzTE
amzn.to/2o5DKcZ 5 Reasons to Use a Fixture Plate on Your CNC Machine: bit.ly/3sNA4uH - Наука та технологія
I spent 8 hours scraping in the ways on a Blanchard today. Then I came home and watched this whole video. I may have a mental illness.
Wes Johnson "obsessed is a word used by the lazy to describe the dedicated" -unknown
Great tour. We've used all the grinding shops in SoCal and Bourdelais Grinding is the best BY FAR!
Old machines never die, they just keep rebuilding them. In 6 years will it be 100 for the old Blanchard. Good for another 100!
Well no kidding; thank you for taking the time! I'm not surprised to see old, well-built machines doing what they do but it is comforting just the same.
Thanks for that! All the grinding shops here in KC have shut down... I've always wanted to see these machines in action.
Good video. I worked in a grinding shop for 5 years and we never used any type of wheel other than an aluminum oxide 80 grit, and we ground every material no problem. It's all in how you dress the wheel. Aluminum can be done on AlumOxide wheels easily. And you dont have to deal with wheel changeovers and balancing.
I have been running blanchard grinders and centerless grinders for over 20 years. It takes a lot of patience to run close tolerance work on a blanchard. I work for a magnet company and grinding alnico is a very hard material to hold close.
more videos like this! love seeing how shops run and the machines that have been doing it since the 1920s. Great job!
Hi John,
Thanks for the GREAT tour! Very interesting and grateful that they would allow you to film.
Take Care,
Reid
Add that to the list of tools I shouldn't have in my shop as well. Spectacular tour! Thanks John.
Really cool tour, that was so nice of them to show you around. Quite the shop!
Every time I get new brake discs and look at that freshly Blanchard ground surface, I can't help but smile. You can get the appearance by running a flycutter on a part in the rotary table. Love it.
Nothing beat a nice cross cut.
Though your eyes we get to see things ¨ normal people " will never see and you are asking just the right questions.
I have noticed that the guys giving tours trough such places are very proud of their work and when they get an audience that knows something about their work the tour may last lots longer than planned
Learned a lot of things i did not know today>>> thanks
Very cool! It was nice of him to open his doors and give you a tour. Surprised to see so much aluminum being Blanchard ground.
Thanks for taking the time to record and share the tour you got!
1925!!! I live just over the hill from Simi Valley now and grew up in CT near Pratt & Whitney. Small world! LOL
That was such an awesome tour. Learned about a machine I've only heard mentioned in passing 2 or 3 times in my life. And learned a ton about a machine I've never heard mentioned in 40 years of living lol (the double disc). Thanks!
Looks like these guys have their setups dialed in to perfection.
That`s pretty awesome to see a company blocking non-magnetic parts in. I used to blanchard grind carbide parts of all shapes and sizes and you had to come up with some pretty unique fixtures.
Nice!! I used to work as a planner/buyer in a shop that made parts for wafer fab machines, including a lot of vacuum-tight weldments. I sent a ton of parts out for grinding services to bring warped welded metal back into tolerance, and I was always agog at how clean and perfect they would come out. Not at all surprised they have a machine from 1926 - that old equipment was built about as solidly as anything ever made. :-)
Your close by Index Designs CNC Rotary tables Manufactured here in Chatsworth, CA. Just over the hill from Simi. If you want to stop in for a tour. No appointment necessary :) John. Need a Rotary Table? See how Rotaries are made from Start to Finish
Hi John,
Just like in the US, the process is known by the machine manufacturers name in the UK, so it's Lumsden grinding here.
What a great video. How many of us would ever have the opportunity to see that operation. I wish we could have seen them running more. Really glad they let you film.
Maybe we could a follow up where we showed a little of the diversity possible with this type of grinding.
Hi John,
That was a great video. Have never seen a Blanchard up close.
Love seeing these old machines still ticking along. You know they've built a machine right when it's still going 90 years later. Would love to build machines with that sort of longevity, not that the guys who did it would be around to see it now.
Great video, Blanchard grinders are cool, the segmented wheels are interesting.
I run one it has a 42 inch magnet and we use a uni mic to measure from magnet to part and if we need to we will depth mic depends on the job. We use a Marposs which is a gage inside on the magnet and it reads to a box on the outside of the machine that we have set to a certain size using gage blocks. Then it will automatically shut the Blanchard off once it hits zero.
I just ran over the word blanchard grinding and your video explained everything I wanted to know about that. Thank you!
I don't know how I missed this one. What a gem:). If there was a way to do an encore or for John to give it a shout-out it would be great. It def deserves to be seen by many more.
Thanks! I think it's a dying art form. We have a few videos and an instagram that I mean to post more.
@@BourdelaisGrindingCoInc Thanks for letting us take a look. You have a a fine business!
Great video I've been wondering how they held SS and aluminium part's pretty simple when you see it just take's a stronger magnet to block them in.
Excellent John!
Awesome! And thank you so much for the metric converted specs ;)
Great video, but I highly doubt that 60" machine was made in 1925. More likely it was made around 1955. The really old Blanchards had a flat belt that drove the gear box for the rotation of the chuck.
Possibly retrofitted over time?
You are 50% correct. This machine was originally owned by Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Some where along the line they replaced the upper portion of the machine (at the three point location to the base) with a 1945 column / 60Hp motor. assembly. The lower portion is from 1925 and table rotation is belt driven with the table rotation gear box at the far right end of the machine, below and to the right of the down-feed gear box. Blanchard later changed the design and hung the table rotation gear box off the left end of the machine, just past the magnet. I always thought that was a bad move to put all of that weight on that far end, wearing on the table traverse saddle ways every time you cycle the table in and out. The belt drive on the table rotation is amazingly smooth as silk, no soft start needed. I have never had to work on that portion of the machine in the 20 plus years that I have owned it. When I researched this machine (as time came to changed the bearings) I learned that Blanchard only made two machines like this one. Impossible to find any parts for the lower components associated with the base of the machine. The truth as learned it, Brian Carrigan.
That's very interesting. Thanks for replying. I'm working on a 32-60 model right now, and the motor and gearbox for the rotation of the chuck is indeed built into the end of the saddle/table. I think that design was more robust than the smaller machines with the long drive shaft and bevel gears under the table. No one ever checks the oil in the housing for the bevel gears (many are mistakenly filled with grease) and the gears and bearings eventually destroy themselves. I've rebuild several of those gear boxes.
The one I am working on now also uses a screw to move the table in and out instead of a rack and pinion. I don't know why they offered them both ways, but they did.
I had to re-watch this. Can't help but laugh at the safety glasses on the streetside. Really though, I've come to love ground surfaces. Machined surfaces are great too. But if something is hard as a rock, and you grind it to an almost mirror finish, it's awesome.
To be honest, I think this is the most interesting tour that you've done so far. The marker idea was pretty cool.
nice grinding shop. if you have production runs with close limit work I have a sure method to hold size constantly
The marker trick is neat!! Gonna try that
Some great tip here. Thanks for sharing.
Good place to go to we used them for grinding
I used to run a Lumsden grinder which worked the same as those great machine
John that place is just 10 minutes from my house . I didn't know they were there.
1920's machine, that's awesome!
The last place I worked was a place that built mostly one-off high energy physics projects for universities and defense organizations. We had our own in-house machine shop for custom parts or things that were classified and couldn't be farmed out to local shops. The main machinist was really old school, and did most everything by hand with vernier scales and cranks. He would do calculations in his head on the spot, with the part already fixtured up, that would send most people today running to a computer to CAD it out. A lot of his mills and presses were 30s - 50s era equipment that he lovingly maintained like prize sports cars or something. Most of them also had digital scales added on, but they looked clunky and out of place and he rarely used them. When I left that job he was just going to retire, after training his assistant for the previous 8 years. Folks like that are harder to find than machines like that, really...
Service life as long as the browning M2
Awesome video
just seen that you get a shout out in the Fusion 360 April update video at 9:55
Very nice!
Those all have Segmented Wheels.There are wood spacers to adjust The grinding stones down.These wheels are a interrupted cut best for heavy grinding.These machines come with a Solid wheel as well.
I might have had a part in building those Blanchards
Thank You that was Great !!
Yay, more videos for me to avoid work and watch!
Thanks for that nice to see👍👍👍👍👍👍
the machine is 92 years old, im impressed
Very cool
man the surface plates i see in these videos!
Thanks for sharing, great shop tour.
Ever had parts come off?
Oh yeah. If you don't remember to set the magnet or a bad set up. We haven't had any major damage to the machine and usually the parts are still fine.
Has anyone an idea what those ground aluminium pieces could be used for?
I built Gardner and Besly double disc grinders at a past job. If he rebuilt those gardners they could be just as accurate as the blanchards but my god do they look ancient lol. Still very good equipment though.
tour of pierson workholding next week?
i think he had one of your clamps on that stainless setup.
Impressive 1925 for that 60” now that’s quality manufacturing.
The problem with grinding aluminum isn't the material, it's how it reacts to heat (linear coefficient of expansion due to heat) it's like 10x what steel is. Blanchard spreads the heat out across a bigger cutting footprint. You can surface grind aluminum with a misting coolant, maybe even flood coolant.
3:32 looks like the twin to my granite surface plate! Funny to see a shop doing high end tenths work with mostly all 50's and 60's vintage machines. :-) Was there even one CNC machine in the shop?
Not a one CNC, not that I'm prejudice, just partial.
Since my shop is dominated by machines from the 40's and 50's I have a fondness for the old iron as well. It still gets the job done. :-)
I used to operate a blachard grinder, we ground the faces od dies (like from "Punches and Dies)" ... we could load up 100 dies at a time on some jobs :) ... but we were no where near this acurate, we could be plus .002 minus .001 on the thickness.
awesome. Would be cool to see the grinding discs that don't load up with aluminum.
We have ground lots of aluminum; Double Disc, Blanchard and Centerless over the last 40 years and actually prefer if (we are getting older and do not enjoy lifting all of that heavy steel, stainless, inco., ...). Coolant being used and rich mixture there of makes a giant difference. Specific questions could be answered, let us know. Not many people want to do this work anymore. I might as well pass out all my secrets to those who want to learn.
@@BourdelaisGrindingCoInc I think the internet and sharing of knowledge in the past decade has indeed given "forgotten" trades a breath of fresh air. A lot of self taught people out there starting small businesses doing metal work and perhaps feeding this mechanism, showing others that it can be done, that's the knowledge is out there and one can make a living and giving some love back to the masters and master machines. I wouldn't be too surprised if a young lad, who spent his youth on a PC would bike to your shop one day and ask for a job/apprenticeship. Given that this post is 3 years old, I would like to think it may already have happened.
Great tour. Even though the machines cost a lot to refurbish it is not like there is anyone making them anymore. Or am I mistaken? There looks like there is still a market for the job they do. Or have they been replace by a different type of machine?
Blanchard, Mattison & Hanchett where the big U.S. Vertical Spindle, Rotary Table Grinder manufactures back in the day when heavy American cast iron machine tools were still being made. I believe all three manufactures are long gone now and the only new machines of this type are being made in Asia or Eastern Europe. And the new ones I've see are much smaller than the ones in your video, say like 500 mm max. BTW, I saw a 120" Mattison years ago in a shop in MI. And I pretty sure they made them bigger. Also, the 42" Blanchard I ran during my apprenticeship was the scariest machine I've ever operated. Next time you see one in person, ask the operator about the dents in the work area guarding and prepare yourself for some colorful language. ;-) And thanks for the videos! Your enthusiasm reminds me of my younger days when everything was so new and interesting.
Bourn & Koch Inc. is still making them. They bought the rights about 15 (?) years ago.
Makes sense the B&K would buy Blanchard. Good fit with the Bullard VTL.
grinding aluminium is allways interesting. im grinding a lot of alu cylinderheads. cant you pleace tell us a bit more how you started machining things. the first boughts and your best tips about how to fund/fix the finances in a startup?
I moved to California when I was twenty, from Massachusetts. I came with a college friend Paul (he graduated, I dropped out because I preferred the party in the Lowell Tech dorms, as it was know then). In Cal. I arrived with about $600.00 cash and a 12 speed bicycle. We stayed with my friends sister's in Reseda Ca. for a month. All I knew was that I wanted to work with metal so I biked around with the help wanted ads and took the first job offered to me, running a Double Disc grinder. The guys I worked with were from Georgia and Florida so they did not have much use for this Yankee so they showed me the basics and left me to figure it out, which I did. The boss made me foreman after one year and sold the business after eight years. The new owners learned all they needed from me and were looking to off-load me (I am bossy by nature and was getting paid more than they cared for). But it was a different time then (1989) so the owner didn't just axe me. A business deal had come up which he propositioned me with; Edith Bourdelais (about 75 years old at that time, with Parkinson's Disease) wants to sell Bourdelais Grinding Co., go run it like it's your business, pay Edith off out of monthly cash flow and at the end of that seven year term, I give you 25% ownership in the company and the option to buy out the other 75%. I said yes, we shook hands on the deal (no contract, no lawyers) and I completed those two terms until I became full owner, 13½ years later, now married with six children. God blessed everything I did, even when I was still a real s__t-head at times.
My advise to starting out today; one production machine (Blanchard or Double Disc) mixed with hard work, long hours and learn to love what you are doing. I actually love a well ground part; I love the sound of the machine when it is cutting well, the vibration as my hands touch it, the satisfied look on a customers face that I catch out of the corner of my eye.
@@BourdelaisGrindingCoInc I know this is a three year old post, but thanks so much for taking your time to reply and doing it so elaborately. Cudos to sharing the truth of being young and perhaps not thinking rationally, but then making it all pan out with hard work - which is a whole lot easier when you actually love what you do. Congrats on making it work and thanks again for the story telling:)
1925 and still running!
interesting, but what is the use of all these aluminium 'gage blocks"? cheers.
I'm not sure what you are referring to. The only gauge blocks we use are the standards that we measure to. The aluminum you see us grinding are for a customer that makes after-market, off-road (dirt bike and ATV) components. We just happened to have a big push on, for that customer, they day that filming took place (which was completely unannounced and unplanned for). Our customers are from every segment of the manufacturing community but especially aerospace.
ok, got it. thanks for answering. cheers.
круто! производство таким и должно быть!
Hey guys i AM looking forma a Blanchard grinding do you sello any
Or do you know someone that may be selling one share the number please
if you are that interested in grinding, and when you visit europe again, you should check out the company i work for. we are specialized in grinding in a lot of different ways. we have surface grinders, centerless grinders, we even have a cool robotic grinder that can grind different shapes with 0,001 mm tolerances in big series. we also have a robotized cnc hard turning lathe which we use to turn hardened steel (64 rockwell) and products are being automatically measured and corrected if necessary all within the machine by the robot. and we have a lot more to offer. i guess you will be drooling when seeing this haha
I know this is an old post, but please do email John directly to remind him as I, for sure, would love to see a tour of your place. Or... shoot and post a video yourself;)
I saw one of those grinders at a used machinery dealer, and the chuck was so rough an angle grinder would have smoothed it. I thought they were only for rough work because of such. Guess not.
My experienced operators hold +/-.0002 when called upon to do so. On a 24" square, aluminum or steel, we have held +/-.0005, F&P .0005, 63 to 32 finish. On perpendicular call outs; .001 over 24" (we can grind 26" under the segmented grind head). It is a great machine but becomes so much more at the hands of someone with imagination.
Yeah. these guys had a classic case of "doin it wrong" going for them.
1925 wow
Your marker is called a spotter.
Great tour!! Please clean your camera lens!!!
tiens ..... ça sonne français le nom Bourdelais...
The VintageMachinery.org history of Blanchard Machine Co. now links to this video:
vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=4017
What is tenth?
A tenth is one thousandths of an inch. In decimal form it's .0001
@@BourdelaisGrindingCoInc You need to add "ten-" in front of the "thousandth". Thanks for providing the tour. I learned some things and will probably be seeking Blanchard grinding services here in the middle of the country for some tooling base pieces.
does anyone here know ... why the heck thier customer, the companies, need thousands of aluminim blocks made to that prrecision for?? I mean what could they be used for??
He answered that question about 3 years ago;). I take the liberty to quote from a post above: "The aluminum you see us grinding are for a customer that makes after-market, off-road (dirt bike and ATV) components. We just happened to have a big push on, for that customer, they day that filming took place (which was completely unannounced and unplanned for). Our customers are from every segment of the manufacturing community but especially aerospace."
We don't always know what the parts go to. There are some jobs that our customer will tell us what they are for and sometimes we get prints. I can say we've ground some pretty cool stuff before.
I have been watching several of these shop/factory tour videos, and I have to commend the maker for doing this. It is enlightening and very enjoyable.
That said.....
What's with the three "teenager superlatives"? Seems the only ones in use are 'cool', 'super' and 'awesome'....
This really does not become an adult and/or a business owner...
Paddy
Yeah, cuz manners totally maketh man... Obviously, I couldn't give a rat's ass how he speaks if he knows his stuff, makes parts to spec and have happy customers;).
@@AntiVaganza I am very happy to know that you can't care more then the proverbial rodent's rear end, everything is different now.....
That said, it has to do with manners... in a way.
It is a pity and does not instill confidence, if an adult, in conversation with others, displays grammatical ineptitude and an anaemic vocabulary.
No matter what his chosen profession or his proficiency therein is, he should not be expressing himself with a few ill-chosen words that are best left behind in a playground full of eleven year olds.
The words we speak and write are our thoughts made audible and legible, therefor anaemic vocabulary and inept grammar betray the quality of those thoughts.In short, if you voice it badly, there is every chance that your thoughts on that matter are just as insufficient. At best, it betrays intellectual sloppiness.
@@gh778jk of course, on some level, you are right. But it’s a lost battle and I tend to think people (clients) don’t take it as seriously as you think. Also, personally, I can do it both ways and Saunders is a smart guy and I’m sure he can take a business meeting in an eloquent manner.
50 horse power motors.......his electric utility bill will be in the thousands of dollars per month if those motors are running close to 40 hours per week.
It's right around $2,500 a month.
that seems fairly reasonable.......for your shop
3 Blanchard grinders at work and they are the most boring thing to run ever. 5 figures for a new chuck though? One at work was replaced I doubt they paid that much for one...
First?