He and I are of similar age early 60's. He had started as a laborer on a Conrail bridge crew and worked up. He said he had adzed plenty of bridge timbers back in the early 's. I know that even by the 's, the larger railroads had a machine called a "power adze". It was driven by a gasoline engine and had what amounted to two wicked face-mill cutters to take down the tops of ties to get them to correct grade or to inlet for tie plates.
Working on railroad ties is rough work, and it would make sense that the railroads had hand grinders made to take the adze blades and get a good edge on them quickly. I've seen grinder attachments for sharpening fine woodworking chisels and plane irons, but never an attachment for adzes.
Interesting head shape and edge to an adze, and plenty of edge there to sharpen. I agree with you about methods of making parts for old tools. Though I own milling machines and a whole shop of machine tools and welding equipment, I still feel a strong "pull" to make parts like the toolrests for an old hand grinder in the old ways.
There is something about shaping a part with my own hands and seeing it take shape by the use of a cold or cape chisel and files, and something about a drawfiled surface on a piece of hot rolled steel. It just "looks right", and soon "wears in" with some use so it looks like it was as old as whatever it was made to fit.
Who knows? Maybe your grinder was out on bridge jobs with an Southern Pacific crew, sharpening everything from the men's pocketknives gotta be sharp for paring down fingernails, calluses, picking one's teeth, and digging out splinters, and cutting plug tobacco , to adzes for the railroad. I have a very similar grinder, which I use with a pulley on the spindle instead of a stone, as a speed-increaser to drive a blower for my forge. Nice little helical gears.
Adzes are sharpened on the inside of the blade, so to sharpen one on a grinder you have to knock out the handle. I suppose a fixture for grinding adzes on a bench grinder would have a stirrup for the back of the eye, then a little plate in the place of a standard rest, tangent to the wheel instead of radial, and significantly below center.
The bevel angle would be adjusted by how near the wheel and how far below center this rest was positioned, or how far out the stirrup. I can imagine rocking the adze blade laft-and-right in its stirrup, while keeping it against the wheel, until it contacted the rest and sparked-out. You would get a convex but hollow-ground edge with uniform bevel angle. You could also grind an adze with handle in it, handle pointing back and intersecting the wheel arbor axis.
You would get a flat, not hollow, grind, scratches perpendicular to chip flow, but a much more complicated fixture, or a steady hand, would be needed to ensure uniform bevel without concavities.. Among railroad tools to grind would also be track bits, pretty easy to grind offhand. You need a helper to crank it, if you need two hands on the tool being ground. IMHO these were a cheap and portable sunstitute for the big, cranked or pedalled grinders, with natural sandstone wheel with water drip or trough.
SouthBendModel34 liked this post. Very pleasing to see this reminder of its use as "The Poor Man's Shaper". We forget that a lot of really great work was done by chipping and filing. The a cold chisel has a sort of visceral "pull" for anyone who appreciates their use. The other day, I was browsing through a box of rust at a Flea Market and saw some "interesting" cold chisels. My first thought was to buy them, but then I realized that I already have examples of "nosing chisels" and "diamond chisels", so I left them.
The latter chisel was obviously shop-made from a tool steel bar of some sort. I've paid "three for a dollar" at times. The contents of site can be found in Bing and Google searches. Once you have one post in the thread, you can find the others by typing the post number into the archive site. John Ruth. Years ago I used to do a blacksmithing demonstrations at county fairs and tractor shows. I took hand cranked grinders with me because they look "period" and we usually lacked electrical hook ups for sharpening tools.
They work rather well when set up with the correct stone. Grinding stones have to fray and chip away as the cut to expose fresh sharp cutting grit. The stones sold down at the big box stores are intended for motor driven bench grinders.
These tools have more power than you can put out with one hand cranking and the stones are designed with that in mind. Skip to main content. Listed in category:. Add to Watchlist. Bidding has ended on this item. This amount is subject to change until you make payment. For additional information, see the Global Shipping Program terms and conditions - opens in a new window or tab This amount includes applicable customs duties, taxes, brokerage and other fees.
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