An abrasive wheel

Abstract: An abrasive wheel for grinding the cutting pins of a button-type drilling bit in a grinding machine of the kind provided with a rotatable holder for fixating the pins of the bit in a grinding position and for rotating thus fixated pins. The machine also includes a spindle on which the abrasive wheel can be mounted in a given position. The spindle/holder is linearly movable in a plane which extends through and is contained by the respective rotational axes of the holder and the spindle and in a direction parallel with the rotational axis of the spindle. The abrasive wheel includes circular flange parts which embrace a profiled groove therebetween. To enable cutting pins to be ground to an obtuse tip-pro­ filed shape with the aid of such an abrasive wheel, the profiled groove (12), when seen in cross-section, is formed symmetrically around a line (27) which intersects the rotational axis (21) of the abrasive wheel at an angle whose complementary angle is equal to the angle of inclination of the spindle. The inward part of the profiled groove (12) is widened symmetrically in rela­ tion to a pre-determined transverse measurement and presents at least the same widening along the whole of its cross-section, upto the location of an outer limit­ ing line (31), where the groove (12) has a width or a breadth which is greater than the diameter of the pin for which the abrasive wheel (2) is intended.

Description: The present invention relates to an abrasive wheel for grinding the cutting pins or buttons, for example, hardmetal pins, of a button bit, to an obtuse tip-profile shape in a grinding machine of the kind which is provided with a rotatable holder or fixture operative in fixating and setting the drilling-bit pins to be ground in a grinding position, and also in rotating the pin in its adjusted grinding position during a grinding process, and which machine is further provided with a driven spindle which is intended to carry and hold the abrasive wheel in a given position and which is inclined at an acute angle to a plane which extends perpendicularly through the rotational axis of the holder, wherein the spindle and/or the holder is movable linearly in a plane which extends through and is contained by both the rotational axis of the holder and the rotational axis of the spindle and in a direction parallel with the rotational axis of the holder, and wherein the abrasive wheel includes two circular flange parts and a profiled groove extending circumferentially therebetween. Grinding machines of the aforesaid kind are known to the art, as are also the grinding tools associated with such machines, these tools having the form of abrasive wheels used to grind pins or buttons of button-type drilling bits. The grinding wheels used in such grinding machines include two circular flange parts and a profiled groove which extends circumferentially between said flange parts. The flange parts and the profiled groove located therebetween are formed in one single abrasive wheel body which is coated with an abrasive composition adapted to the hardmetal from which the cutting pins are made. An example of a grinding tool for rock drilling button bits can be found in Patent Abstracts of Japan JP-A-56-126563, which discloses a grinding tool corresponding to the preamble of claim 1. This tool comprises a nearly barrel-shaped abrasive part with abrasive grains on its surface and a shaft part which is successively provided concentrically with said abrasive part and transmits a rotary motion to the abrasive part. The abrasive part comprises a circumferential face for coarsely grinding and an end face for fine grind finishing the point end part of a worn tip in a rock drilling button bit. This arrangement helps to give the worn buttons of a button drill-bit a new and better form but it does not provide the stability that is required to perform the accurate resharpening and reshapening nessesery for the creation or re-creation of the new types of tip-configurations of the button drill-bits. Furthermore it is known to use in connection with such grinding machines a grinding tool which, in addition to an abrasive wheel coated with a hardmetal-adapted abrasive composition, also includes a further abrasive wheel or grinding body which is rotationally rigid and concentrically connected to the one flange part of said wheel or said body defining the profiled groove and which presents at a greater radial distance from the end of the rotational axis of the abrasive wheel than the said one flange part of the adjacent abrasive wheel an outer profile which extends around said end part and which has a substantially arcuate cross-section and extends in over the adjacent flange part, said outer profile being coated with an abrasive substance adapted to the material from which the button or pin head of the drilling bit is made. These known abrasive wheels are configured for grinding the hardmetal cutting pins of button bits, such pins having a hemispherical tip part, and are provided with profiled grooves which correspond to the shape of the pins and are thus semi-circular in cross-section, with a radius corresponding to the radius of the cutting tip of the pin. The hardmetal cutting pins of a button-type drilling bit may also have a more pointed tip profile than the hemispherical pins or buttons. This more pointed type of pin is intended primarily for use when drilling rock structures of a less compact nature, where such pins will enable the drill to penetrate the rock more efficiently than conventional pins or buttons of hemispherical configuration. These more pointed pins, however, have been found much more difficult to grind than pins which have a hemispherical tip profile, due to machine tolerances, the springiness of the spindle,e.g. feathering, and also to difficulties encountered in adjusting the pins to be ground to a grinding position which is centered precisely, or absolutely, in relation to the rotational axis of the holder. All of these factors combine in a disadvantageous manner, such that pointed pins ground in accordance with known techniques obtain a much more pointed tip profile than that intended. Consequently, the object of the present invention is to provide an abrasive wheel for a grinding machine of the aforesaid kind which will enable the cutting pins or buttons of a button-type drilling bit to be ground to the intended, pointed tip profile. This object is achieved with an abrasive wheel constructed in accordance with the invention which is defined in claim 1. Dependent claims 2 to 5 relate to preferred embodiments of the invention. An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a side view, partly in section, of a worn-down pin of a button-type drilling bit adjusted to a grinding position, said pin being ground with the aid of an inventive abrasive wheel mounted on a spindle incorporated in the grinding machine; Figures 2 and 3 each show sectional views of the abrasive wheel of Figure 1 in larger scale; Figure 4 illustrates alternative groove profile configurations; and Figure 5 illustrates a button-type drilling bit. The reference numeral 1 in the accompanying drawings identifies a rotatably driven spindle which carries an abrasive wheel 2 constructed in accordance with the present invention. The spindle 1 is embodied in a grinding machine which is of a known kind and which will not therefore be described in detail here. The abrasive wheel 2 is intended for grinding the hardmetal cutting pins 3 of a button-type drilling bit, these pins being attached to the end surface 4 of a drilling bit 5, as illustrated in Figure 1 and also, to some extent, in Figure 5, these Figures illustrating, by way of example, only one of a large number of known configurations of button-type drilling bits. The drilling bit 5 illustrated in Figure 1 and the cutting pins 2 of which are to be ground is held firmly in a rotatable holder mounted in the grinding machine. The holder is depicted in the drawings solely by its rotational axis 6 and the holder functions as a fixture by means of which the pins to be ground can be adjusted to and held firmly in their intended grinding positions. The rotational axis 6 of the holder mounted in the grinding machine is located in a longitudinally extending plane through the rotational axis 7 of the spindle, and for the purpose of providing the requisite feed movement during a grinding process, the spindle 1 and/or the holder of the grinding machine can be displaced in said plane in a direction parallel with the rotational axis 6 of the holder, as indicated by the double-headed arrow 8 in Figure 1. The inventive abrasive wheel 2 includes a wheel body in the form of a steel member 9 provided with circular flange parts 10 and 11, the purpose of which is to remove the material from around the pin, and a profiled groove 12 which is formed between said flange parts and which has provided circumferentially therearound a diamond coating intended for grinding hardmetal. The diamond coating is indicated in Figure 1 by a chain line 13 and in the case of the illustrated embodiments of the inventive abrasive wheel has, in cross-section, an extension which is indicated by said line 13, i.e. the coating extends radially inwards to some extent along the outer surfaces 14 of respective flange parts 10 and 11. The abrasive wheel 2 also includes a through-passing hole 15 by means of which the abrasive wheel is mounted onto the journal end 16 of the spindle, said journal end having a smaller diameter than the remaining spindle diameter. The junction between the journal end 16 and the spindle 1 forms a bearing surface 17 which extends at a right angle with the rotational axis 7 of the spindle and against which the abrasive wheel 2 is held firmly pressed by an attachment means 18, for instance in the form of a washer-provided bolt screwed into the journal 16 and having an end surface 19 (Figure 2) which acts as a support surface. This support or end surface 19 is provided on an abutment or shoulder 20 which projects from one side of the abrasive wheel and forms a right angle with the longitudinal axis 21 of said wheel, this axis 21 coinciding with the rotational axis 7 of said spindle when the abrasive wheel is mounted in position on the spindle 1. As will be understood from the following, the position of the support surface 19 is contingent on the width of the abrasive wheel between the outer surfaces 14 and in the case of abrasive wheels intended for grinding coarser pins will lie inwardly of the outer surface 14 of the flange part 11. The profile groove 12 of the abrasive wheel is configured with a starting point from a right angle through the rotational plane 22 of the wheel extending through the rotational axis 21 of said wheel, said rotational plane 22 being parallel with the support surface 19 of the abrasive wheel and being located at a distance from said surface 19 equal to the difference between the perpendicular distance a from the rotational axis 6 of the holder to the schematically illustrated guides 23 located on the spindle and extending parallel with said axis 6, to the point 24 at which the rotational axis 7 of the spindle intersects the abrasive-wheel supporting surface 17 on the spindle 1. When the grinding machine is correctly set-up and the abrasive wheel 2 is mounted in the manner intended on the machine spindle 1, which spindle is inclined at an acute angle α to a perpendicular plane 25 through the rotational axis 6 of the holder such that its extension will intersect the rotary plane 22 of the wheel at a point 26, hereinafter referred to as the rotational point, which in an associated cross-section denotes the position of the centre of the groove bottom. In cross-section, the profile groove 12 is configured symmetrically about a line 27 which extends through the rotational point 26 and which intersects the rotational axis 21 of the abrasive wheel at an acute angle, the complement angle of which is the same as the angle of inclination α of the machine spindle on which the abrasive wheel 2 is mounted, and which line 27, in the intended working position of the abrasive wheel on said spindle, constitutes the aforesaid geometric extension of the whole rotational axis 6 of the holder. The diameters of respective flange parts are also adapted to this angle of inclination, so that the parts of respective flange parts 10 and 11 which face towards the drill bit will lie in one and the same plane parallel with the plane 25. Furthermore, these flange parts will preferably have the smallest possible diameter, such as to provide free passage between the cutting pins 2 of the drill bit. When seen from the rotational point 26, and also in cross-section, the profiled groove of the embodiment illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 is composed of three geometrical zones 28, 29 and 30 having mutually parallel bases 31 which form right angles with the symmetry line 27. The inner zone 28 has, in principle, the form of a circle segment the arcuate line 32 of which, forming the groove bottom, is composed of two parts 32a, 32b, each having a respective radius of curvature r a , r b , these radii r a , r b being of mutually equal lengths but having respective centres o a , o b displaced equally on a respective side of the groove symmetry line in a manner to obtain a widened groove width up to the base line 31 of the circle segment. This base line 31 also forms the upper limitation of the following zone 29 of the profiled groove. This zone has the form of a cross-section through a spherical zone or a "a trapezium-like configuration" with similar convex sides 33, the radii R of which are adapted to the radii r a , r b of the circle segment, such as to obtain a continuous transition between the two zones 28 and 29. The outer zone 30 of the profiled groove has a trapezium shape, the opposing sides 34 of which extend tangentially from the end points 35 of the centre zone to an extent such that the base 31 of the outer zone 30 obtains a width which is greater than the diameter of the cutting pin for which the abrasive wheel is intended, and such that the outer zone 30 will present, at a distance from its base line 31 which is less than the height of the trapezium, a width which is equal to the diameter of said pin. This embodiment of the profiled groove of the inventive abrasive wheel is intended for grinding the hardmetal pins of the drill bit to a so-called ballistic tip configuration. The widening of the inventive profiled groove obtained by using two radii of equal length with similarly displaced centres in relation to the symmetry line 27 of the groove provides the effect, significant in the present context, whereby compensation is obtained automatically for any errors in the positional setting of the cutting pin and in the mutual movements between the various components of the grinding machine as a result of machine tolerances and of feathering of the spindle during a grinding process. The profiled groove 12 illustrates in Figures 1-3 has a rounded bottom 32 when seen in cross-section, although the bottom of said groove, when seen in cross-section, may also be flat, as illustrated by the broken line 36 in Figure 4, and the centre zone 29 may alternatively have a trapezium-like configuration, as also shown in Figure 4. In other words, a large number of profiled groove configurations are conceivable within the scope of the present invention, which is thus not restricted to the illustrated and described embodiments.

Claims: An abrasive wheel for grinding the cutting pins, e.g. hardmetal cutting pins, of a button bit to an obtuse tip-profiled shape in an annular tapered band having an axially outer, smaller diameter and an axially inner, larger diameter, said grinding wheel being intended for use in a grinding machine preferably of the kind which is provided with a rotatable holder operative in fixing and setting the drilling-bit pins to be ground in a grinding position and also being operative in rotating the cutting pin in its set grinding position during a grinding process, and which machine is further provided with a driven spindle which is intended to hold the abrasive wheel in a given position, wherein the spindle and/or the holder are linearly movable in a plane extending through and contained by both the rotational axis of the holder and the rotational axis of the spindle and in a direction parallel with the rotational axis of said holder, the spindle rotational axis being inclined from perpendicularity to the holder axis, by an acute angle α, said abrasive wheel comprising two circular flange parts and a profiled groove extending circumferentially therebetween, said groove surface profile including a radially innermost base zone (28), a radially outer zone (30), and an intermediate zone (29) extending between axially opposite ends of said base zone (28) and said outer zone (30); said surface profile being radially outwardly generally concave and flaring in width from said axially opposite ends of said base zone (28) towards said radially outer ends of said radially outer zone (30), characterized in that the profiled groove (12) is, in cross-section, symmetrical about a line of symmetry (27) which intersects said abrasive wheel rotation axis (21) at an angle which in magnitude differ from perpendicularity with an angle equal to said angle α. An abrasive wheel according to claim 1, characterized in that the outer part of the profiled groove (12) has the shape of the trapezium whose vertical extension, or height, from an outer limiting line (31) of the groove to the base of the trapezium is such that the groove width between the parallel sides of the trapezium will correspond to the diameter of the button for which the abrasive wheel is intended. An abrasive wheel according to claim 1 or claim 2, characterized in that when seen in cross-section the intermediate part (29) of the profiled groove has the form of a cross-section through a substantially spherical zone or of a trapezium. An abrasive wheel according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that, when seen in cross-section, the inward part (28) of the profiled groove has the form of a cross-section through a substantially sperical zone, the radii of curvature of the curve sides of which are of equal length but have their centres spaced inwardly of the symmetry line (27) of the profiled groove. An abrasive wheel according to any of the preceding claims 2-4, characterized in that, when seen in cross-section, the inward part of the profiled groove has, in principle, the shape of a circle segment defined by two radii whose centres lie on a respective side of the groove symmetry line (27).

Inventors: SIDEN JAN, SIDEN, JAN, Sidén, Jan
Applicants: UNIROC GRINDING AKTIEBOLAG
Application year: 1989
Main classification: B24D5
IPC codes: B24B3, B24B19, B24D5, B24D7