Much like StrayAlien (hi Greg!), I was fortunate to come into possession of a 1928 Brown & Sharpe #2 (serial #8046) automatic table-feed surface grinder. Mine fortunately was intact, but had been through a fire in the shop, and between the years of grinding dust, spotty maintenance/care of the machine, the soot and water from the fire, it was in tough shape.


Drove about 90 miles to just outside of New York City to pick it up, and here's what it looked like once I got it into the basement shop:
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When I picked it up, despite it having sat for a year+ while the insurance company determined the nature of the fire, the manual table feeds worked in all four directions fairly effortlessly, but the head elevation handwheel was stiff; lots of rust and gunk to be seen on the elevating screw; and I didn't want to jam more debris in there by moving things around.

So even though things seemed mostly in order, based on the amount of grinding dust and grime everywhere, I decided to strip the machine down, clean, evaluate, paint, etc. as needed. Let the disassembly begin:

Getting the hand feed wheels and assemblies off:
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Close-up of the general state of the machine; lots of grinding dust 'gunk' build up, broken/missing oil cups (many packed with grit), etc...
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Getting the carriage off of the main table was a chore; the only manual I found detailed a procedure that was NOT relevant to my machine. Thankfully I found StrayAlien's thread here and he was kind enough to point me in the right direction (thanks again)!
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Here's the mess that awaited me beneath the carriage (with some ares where it looks like grinding dust got into the ways as a bonus):
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Here's the oil-distribution network of copper tubing beneath the main works cover -- looks like art to me.
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Parts disassembled and awaiting cleaning. My poor tablesaw table got a good bit of abuse on this project:
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Rigged up an electrolysis bath for cleaning lots of the items. In-action shot and the wheel shroud and a hand wheel after an 8hr soak:
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A litany of prepared parts awaiting primer. Between the bath, wire cup wheels, needle scaler, it was filthy work -- thankfully the weather was good enough to take it all outside for cleaning. There were three coats of paint on this guy, the machine gray in the pictures, a chocolate brown beneath that, and then the original factory black...
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The table was a rusty mess, AND all four of the oiler screws were rusted in place. Not sure if that was all from the fire, or if the previous owner just didn't oil the ways beneath the table....? Careful application of WD-40, heat and an impact driver got all four out without any real damage
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Column and main body all prepped and primed:
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A shop full of parts with final paint color on them -- Rustoleum oil-based enamel -- mixed 6pts flat black with 1.5pts flat white; it's an almost exact match for the c.1910 B&S #2 milling machine at the museum I volunteer with -- see this thread for that info if interested.
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Finally on to some preliminary re-assembly! The head elevation works are all in nearly-perfect shape:
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Main table housing ready for some test-fitting too:
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Did a test painting of the raised lettering too. All I had was a silver paint pen for the proof of concept, final color will be gold, which I'm 99% sure was how it came from the factory in 1928.
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Now, on to the 83 (yes, 83!) wheels and Sopko adapters I got with the machine. Talk about some serious rust. After much soaking, heat, cursing, banging, prying, etc. I've wrested 12-15 free and got them cleaned up. LOTS more to go. I figure half of these guys will go up on ebay when cleaned up. I should be able to easily recoup the machine costs and then some.
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This is about 3 weeks of on and off work so far. Left to do will be a new bronze bushing for the table feed input shaft and turning down said shaft to remove the buggered-up areas. Will need to make a new table-feed reversing rod and dog (rod is nearly squared-off).
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I also have 6-8 Gits cups to repair/replace -- lots of missing caps and springs - surprisingly about 80% of the oil cups are in perfect shape. Once I'm all reassembled I'll need to make an evaluation of the ways and how/if the damaged areas are affecting performance. I'm hopeful because all of the damaged areas seem to be in the middle of the bearing surfaces -- hoping the intact scraped ways surrounding the damage will allow the mating surfaces to glide past/over the damage. We'll see. Stay tuned and thanks for reading if you've made it this far!

Mike
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