MACHINES, DEVICES, OR PROCESSES FOR GRINDING OR POLISHING

**Definition:** This place covers:

Grinding or polishing processes not particular to specific machines, devices or work, including the use of auxiliary equipment in connection with such processes, e.g. of grinding with ultrasonic frequency;

Machines, devices or processes for sharpening cutting edges, or accessories therefor, adapted e.g. to the cutting edges of milling cutters, turning or planing tools, drills or cutting blades;

Machines, devices or processes for grinding, or accessories therefor,

adapted to surfaces on work with particular geometric shapes, e.g. surfaces of revolution or plane, lens shaped or spherical surfaces,

adapted to particular surface elements on work, e.g. to edges, bevels, grooves, seat surfaces, or to burr removal

adapted to surfaces of particular work, e.g. turbine blades, dies, work of non-circular cross section, such as shafts of polygonal cross-section, sharp pointed workpieces or workpieces with arcuate surfaces,

adapted to properties of the material of articles to be ground,

adapted for grinding controlled by patterns, drawings, magnetic tapes or the like, e.g. by deriving a required shape from a pattern, of the same or a different shape or scale, by a mechanism controlled by a member following the pattern,

embodied as a particular form of machine, e.g. using grinding or polishing belts, as portable grinding machine or as grinding machine of universal type,

whereby in connection with glass the terms "grinding" and "polishing" are treated as being equivalent.

Machines, devices or processes for polishing or finishing surfaces, or accessories therefor, according to the kind of operation performed, which are

polishing or finishing surfaces on work by means of tools made of soft or flexible material, with or without the application of solid or liquid polishing agents, e.g. using buffing wheels or polishing belts,

polishing or abrading surfaces on work by means of tumbling apparatus, including abrading-bodies specially designed therefor, or by means of other apparatus in which the work or the abrasive material is loose, e.g. using a magnetically consolidated grinding powder or a plastically deformable grinding compound, moved relatively to the workpiece under the influence of pressure,

honing, i.e. abrading by means of fine grit abrasive blocks along a controlled path of combined movements in order to smoothen a surface or to produce a defined surface texture,

superfinishing, i.e. by means of abrading blocks reciprocating with high frequency,

lapping, i.e. rubbing the surface of the work and the surface of a lapping tool, in general of corresponding shapes, against each other and with loose abrasives rolling and sliding between the surfaces, whereby the abrasives may be loosely dispersed in a liquid medium or adhered to a lapping pad,

burnishing, i.e. requiring pressure members for compacting the surface zone, e.g. rollers or balls;

Component parts, accessories, or auxiliary devices, of general applicability for grinding, polishing or finishing machines or devices, comprising

component parts, such as frames, beds, carriages, headstocks or work supports,

means for securing grinding or polishing wheels on rotary arbors,

drives or gearings including equipment therefor, e.g. for the exact control of the position of the tool or work at the start of the operation or for preventing backlash,

measuring or gauging equipment for controlling the feed movement of the tool or work, as well as arrangements of indicating or measuring equipment, e.g. for indicating the start of the grinding operation,

arrangements for automatic control of a series of individual steps in grinding or polishing a workpiece,

devices or means for dressing or conditioning abrasive surfaces,

safety devices for grinding or polishing machines,

accessories fitted to grinding or polishing machines for keeping tools or parts of the machine in good working condition,

devices for feeding, applying, grading or recovering grinding, polishing or lapping agents.

**Limiting references (this place does not cover):** - Working metal by electro-erosion, e.g. electrolytic grinding -> B23H - Surface treatment by laser -> B23K26/352 - Abrasive or related blasting with particulate material -> B24C - Electrolytic etching or polishing -> C25F3/00

**Glossary:** - Grinding: Grinding means machining by fixed abrasive particles in its most general sense and covers "corrective" operations, such as correction of dimension, e.g. diameter, or shape, e.g. roundness. It is characterised by a comparatively high material removal rate. - Polishing: Polishing means mechanically finishing the surface of a work so as to improve, e.g. smoothen, its surface, without substantial change of dimension or shape of the work as would occur in grinding. - Abrading: Abrading is used in its most general sense to mean mechanically removing material by a multitude of fixed or loose particles that are forced into the surface of the work so that each particle cuts away small chips of material - Honing: Honing means abrading by means of one or more, often compliant, fine grit abrasive blocks or stones along a controlled path of combined movements, including a reciprocating movement, in order to smoothen a surface or to produce a defined surface texture such as a cross-hatch pattern. - Superfinishing: Superfinishing means abrading by means of one or more fine grit abrading blocks or an abrasive band pressed by a shoe (bandfinishing) along a controlled path of combined movements. Typically, the block or shoe is oscillated with a short stroke and relatively high frequency while the work is rotated, in order to improve surface finish or produce a defined surface texture such as a cross-hatch pattern. Superfinishing is also referred to as microfinishing, or short-stroke honing, in the art. - Lapping: Lapping is surface finishing by rubbing the surface of the work and the surface of a lapping tool, e.g. a lapping plate or lapping pad, that is mostly shaped corresponding to the work surface, against each other, mainly with loose abrasives rolling and sliding between the surfaces; the abrasives may be dispersed in a liquid medium, i.e. a slurry, or in a paste, or fixed to the lapping pad - Burnishing: Burnishing means plastically deforming a work on a small scale by means of rubbing or rolling a tool, e.g. a roller or ball, on the work. It is not an abrading operation but used as an alternative to abrasive finishing operations in order to improve the surface finish or surface hardness of the work. - Conditioning: Conditioning is used in its most general sense to mean truing by removing material from the abrasive tool to maintain tool geometry, e.g. concentricity, or to (re-) profile a form into the abrasive surface, sharpening by removing small amounts of binding material from the abrasive surface to expose abrasive grains or by breaking abrasive grains to produce sharper cutting edges on the grain,cleaning the surface of an abrasive tool or a lapping pad in order to remove debris from the space between the grains or pores of the pad.