Grinder repair, surface and cylindrical
Cavco repairs and rebuilds grinders, surface, cylindrical and specialty, from Brown and Sharpe, Mattison, Okamoto, Kellenberger and Studer among others. Ways, tables and saddles, spindles and workheads, hydraulics and controls, back to the geometry the machine was built to hold. A grinder that has lost its geometry makes scrap at a very fine finish, which is why they are worth catching early.
A grinder makes scrap at a very fine finish
That is what makes these machines different to diagnose. A worn lathe announces itself. A worn grinder keeps producing beautiful looking work that is the wrong size, or holds size all morning and drifts after lunch, and the argument about wheels and dressing can run for months before anybody measures the machine.
Grinding is also the hardest duty there is on a way surface. The process makes hard abrasive dust and then floods the machine with coolant to carry it everywhere. Covers, wipers and lube matter more on a grinder than on anything else in the building, which is why we look at them first and why they are usually the cheapest part of the answer.
What we put right
Repairs to one part of the machine, and complete rebuilds where the machine has earned one. The scope is decided after measuring, not before.
- The surfaces the finish actually depends on. Reground, scraped, or lined, and brought back parallel to the spindle rather than only flat in themselves.
- Bearings, preload, runout and heat. Rebuilt or replaced, then set true to the machine, which is the step that decides whether the finish returns.
- Runout, clamping and alignment on cylindrical machines, brought back on centre so the machine grinds parallel between centres.
- Slow, jerky or inconsistent table traverse, pressure loss, leaks. On a hydraulic grinder this shows up directly in the finish.
- The defence against grinding dust, which is the fastest way to wear a machine ever invented. Cheapest item here and the one that protects the rest.
- Drive faults, obsolete controls, and the dressing gear that sets what the wheel can actually do.
Way surfaces are restored by scraping and, where the wear is deep, by grinding. On machines too big to move, we grind the ways in place.
Brown and Sharpe and Mattison surface grinders. Kellenberger and Studer cylindrical machines. Okamoto across both. Blanchard style rotary surface grinders. Campbell and the specialty and production machines that sit beside them, including the ones whose builder no longer exists, which is most of the reason people call a rebuilder rather than a dealer. If yours is not here, ask.
Questions we get
- Surface grinders from Brown and Sharpe and Mattison, cylindrical grinders from Kellenberger and Studer, Okamoto across both, Blanchard style rotary machines, and the specialty and production grinders that sit alongside them. Toolroom machines and production machines alike. If yours is not on that list, ask.
- It is worth ruling the wheel and the dress out first, and most shops have. When a machine that used to finish well stops doing it, the usual causes are the spindle, the ways under the table, or the hydraulics driving the traverse. Each leaves a different signature in the work, and measuring says which.
- It works at a finer scale, so wear that a lathe would shrug off shows in the part. Grinding also produces the worst possible thing to get into a way, which is hard abrasive dust in a machine full of coolant. Way covers, wipers and the lube system matter more here than anywhere else, and they are the first thing we look at.
- Much of it, yes. Spindle and workhead work, hydraulics, controls, alignment and leveling all happen on your floor. A full rebuild, or regrinding the ways of a large surface grinder, usually comes to our shop, and on the machines too big to move we can grind the ways in place with a proprietary process.
- Often, and more often than for other machine types. The good ones were built very heavy for their size, and that mass is most of what makes a fine finish possible. When the castings are sound and only the wear surfaces and the spindle have gone, a rebuild returns a machine that a new one at the same money will struggle to match.
- Yes. A workhead or a grinding spindle can be rebuilt as a job by itself, and on a machine that is otherwise sound that is usually the sensible scope. We set it back true to the machine afterwards, which is the half that decides whether the finish comes back.
Reviewed September 2026 by Cavco Machine Tool Rebuilding, LLC.
Tell us the grinder and what the finish is doing
Call, or send the make and model and what you are seeing in the work. We answer the same day.