C & B Machinery of Brighton, Michigan has received an order from a major North American manufacturer of large construction and mining equipment to supply a specialty grinder for grinding the parallel faces of very large connecting rods. To meet the customer’s quality and volume requirement’s C & B will be building a virtually new grinder utilizing a Mattison 100C-5 base machine pulled from C & B’s warehouse of over 40 similar grinding machines.

C & B's remanufacturing process will bring this grinder to 2019 technology standards and designs. Applying servo-controlled ball screw feeds on all (5) five vertical grinding spindles, position tracking on the rotary table to aid the new robotic load automation. A touch screen mobile pendant will give the operator a simple operation of the grinder with its new (5) axis Allen Bradly safety integrated controls system. Post process gauging will feedback to the AB control system to maintain consistent stock removal and final size at each grinding spindle.

The tooling design will accommodate two different customer connecting rods without any changeover. Both connecting rods are over 21” (548 mm) long and are non-coplanar meaning the crank thickness is different from the pin thickness as well the pin is non-symmetrical. The grinder will also have the ability to exceed the customer's volume requirements if needed.