Bryant Grinder Celebrates 100 Years of Grinding

Bryant Grinder, a division of Vermont Machine Tool Corp., is celebrating 100 years in business in 2009, making it one of the oldest surviving machine tool companies in the United States. "The really exciting thing about Bryant is we have been continuing to develop our own proprietary grinding and software technology all along, selling it to niche markets," says Craig Barrett, president.

Bryant Grinder is credited with many "firsts" in the industry and for enhancing existing technology. For example, its very first grinder was a three-spindle model for doing ID, OD and face grinding, and considered years ahead of its time in the metalworking industry in 1909. In 1927, Bryant grinders were used to grind cylinders, connecting rods and other parts for the Wright brothers' Whirlwind engine, which powered Charles Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic. The Bryant motorized spindle, first designed in the 1930s, continues to be the model for other spindle manufacturers around the world. In fact, the company's intellectual property in spindle design and development has spun off into a sister company called Bryant Spindle, which also has a comprehensive spindle repair facility for all major spindle brands.

In the 1950s, the company introduced the world's first high frequency wheelheads and the innovative Bryant "centalign" design, which had both traverse motions of the wheel on one side, and on the same plane as the work centerline. The company received the U.S. President's "E" award for exports in 1963, and in 1982 received the "E Star" award. Bryant unveiled the world's first CNC multi-surface grinding machine in 1979 - the Lectraline LL3. In 1980 the company developed hydrostatic ways, and the first Bryant grinder to use linear drive motors and optical encoders came on the market in 2003. Today, the company manufactures a complete line of internal, external, universal and center-hole grinders.

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the company recently introduced a versatile universal multi-surface grinder, the LL2UMS. Bryant's modular design allows for various machine configurations of slides, grinding spindles, dressing spindles, tooling and fixtures. The new LL2U-MS can be configured for as many as five different grinder applications, and unlimited variations to these basic applications. Through its Bryant Spindle division, the company manufactures and remanufactures a wide range of belt-driven and high frequency spindles. The Bryant Generation II high-torque spindles run cooler and longer, and have sensing capabilities for acoustic emissions dressing, gap elimination and adaptive grind. bryantgrinder.com