US 7,481,698 B2
Sintered rare earth magnetic alloy wafer surface grinding machine
Kiyoshi Yamada, Funabashi (Japan); Hirofumi Takei, Honjou (Japan); Masami Kamada, Oodate (Japan); and Toshinori Eba, Obanazawa (Japan)
Assigned to Dowa Mining Co., Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)
Filed on Aug. 17, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/889,872.
Application 11/889872 is a division of application No. 11/227151, filed on Sep. 16, 2005, granted, now 7,273,405.
Application 11/227151 is a division of application No. 10/301621, filed on Nov. 22, 2002, granted, now 6,994,756.
Claims priority of application No. 2001-363313 (JP), filed on Nov. 28, 2001.
Prior Publication US 2008/0051016 A1, Feb. 28, 2008
Int. Cl. B24B 7/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 451—261  [451/267; 451/269] 1 Claim
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A surface grinding machine for a sintered rare earth magnetic alloy wafer comprising:
a pair of disk-shaped grindstones that face each other across a prescribed gap to be rotatable in opposite directions about their center axes, wherein a grinding surface of one of the grindstones is formed to slope in a manner of an umbrella from the center of the disk or from a point a prescribed distance away from the center of the disk, and a center axis of the one grindstone is inclined so that the sloped grinding surface of the one grindstone lies parallel to a wholly flat grinding surface of the other grindstone, thereby forming: (i) a planar grinding region A where both of the grinding surfaces of the pair of grindstones lie parallel with a constant intervening gap therebetween, and (ii) a wedge-like opening region B where a gap between the grinding surfaces in the wedge-like opening region B becomes narrow toward the planar grinding surface A, and
a feeder to feed wafers from the wedge-like opening region B toward the planar grinding region A in order to grind both surfaces of the wafers at the planar grinding region A where they come into surface contact with both of the oppositely rotating grinding surfaces, wherein the feeder has a series of square openings in the longitudinal direction in which the wafers are mounted.