Available during the late 1940s and 1950s, the LeBlond No.2 Tool & Cutter Grinder was a replacement for the No. 1, a model originally offered from as early as 1910. Although the grinder appeared to be of contemporary design - in the form of a medium-duty machine with its table mounted on an elevating knee and a head fixed vertically - it was, like the preceding model, anything but. Instead of a rotating wheel head, as on competing machines, on the LeBlond the head was supported on a long column locked permanently into the base and with the entire knee and table assembly free to revolve around it. This unique arrangement - the writer has never seen anything similar by another maker - brought with it some advantages, including the ease of providing (on the No. 2 model) a number of different wheel speeds with two options available: a standard set-up, consisting of a single-lever controlled variable speed unit that gave four speeds of 3100, 4000, 5100 and 6500 rpm, and a less expensive arrangement that consisted of three interchangeable pulleys to provide 4100, 5200 and 6300 rpm.
Full details of this interesting machine and its specification can be found below and on page 2. American tool & cutter grinders of a similar size (and sharing the same sort of heritage) included the older Carson and Greenfield models and with others, from around the world, represented by, for example, the German Frickla, the Australian Hercus, the English Union and early versions of the Jones & Shipman.