Abstract: A grinding and polishing tool includes a pair of opposed grinding wheels for grinding or polishing simultaneously each of a plurality of discs located therebetween. Outer pulley wheels on a collar in cooperation with an inner pulley wheel support the discs peripherally and permit both rotation about and translation along the respective rotational axis of each disc in response to forces imposed by the grinding wheels. A uniform thickness of the discs is achieved by employing the discs themselves randomly distributed about the collar as spacers between the non-resilient grinding wheels to initially contact and grind the thicker discs until all discs are of equal thickness. Gimbal mounting one grinding wheel permits self-alignment thereof in a parallel relationship with the other grinding wheel to obtain parallel ground or polished surfaces on each disc.

Abstract: Pneumatically operated clamping apparatus provides free floating mounting of a disc upon a shaft during grinding and polishing of the disc.

Abstract: In a method for aligning multiple shaft supporting journal bearings without mechanical shimming, the shaft itself is employed as the aligning element for the journal bearings. Misalignment and spacing differences and discontinuities between the bases of the journal bearings and the respective supporting surfaces are accommodated by a curable and incompressible when cured compound placed therebetween which compound conforms with such spacing differences and discontinuities prior to curing.

Abstract: A rotatable grinding wheel bears against a rotatable wafer disk support wheel to grind the wafer disks to a predetermined thickness. The grinding wheel is translatable laterally to its axis of rotation, which translation repositions the grinding wheel with respect to the support wheel in a fixed proportion to the lateral distance traveled and permits high tolerance grinding with relative coarse lateral positional adjustment of the grinding wheel.