How to distinguish different grinding wheels | Popular abrasive tools classifications

How to judge a grinding wheel by its appearance. Today I will tell you.

Firstly, we need to know, how many types of abrasive tools are there.

Generally speaking, the most abrasive tools you are using now are these three types, super hard abrasives, conventional bonded abrasives and coated abrasives.

Diamond and CBN grinding wheels are super hard abrasives, aluminum oxide grinding wheels and silicon carbide grinding wheels are conventional bonded abrasives, abrasive papers, flap discs, flap wheels are coated abrasives.

For different usage, these abrasive tools can be formed into grinding wheels, polishing wheels, cutting wheels and drilling tools.

[The abrasive tools differences by shapes]

Here are the popular abrasive tools names we usually call from the shapes.

[Grinding Wheels]

The round ones are usually called grinding wheels cause they are like wheels, generally speaking, grinding wheels’ basic size information has a diameter, thickness and center hole. There are many standard shapes and corresponded shape code, here is the wheel shape chart for your reference.

Of course, there are a lot more irregular shapes that can be customized, you need to make a drawing with a detailed size of each part, which can totally match with the specific machines.

[Polishing Wheels]

Polishing wheels refer to the very fine grit grinding wheels or the wheels made of soft materials, like BD wheels, BK wheels, wool felt polishing wheels etc.

[Mounted Points]

Mounted points are small size grinding wheels, usually with steel shank, which are usually used for internal grinding, irregular shape rust removal or deburring.

[Cutting Wheels]

Cutting wheels are thin flat disc for cutting off or cutting slots.

It has a metal bond, resin bond, electroplated bond or brazed bond cutting wheels.

[Drilling Tools]

Drilling tools’ main purpose is for hole processing, one of the most popular diamond drilling tools is the diamond thin wall core drill bit, which is used for glass hole processing.

[Sharpening Stones]

The rectangular shape abrasive tools are called sharpening stones, according to the different usage, they can also be called dressing stones, honing stones etc.?They can also be made of diamond, CBN, aluminum oxide and silicon carbide.

[Abrasives Differences from appearance]

From Structure:

Now, let’s see the differences between super hard abrasives and conventional bonded abrasives.

Super hard abrasives include diamond and CBN grinding wheels usually have steel or aluminum bodies, the working layer will be the part with abrasive grains, so it is also called an abrasive layer. The part with steel or aluminum is the body for fixing.

Conventional bonded abrasives include aluminum oxide grinding wheels and silicon carbide grinding wheels. Usually, the whole body will be formed with abrasive grains, bonds and other materials.

The reason why most super hard abrasives use bodies is due to the diamond and CBN abrasive grains with a much higher cost than conventional abrasives.

From Colors:

Different abrasive grains have different colors, diamond is golden color, CBN is black color, aluminum oxide has White(White aluminum oxide), Pink(Pink aluminum oxide), Brown(Brown aluminum oxide) colors, Orange( WA with ferric oxide), Silicon carbide has Black (Black silicon carbide), Green(Green silicon carbide) colors. SG(Seeded Gel) is usually blue in color.

As we all know, the bond is a material that combines abrasive grains together, Vitrified bond is one of the most popular bond types which is widely used in both super hard abrasives but also conventional bonded abrasives. Grinding wheels with the vitrified bonds can see their original color on the abrasive layer.

The other bonds have different features, if you want to tell their differences, see the previous video here.

Above is just according to my own experience if you have any other questions, leave me a message.

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