Grinding wheels

Gofor

Gofor

Mark
Corporate Member
After many years of using old motors and wheels I rescued out of my grandfather's basement 50 years ago, I finally bought a bench grinder. (Hercules 8" variable speed from HF). The motor and design are fairly good, but the grinding wheels themselves not so much. I have been able to get close on the balance for the coarse wheel (24 g), but the 60g wheel is poorly made and way out of balance. The inconsistency in the wheel material is very obvious and way beyond balancing using counterweight material.

Have any of you found a source for better quality wheels (8" for 5/8" arbor). An aluminum oxide 120 gr would probably be the best for my needs, but even a 60gr will suffice. The diamond wheels look nice, but don't really want to spend more on one wheel than I did for the grinder and stand added together.
 
D

Dee2

Board of Directors, Vice President
Gene
Staff member
Corporate Member
IMHO, wheels are more important than the motor and stand. But it really depends on what you want to grind.
 
E

Echd

C
User
You may find a CBN wheel to be worth the cost of entry. They seem expensive but they sure do make life easier if you sharpen many tools.

If you call woodturners wonders, Ken Rizza will make time to give you really great and fair information himself. Dude is extremely passionate, informative, and helpful.
 
tvrgeek

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
On my Rikon, I run two CBN wheels and of course, they balance perfectly. On my ceramic wheels, I made a jig to balance the wheels. ( I did a post on that a while back) I was amazed how much material I had to take out of them, but I eventually got them to run smooth enough. No wheels, even Norton, are anywhere near balanced.

CBN are great, but only for hard steel. Even mild steel will gum them up and ruin them. Diamond the same, but even more expensive. Think of them as the improvement over Norton blue. For everything else, you still need white and brown.

Of course, last word in CBN is Woodcutterwonders.com

Oh, do be careful of old wheels you don't know the history of. If one was dropped, it may have hidden flaws and explode on you. Grinding wheels are actually pretty fragile. On price, well, the wheel does the work. Motor just goes round and round. You will spend even more on buying or making stages and jigs depending on use.

I paid more for the carbide heads in my jointer and planer than for the tools and it was one of my few great decisions. No regrets, and no regrets on CBN wheels. Actually just ordered one for my Worksharp 3000 to make restoring primary bevels on old chisels and irons easier and quicker.
 
Gofor

Gofor

Mark
Corporate Member
Pop Pop: sent you a message.

Jim: As for the site mentioned, all the wheels I would want are "out of stock" currently.

Scott: The "bad' wheel passes the "ting" test, I ran a cylinder grinder for Owens-Illinois way back when, and had one come apart on me :eek:, so I do check the wheels carefully before I use them, and still stand back when I first start them up. As for CBN wheels, this grinder goes from 2,000 to 3,400 rpm so might be a bit too fast for them?

I currently don't have a lathe, and hand sharpen all my fine tools. This will be used more for garden and chopping tools than for finer wood working.

Thank you all for your replies.
 
E

Echd

C
User
For those uses I'd probably just go for one at harbor freight... and wear eye protection.

I can't be cool on the internet without sharpening my lathe tools on cbn wheels and finishing on a 16k Shapton (even my online personality is too poor for a 30k) but for yard tools? Heck, I do half of them with an angle grinder.
 
tvrgeek

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Mark,
Having it shake like crazy is still not happy, which is why I balance my ceramic wheels.
I used a bolt as an axle and supported it on my JointMaster track rods as they are high precision. Pretty easy. I did trash several Dremel "diamond? yea right" bits in the process. But plain old brown wheels sounds like your best bet. Garden tools would have soft steel which you never put on a CBN wheel. Important: hard tool steel only. I would be scared of HF wheels. Just me.

Amazon has wheels in stock. A tad higher price but if you have Prime, it comes out good.

Echd, I finish on a 16000 as well, but was considering dropping down to a 8000 as 16k may be overkill. Maybe keep the 16 for bench chisels as I strop my carving and plane irons anyway. Only a bench chisel do I need to keep that perfect flat back.
 
golfdad

golfdad

Co-director of Outreach
Dirk
Corporate Member
Another plus for CBN wheels.......no sparks in the woodshop!
 
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