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Dressing diamond wheel on tool grinder

jdgoguen

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Location
Central Massachusetts, USA
I can find eccomendations for dressing diamond wheels that are intend for surface grinders, but nothing specific for for wheels on a pedestal grinder. Norton recommends aluminum oxide abrasive sticks a grade or two finer than the wheel. What isn't cleat or me is how to use a stick on the pedestal grinder. I have dressed other (not diamond) wheels with diamond dressers feed carefully across the wheel. Are sticks used the same way, or are they just pressed lightly against the full wheel face? My wheel has a 3/4" inch face, and the sticks come in 1/2" and 1" widths. Which would be best?

Thanks!

Jon
 
Best to dress wet (coolant drip on the wheel) if possible. If the wheel is true then just touching the stick against the wheel very lightly will do the trick. If not, then you should hold the stick tightly against the table and feed into the wheel in steps allowing the dressing stick to be ground away. No pressure against the wheel! The idea is to dress just the high spots so over time the wheel will true itself. This technique takes some getting used to but will save your wheel. An untrue wheel will wear away 10 times quicker than a trued one. Hope this helps.

Edit: If it's possible to clamp the dressing stick to the table and infeed the wheel a thousanth or so at a time that would be ideal. Again you are trying to dress just the high spots of the wheel, allowing the stick to be ground away between iterations. Pressing the stick against the wheel by hand will always follow the wheel face and never true it.

Best Regards,
Bob
 
The dressing sticks you are referring to are meant for unloading the wheel, not really for truing the wheel. If you are looking to get rid of high spots or corner radii, or to dress a specific angle or profile on the wheel, you will need to mount that diamond wheel on a cylindrical type head and dress it with another spinning wheel. We dress our wheels on the same wheel pack that they run on to insure concentricity.

You can use a handheld rotating "cracker jack" type wheel dresser to dress the wheel, although this will not result in perfect concentricity. Or, a bit better type is a brake truing device which uses a table mounted wheel which spins when you run the wheel to be trued across it. This are very effective as well.

Most diamond wheel suppliers offer this service. If you don't want to purchase a truing device, I would call whoever you purchased that wheel from and ask them.
 
Tool's Post above (#3) is right on.

Out of round or out of flat where you are using it?
Diamond wheel should be indicator set to the grinder .001/.002 when new. a piece of plastic or fine shim can be set under the point or have a point just for diamond wheel, you will mare a flat on the point. You snug it up and set a soft wood block to the wheel and give a very light top to bump it in. Not a bad idea to qualify to grinder hub to close first.It should stay round but you can put holes in it (called out of flat) with not grinding on the high place. carbordrum sticks will dress a little as will AO sticks but not much.. they mostly take from all around so less for out of round but do some for out of flat. Grinding brass or mild steel will take diamonds so that can straighten a wheel.
Another wheel mounted on a free spindle spindle of Hard Aluminum Oxide, green wheel or diamond held at about 20* angle pressed the the being dressed wheel so it turns will dress a wheel.

Agree coolant on when dressing with a stick..A soft stick will seem to melt away, this is cleaning and clearing the bond between the diamonds to make the wheel grind better.. a stick that does not melt but feels hard can dress away the high places on the wheel. Again grinding parts on the high place is the best wa to take away out-of-flat.

Note the Crackerjack, big one or mini is held at perhaps 20*to 40* to the being dressed wheel so it does not go crazy fast and blow up..Holding straight to a 7 or 8" wheel the cracker jack can whip up to better than 10.000 rpm

The dressers with rotating steels is not for a diamond wheel bit can be adapted to hold a cracker jack mini wheel.
jack..with it at angle to turning perhaps 200 to 1000 rpm or so.
 
Desmond Crackerjack

Very good for angle and truing up AO and green wheels.
Some what good for a diamond wheel at the OD on bench grinder or the like..(Not for on a surface grinder.)
Can dress a TC grinder cup wheel back to sharp corner.. Use with thumb friction so only 50 to 100 RPM and so you don't catch your finger in a pinch.. *Careful please.

*Perhaps anyone doing much hand hold grinding should have one..I like the mini best. I also have another brand but can't remember the name. (Should sell it as it must be 20+ years old and never out of the box.)

Desmond Grinding Wheel Dressers | MSCDirect.com

Desmond - Grinding Wheel Dressers - Crackerjack Dressers
 
The wheel is a 6A2C straight cup on a used grinder I just bought. It's got about half of it's original 1/16" diamond layer left. Indicating on the backing plate at the bottom of the cup on near its outside diameter shows 0.002 with high and low spots at opposite sides, so a little shimming is in order. Indicating on the diamond layer show 0.0065 variation, with some local highs and lows. I will shim and then dress carefully with a stick and see where that gets me. I think it will probably be close enough.

Thanks again,

Jon
 
.002 is fine, .0065 is excessive for production use, no big deal for light use.
So there is .032 worth of diamond left? Not much worth saving.
The stick will not "true" the wheel. A piece of steel or moly will but no sense wasting good diamond.
The stick can shape corner rads but will follow the face opening it up. Use will move some diamonds so just mount and run.
They will run just fine with .020 runout, just wear faster until they get flat.
Is this a strange dia., hole or bond/grit? Check E-yuck for a replacement in a decent diamond depth.
 








 
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