Are Walter grinding wheels much better?

WALTER GRINDING WHEELS 4.5"x1/4"x5/8"-11 -QTY10- 08K455 - eBay (item 330459170092 end time Aug-15-10 16:18:11 PDT)

As a constant user of wheels for our small angle grinders I am always coming across the Walter brand of wheels. They seem to sell at a hefty premium to the other wheels around.

My normal brand are Metabo and Sait. I never had any luck with the Chinese wheels and that goes for the Dewalt and Norton since they moved production offshore.

Are the Walter brand wheels that much better than the Metabo and Sait?

Walter A.

I don't know about the Walter, but for good prices on Metabo & Sait:

http://www.lehighvalleyabrasives.com/

USMCPOP said:

I don't know about the Walter, but for good prices on Metabo & Sait:

Buy Flap Discs and Flap Wheels Online Direct from the Factory - Lehigh Valley Abrasives

Click to expand...

Yes they are!
Thanks....

Walter A.

For me, a grinding wheel has to be fast, not longliving (and slow). You can't have a aggressive wheel that holds long.
Try a Tyrolit as reference, they are quite good. I buy mine as some rebranded ones that come from an unknown (to me) source. But they are fast. Metabo doesn't make their own wheels.


Nick

Yes, Walter is significantly better than Sait or Metabo.

Walter,
What is the application? Is it general grinding / weld leveling?
David

Walter does make pretty good products. But saw a few of their grinders quit quite prematurely, odd considering the cost.

I used some Flexovit zip cut wheels before and they seemed pretty good, so I'd assume their grinding wheels are good too. But Walter is probably easier to find in most welding stores.

Walter seems to have some very "spendy" wheels (the double-X you posted the link to) and some that are reasonable, such as:

Walter 4 ½” HP Spin-on Grinding Wheels - Order Online

David,

It's just general grinding and maybe a small amount of flush grinding. Each of our welders plus the torch operator, saw operator and cleanup guy has a Milwaukee 4-1/2" grinder. For large amounts of metal removal we use a 7" Milwaukee with usually a rock.

The heaviest use comes for the guy who cleans plates and weldments all day long. He has both an 8.5 amp and a 12 amp grinder. All our torch cut plates are cleaned and all our weldments are cleaned. The lightest duty grinders are my TIG welder and my Saw operator. I am currently testing some H&R Green discs in those areas. Although made offshore the quality seems good so far.

Most of my wheel purchases are the Metabo Slicer (cutting wheels) and the Sait (Grinding Wheels)

Walter A.

Ceramic Abrasives - Cubitron II

Have you tried any of the ceramic abrasives? Specifically 3M Cubitron II?
Ceramics cut crazy fast saving a lot of labor expense and leave a nice finish. If you need further refinement of the scratch, you can follow with 3M LGB discs (ScotchBrite Light Grinding and Blending). If your paint is 3 mils or more, you are ready.
I was involved in the initial testing of the new Cubitron, and it is extremely impressive.

Regards, David

Cubitron II link

Here is a link.

http://tinyurl.com/2f44bmw

Regards,
David

David,

Thanks for the information. On Monday I will see if I can pick up a few to try out in some selected areas of our shop.

In addition to the grinding wheel issue (which is why I asked about the Walter wheels) we have the human issue of the welders wanting to use a 4-1/2" grinder for everything. I also have 7" Milwaukee grinders for the heavy stuff but I usually have to force people to use them since the 4-1/2" is already in their area and the 4-1/2" is lighter.

As a result even the 12 amp 4-1/2" Milwaukee grinders get pushed too hard and wear out too fast. This is not everywhere in my shop but it does happen far too often.

Maybe the 3M wheel will cut so much faster that the guys will not put so much pressure on the grinders.

Walter A.

Dave Cross said:

Yes, Walter is significantly better than Sait or Metabo.

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I have to agree... I use a lot of Walter Flexcut wheels and Enduro flex flap wheels, and probably 90% of the time I reach for the Walter 4 1/2" wheels over the Metabo, Makita, Milwaukee and generic grinding wheels.

If I want to hog off dirty, nasty material I'll do the majority of the dirty work with a cheap Metabo grade wheel, then finish with the Walter, but a lot of times I'll choose a 36 or 60 grit Flexcut Walter wheel because of the fast cutting and nice scratch patterns. It outperforms and actually lasts longer than a Metabo grade wheel significantly...especially if it's not abused...so I would say the cost is recouped and a nicer finish is achieved. I also think you can get into more areas and get a wider range of quality finish applications from a flex cut wheel vs a conventional grinding wheel

MUCH lower skipping, bouncing and vibrating with the Flexcut wheels vs traditional grinding wheels, they blend much more nicely imo and give a much more universal scratch pattern that's easy to blend in too

I like the Enduro flap wheels because of the plastic/poly back that's easy to trim down...you can get a lot of life out of the front edge of the flap wheel getting into corners and such by trimming back the poly backing.

FWIW I've been using the Walter Quickstep blending wheels for about 10 years now too and it's my main system. Blend and polish all the way up to a mirror finish on steel, copper, brass etc...more expensive definitely, but it's an awesome system when finishes matter...and most of my work is finish specific since it's no paint involved. I'm doing lots of non ferrous blending and grinding too and the walter wheels are excellent for that work. You need a variable speed 4 1/2" grinder to use the Quickstep system, and I've been real pleased with a Bosch 1803 EVS for that. I like it much more than the Milwaukee variable speed paddle switch behemoth

John,

Thanks for the detailed information. Your comments have convinced me to at least purchase a few to try.

Just the other day I scored a nice purchase on a large lot of Pferd brand general purpose wheels. I think this type of wheel will still do well enough for cleaning up torch cut plate corners but I will try the Walter brand for when we are blending weld seams.

Walter A.