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Diamond Grinding Wheel Lubrication

Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
34
Likes
30
Location
Boulder, Colorado
A couple of years ago, I bought one of those Wood River diamond grinding wheels from Woodcraft. My reason for buying a diamond wheel was to be able to sharpen those powder-metal tools properly. That diamond wheel did polish the edge of those hard tools, but it loaded up, heated the tools up, and there was no way to dress it, that I knew about. Couldn't very well use a diamond dresser. The Woodcraft/WoodRiver folks said that it "didn't need dressing".

I've finally found the solution to loving this diamond wheel: lubrication! As I was told, in industrial applications, diamond and CBN wheels are run with continuous lubrication so they will cut faster and last longer.

Check out the youtube video of my ultra-low-tech method of lubricating my diamond wheel!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvUraY7B78

Basically, I mounted a brush on the top of the wheel and drip chainsaw oil behind the brush to lube the wheel while grinding. The brush spreads out the oil and scrubs out the metal particles.

What a difference in performance, both of the diamond wheel and my powder-metal turning tools!

Anyone else had a similar experience?
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
5,497
Likes
2,847
Location
Eugene, OR
When searching for the ultimate grinding wheel years ago, and talking to everyone I could think of including Norton, the consensus was that diamond wheels work best on carbide, and CBN works best for steel. This was before these wheels were on the market for the hobby user, but available for the commercial grinding market. In the years that have followed, that appears to be true. I do have CBN wheels that are in a matrix like your diamond wheels, and they do load up. I clean by using a very hard aluminum oxide stick. Bill Neadow did mention using oils to clean the CBN wheels as well. I will have to try it. I will be getting some of the CBN wheels which are electroplated from D-Way tools. Just have to experiment and compare.

robo hippy
 
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