Beware: Norton 8 x 15/16" wheels!

[Jerry Hall]

How wide is a 1" wheel?

Just received my 100 Grit Norton 3X 8"x1" wheel (made in Mexico.) It seemed narrow to my eye and in fact the wheel measured 15/16" not the 1" on the label. At first I said to myself, "so what..." But this seemed a bit cramping when I thought of rolling my 5/8" bowl gouge across it. It definitely felt smaller compared to my current wheel. from China that came with my Woodcraft grinder. It measured a full 1". My feeling is that 1" should equal 1" (unless we are dealing with lumber, or football, or bowl wall thickness, or...) This didn't seem consistent with Norton's reputation for quality.

My wonderful supplier immediately verified that his stock on Norton 8 x 1 100g were all 15/16" and that the 60g were a bit under size as well. He checked with Norton. Norton apparently agreed that the wheels were out of spec and will be shipping correct ones.

There may be a lot of these in the pipeline, and if it matters to you you may want to check.

 

[MichaelMouse]

24 mm versus 25.4" perhaps? Wouldn't be the first error of that type to creep in and aggravate we holdouts for the imperial system. My chisels are 12mm for the "1/2 inch" and 26 for the "one inch equivalent." Can't even be consistently under or over, it seems.

Remember the Mars error?

 

[Jeff Schutzman]

Same problem here...

I just received a new Norton 3x wheel yesterday and was going to put it onto the grinder tomorrow. Measured it and it is off by 1/16" I called the supplier (Hartville Tool) and they hadn't heard of the problem yet.

They instructed me to send the wheel back and they would credit me for the item. If the problem was confirmed they would also credit me back the shipping.

 

[Jerry Hall]

Should NASA make grinding wheels?

I got my 15/16" wheel from sharpeningsupplies.com

They told me to keep the 15/16 wheel and they would send me a new 1" one when the right ones came in. I hadn't used it and offered to send it back. They declined and said keep it as an extra. John speculated that he wouldn't see any 1" ones till Jan07. Pretty remarkable service. He talked to Norton directly. Sharpening.com has the best prices I could find on 15/16" Norton wheels! Hope the 1" ones aren't extra.

I know what you mean about 12mm chisels. It would be nice if they were 13mm then you could grind them down to the right size! I have done that to my 26mm. Over is better than under in this case.

I do remember the Mars error, and my wheel measures 24.36mm. Possible explanation, except that the 3X 60 grit in stock at my supplier measured a tad under 1/32 off. It looks like plain old quality control to me.