Lets talk about dressing bench grinder wheels

If your diamond is leaving your wheel dull,something is wrong. Diamonds are indeed the way to get wheels the sharpest. Surface grinding wheels are always sharpened and trued with diamonds,and they are held rigidly in a magnetic chuck,or by some other means,while being fed under the wheel. The whole setup is extremely rigid.

Star wheel dresser spare wheels are sold by MSC,if I recall correctly. The HF wheels are likely made from cheap,unhardened steel. I guess you get what you pay for some times,though people do post about the good use they've gotten from HF angle grinders,and some other power tools.
 
I have a star wheel dresser. I don't like it, but only because it's cheap. The set screw or allthread or whatever that holds the stars moves around from the vibration, and the sheet metal that holds it in, well, don't hold it in. But that's fixable, I think. If it weren't for that it would work well.

Little hand-held diamond or SC stones work well, but only after the wheel has been trued for TIR with a diamond point or star dresser, I feel. They can straighten the wheel to get a radius or groove out, but not real effective for initial truing.
 
In sheer desperation I tried an angle grinder stone disc, the.steel diamond-loaded type - works pretty well for a quid each {Aldi) and I.get about 8 dressings out of each!
 
HF is hit and miss, sometimes you get a deal, and sometimes you get a paperweight.

I ordered my star dresser from KBC. I have seen them locally. You may check for a local machine tool supply if you want a brick and mortar store. Some hardware stores carry them, but these selection at most hardware stores these days is pitiful.

Also, as they don't often come with instructions, the start type dressers are applied to the wheel with the axis of rotation of the stars parallel with the axis of rotation of the grinding wheel. The stars should spin like crazy. Basically they bash little grains of abrasive out of the surface of the wheel, exposing new edges. I have had mine for years and it looks more or less new.
 
George
The bench grinder wheels have a different bonding agent than most surface grinder wheels and I think that's the main cause of the dulling
I've had using diamonds to true bench stones.

Bench stones are made tough and use a vitrified bond. A diamond will break a new surface but the grit is often fractured with smaller cutting edges.
Surface grinding stones are much more brittle due to the bonding agent and whole grains are ripped out exposing new cutting edges.
Jim
 
Years ago I used a massive TCT concrete drill bit that fitted into a hefty rotary hammer demolition breaker to true /square up both stones a worn grind stone , it did the job well with no noticeable wear or sharpening on the concrete drill .

As it was some thing like 1 & 1/2 " diameter bit it was easy to lay the flat edge of the TCT tip on the rest and angle it to move it gently & keep moving it left to right and back about 15 times to get the shoulder back on the stones and remove a big grove in the middle of the soft stone.

If you're really pushed to get a stone looking something like dressed , old 1 to 2 " wide cast steel metal files can also be used so long as you keep the file moving gently back and forth at right angles to the axis of the stone .

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British Steel said:
In sheer desperation I tried an angle grinder stone disc, the.steel diamond-loaded type - works pretty well for a quid each {Aldi) and I.get about 8 dressings out of each!
Click to expand...


That's handy to know BS ,
Do I take that you are using the disc rotating under power of the whizzer on a switched on grind stone or are you merely sliding it back and forth across the tool rest & wearing one small flat on it at a time ?

The builders left three 9 " part worn ones a few weeks ago after they had cut a hundred or so engineering bricks for my 900 mm ( 36 inch ) high raised bed gardens .
I only have a 4 " Bosch hand grinder so will try the later when the stones need cleaning up a bit .
 
That's handy to know BS ,
Do I take that you are using the disc rotating under power of the whizzer on a switched on grind stone or are you merely sliding it back and forth across the tool rest & wearing one small flat on it at a time ?

The builders left three 9 " part worn ones a few weeks ago after they had cut a hundred or so engineering bricks for my 900 mm ( 36 inch ) high raised bed gardens .
I only have a 4 " Bosch hand grinder so will try the later when the stones need cleaning up a bit .[/QUOTE]

_______

Not rotating, just held flat on the toolrest edge first and moving side to side- it wears a flat on the edge of the disc exposing the diamond chips, if you look closely (through your goggles and face shield, of course!) you can see the individual chips glow as they dress the wheel...
The dust is probably pretty toxic so I'm chicken and wear a mask when dressing wheels, it makes a he'll of a lot of it when you've let the wheel get rounded off at the corners!
 
British Steel said:
In sheer desperation I tried an angle grinder stone disc, the.steel diamond-loaded type - works pretty well for a quid each {Aldi) and I.get about 8 dressings out of each!
Click to expand...

BS, I think I know the diamond loaded discs you are talking about, BUT, then you say they only cost "a quid each" ( 1 quid=1pound=approx.$1.75 US ). If my conversion is correct, then I'm confused, I've never seen a 4 1/2" diamond angle grinder disk costing much less than 18-20 dollars, Please elaborate. Thanks JR49
 
For many years now,I have been using white Norton bench grinder wheels on my bench grinder,and have not had any problems with diamonds dulling them. Do you refer to the old,gray wheels?
 
George
Yes. The Norton, aluminum oxide grey wheels with vitrified bond.
Sounds like I need to try the white ones when these wear out.
 
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