wrote in message
...
On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:30:43 -0800, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:50:42 -0500, Wes wrote:

Wes wrote:

I tried a green wheel once and took Harolds advice and bought a diamond
wheel. Like night and day. The carbide isn't chipped with the diamond
unlike it was with green wheel.

replace unlike with like

Green for roughing and forming, diamond for finishing

Does this mean that the diamond wheel wears out?
Or is the diamond wheel just so much more expensive that you avoid
risking damage as much as possible?

Certainly, diamond wheels have a finite life----but keep steel off of them
and run them wet, and you can expect one to last your lifetime. I ran my
first diamond wheel for 16 years in a commercial environment. It wasn't
shot, but had worn unevenly because the setup wasn't perfect. It would have
lasted at least another 5 years otherwise.

The use of green wheels for shaping carbide isn't in your best interest. It
is far more expensive to use green wheels than diamond, but you can buy a
single green wheel for a lot less money than a diamond. Problem is, they
wear out much faster, so in the long haul they cost more to use. The most
undesirable feature is tools sharpened with silicon wheels tend to perform
very poorly as compared to tools ground with diamond.

Be advised, your health is at serious risk if you use silicon wheels
routinely. Avoid the dust from any such wheel, be it green or black.


All I want to do is touch up the odd carbide tipped metal lathe tool,
and various HSS woodworking tools. Perhaps some diamond strops, or
files might be better? I suspect I will not be reshaping any carbide
tools, just putting an edge on them occasionally. jack

Makes a good story, but in practice it never works out that way. What do
you do if you chip a tool? (And you will!)

Buy/build a high speed wet diamond setup, select a relatively fine wheel (my
choice is a 220), and let it serve you for the rest of your life.

I'm keen on grinding HSS without a rest, but carbide doesn't respond well to
that. One of the reasons is that carbide is typically ground with much
shallower relief, and it's easy to round the cutting edge, or to grind
excessive relief. Tools so ground tend to be very poor performers, either
cutting poorly, or enjoying a very short cutting life. All of that can be
avoided by grinding with a rest, and a firm understanding of good and proper
tool angles. You should have an adjustable table for grinding carbide.
Offhand grinding isn't in your best interest.

Harold