I am all set and ready to buy a CBN wheel. I have been looking at the ones offered on woodturners. The square edge 8” wheel in 180. Any comments before I buy a wheel? I saw some at the show in Portland but dont remember who they were. They sure were nice. Maybe they were from Woodturners? Any comments are welcome. Thanks Much!
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CBN Wheels
- Thread starter Thom Schuck
- Start date
Use search button—many threads: https://www.aawforum.org/community/threads/cbn-wheels.22765/
Pretty much every one had CBN wheels for sale, at least any one who sells stuff to turners. I have mostly D Way because the owners are friends. Woodturner's Wonders also sells some at a generally lower price. Theirs are aluminum wheels and a bit lighter than the steel ones from D Way. Go for the 1 1/2 inch wide wheels, and I prefer the straight ones. I believe the ones from WTW have a larger option for the side grind, but not positive. I don't know if there is any real difference in the quality of either wheel. The Rikon 1/2 hp slow speed grinder is very popular, but I prefer the 1 hp model, or a Baldor if you can afford one. With the Rikon grinders, they do take some time to get up to full speed, and far longer to come to a stop, so for me, I stop the wheel by touching the heel of the tool I am grinding to the wheel to bring it to a stop. I don't really know if that is necessary, but it can't hurt. CBN wheels come spin and bubble balanced, so they should run true right off the bat. If they wobble, most probably cause is the nut and washer that comes with the grinder. They are not precision products. WTW sells "helical" washers, one convex and the other concave so when you tighten, they seat true to the wheel hub. The stamped washers from the stores are also not precision made and will add wobble. I do not like running my grinder with no wheel guard on them. True that these wheels will never blow up, but also true is that they produce metal dust which will float around in the air pretty much like wood dust. You do not want to breathe that stuff in. Some use magnets in baggies to collect some of the dust. That does collect a lot of it. To date, no one makes an affordable dust collection for grinders for the home shop. There is the risk of sparks turning into fires. An air scrubber can help pull a lot of that dust out of the air. Some times the metal dust in the bottom of the wheel cover can start to glow. That dust should be removed from time to time rather than be allowed to pile up deep. I don't think any shops have burned down from this, but it is a possible cause of fires. If it starts to glow, then just stop grinding and it will go out. As for grits, I use a 180 and a 600 for my main 2 wheels. The 180 will do 90+% of all of the grinding you will ever do. The 600 comes in really handy for times when you are working punky wood. It just cuts cleaner, but most of the time not needed for good solid woods. The CBN wheels are made for grinding hardened metals, so any high speed steel, bench chisels, plane irons, axe heads, and similar things are fine. If you grind soft steel, aluminum, copper, brass on the wheels, they can clog up. Most of the time, just sharpening a scraper will clean it off, but it make take several sharpenings to clean up the wheel. Some times you can use a very hard aluminum oxide to clean up the wheel. I some times will put a drop of the Trend lapping fluid on the bevel of my tools before sharpening. If you are turning a lot of sloppy wet wood, some times the gunk from the wet wood can clog up the wheels. Remove the wheel, put it in a tray, cover it with water, add a soap like simple green, let it soak, than use a brass bristle or even steel bristle brush to clean scrub it off. With diamond honing plates, they say not to use cleaners with ammonia in them because that can weaken the electroplating bond of the CBN. You will love these wheels if you have only been using the standard wheels.
robo hippy
robo hippy
Small correction, the washers are called spherical washers. Also, they can be found on a lot of other sites, like McMaster-Carr etc. But I think that's really only relevant for someone with a bizarre shaft size on their grinder. I think WTW has them at about the same, or cheaper, price as most of those industrial supply sites.
I don't think that is right. As I understand it, the spherical washers do not correct for shaft size but for the slight deviation from perpendicular as between the shaft and the clamped face of the grinding wheel. This slight deviation is caused or exacerbated by the pitch of the threads on the shaft, which causes the nut to press more strongly on one side of the wheel. Whatever the explanation, I find that they always make for a smoother operation. For the few bucks they cost, I would recommend them for every CBN wheel mounting.
I didn't mean to imply otherwise, I wrote in a bit of a confusing way is all. I meant that the fact that spherical washers are available on industrial supply sites likely isn't relevant for most turners, since WTW will have the washers available with the correct ID for most grinders. The other websites would really only be necessary if someone had a grinder with an abnormal shaft size, but I thought it might be useful to mention, just in case.
I agree with what you said, though, I would consider them pretty much necessary for CBN wheels. Apologies for the miscommunication.
Woodturners Wonders didn't have the grits I needed in stock (waited a while but were never restocked) and ended up buying from Amazon. The wheels were identical to WWs but a little cheaper. I was also able to get the self-balancing washers on amazon as well. I use 180 grit with side grit but radius edge and a 320 grit with side grit and a flat edge. Both work great.
Ever wonder why plated CBN wheels are almost unknown in industrial shops?
Ok. I'll bite. Why are plated CBN wheels almost unknown in industrial shops? Inquiring minds need to know.
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
I thought most of the stuff hobby turners use filtered down from industry. I don't think wood counts, but equipment wise, it seems the flow is from industry to hobbyist.
Industrial CBN
Industrial CBN
In my business we couldn't use them because they don't have industry standard grinding wheel mounts. But that's a minor detail which could easily be provided if there was demand.
The overriding reason is they can't be dressed to run true. That is by far the main problem. The slightest out of round or imbalance will leave noticeable marks on your workpiece. I don't want to get into any arguments with users about how true running their CBN wheels run because it doesn't happen.
If I was setting up a grinder to sharpen turning tools I'd go with a high quality aluminum oxide wheel spec'd for tool grinding. Dress the wheel to run true. So little material needs to be removed in the frequent sharpenings that CBN is not needed.
There's quite a market that's sprung up in plated CBN wheels, everybody sells them. But mostly it's because of the miss information that's promoted regarding their use.
I have 20+ CBN and diamond composite wheels that are mounted on hubs allowing them to removed and replaced on the grinders accurately enough that they don't need to be dressed after mounting.
Thanks Doug. Good information. Maybe I don't have to discard my Al oxide wheels quite yet - they still have lots of life left.
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
My first CBN wheel was made locally by Foley Bell Saw, I think that was the name of the business, but international. It was an aluminum hub with about 3/16 inch of a matrix with CBN in it bonded to the wheel. This was how they used to be made. I think the first electroplated CBN wheels were made by Optigrind, the guy from Austria, and now Cindy Drozda sells them, and as said before, now, every body makes them. I think the Cuttermaster up in Canada originally made their wheels for the CNC milling bits, and it was a DC motor for variable speed, and their wheels may have been the finest out there. I don't think we need the same accuracy for our turning tools that is needed for the machine shop industry. Finding standard friable wheels above grits of 120 seems to be almost impossible, though Grizzly had some 220 grit wheels.
robo hippy
robo hippy
I bought a 180 grit CBN wheel from Amazon. I just picked one from the several they carry. I have sharpened maybe a dozen times on it. I like it. Sharp enough to turn most of what I do. Fast enough to reshape a little bit. Runs true. Free shipping. I like it better than the Al Oxide wheels. But...I could sharpen and turn with the Al wheels with no real problem too. I have one tool that is harder than the rest of my tools. It does do better on the CBN.