- Joined
- Dec 20, 2012
- Messages
- 9,422
Mike,
I’m a little confused. Aluminum oxide is ceramic. What’s the difference?
Evan
My understanding is that AO is a naturally occurring mineral and ceramic is a man-made crystalline structure that is harder than AO. I may be wrong about this but I can tell you from recent experience that for metal cutting, the ceramic belts cut faster, cooler, stay sharp longer and are not a lot more expensive than AO belts.
I now know that a ceramic belt cuts cobalt grinding times down by about 1/3 so that it takes less time to grind a 5 or 8% cobalt bit than it used to take to grind a HSS tool on AO. It also cuts much cooler. I'm convinced enough that I will likely never order another AO belt for tool grinding.