Best diamond wheel grit size for carbide

schemer

schemer

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I just bought a Harbor Freight 6" carbide grinder and am going to change one wheel to a diamond but being new to carbide sharpening, need help choosing the grit and wheel size. The grinder comes with a 1x1" (face and thickness) green wheel. Enco sells the diamond wheels in a 1" thickness with a 3/4" face, or a 1" face with a 3/4" thickness. What is the best choice? Also, the grit options are coarse(100), med(150), or fine(220). What is the best option if I am only going to have one diamond wheel? I was thinking the med(150) but you experienced carbide grinders probably know best.
Thanks,
schemer
 
Great question. I have exactly the same question(s) and so I, too will be watching for replies.
I think I have the same "Baldor" rip off grinder by Harbor Freight which is, I think, the same unit that ENCO and others sell for considerably more. One of the cast iron tables was nearly 3/16 inch thinner than the other side and was was warped as well. I did not realize this until after I had the machine for a while so I was too embarrassed to complain to HF so I just made a new table from a piece of cast aluminum alloy "tooling plate." With that and a new home made protractor guide, I have had good success. My primary focus initially was on high speed steel and so I bought a 6" aluminum oxide wheel. The aluminum oxide wheels with the back plate mount are difficult to find - why? After a lot of google, research, etc I found one on amazon.com for about $25. It was back ordered and took about 5 weeks to arrive. It is made in Israel and was out of balance. I have subsequently got the wheel into acceptable balance by use of a diamond dressing point and it works nicely on HSS.
Geoff
 
Geoff,
Thanks for the info. I looked at Amazon and didn't see the Israeli wheels so they are probably history. Hope you bought a spare. I found these too but they are more pricey. I mainly bought my grinder for carbide as I have another grinder for HSS but I may have to get some off these aluminum oxide wheels to make sharpening easier with the tables. One thing about HF stuff, they make some of their stuff like an unfinished project as with some tweaking you can end up with a working tool. I better take a close look at my tables while I am under the 30 day warranty. :)

http://www.wttool.com/index/page/category/category_id/16772/
 
Yuuup, your right, they're gone from Amazon. Amazon stated at the time that the item was "limited supply." I did not purchase a spare, and it looks like I will regret that. I, too, found only the Wholesale Tool as available. W.W. Grainger lists them at an even higher price. Harbor Freight seems to have the "excess stock" from the Chinese exporters. They used to sell a tool and cutter grinder for about $600 that was, at least visually, the same as MSC's $2000 unit. Their larger horizontal band saw was on sale a few years back for $499, today it is close to $900. One of the shops I work with bought a Jet and it looked exactly like the HF unit except for the paint. The Jet was a good machine, as to the HF unit, I don't have any experience to say.
I do have a couple of HF "sand" blasting cabinets and with some tweaking and by installing parts from TIP as the HF components wear due to regular use, I can say the cabinets are as good as any I have used. I have one set up for silicon carbide and one with corn cob or walnut shells for internal engine parts. I have a vacuum removal system, a Skatblast from TIP, and both units work very well. I had to add angle iron leg braces to one of the boxes which improved it greatly. The other box is a bench unit and required a light and a modification to the pick up tube. Neither modification was expensive or took a long time to perform.
Geoff
 
I always use the pink rocks on carbide. Much cheaper than diamong and longer lasting. We used them on carbide tipped saw chain for rescue and deck saws and they did a great job. We also used them to resharpen stump frinder teeth and they did a great job also. Just be carefull ot to overheat the base material and fracture the carbide and they will be just fine. Larger diamon wheels and lap sheets are way expensive and have a short life in heavy use. Just my .02. Hope this offers another option to save money.
Bob
 
110octane said:
Yuuup, your right, they're gone from Amazon. Amazon stated at the time that the item was "limited supply." I did not purchase a spare, and it looks like I will regret that. I, too, found only the Wholesale Tool as available. W.W. Grainger lists them at an even higher price. Harbor Freight seems to have the "excess stock" from the Chinese exporters. They used to sell a tool and cutter grinder for about $600 that was, at least visually, the same as MSC's $2000 unit. Their larger horizontal band saw was on sale a few years back for $499, today it is close to $900. One of the shops I work with bought a Jet and it looked exactly like the HF unit except for the paint. The Jet was a good machine, as to the HF unit, I don't have any experience to say.
I do have a couple of HF "sand" blasting cabinets and with some tweaking and by installing parts from TIP as the HF components wear due to regular use, I can say the cabinets are as good as any I have used. I have one set up for silicon carbide and one with corn cob or walnut shells for internal engine parts. I have a vacuum removal system, a Skatblast from TIP, and both units work very well. I had to add angle iron leg braces to one of the boxes which improved it greatly. The other box is a bench unit and required a light and a modification to the pick up tube. Neither modification was expensive or took a long time to perform.
Geoff
Click to expand...

Geoff,
I bought a surface grinder from HF when they went on closeout for $299. For as little as I need one, when you need one you have to have one. Works fine. For a blast cabinet, I actually bought the "970 Detailer" from TP Tools cause I wanted a good cabinet. Then I bought the HF cabinet here: http://www.harborfreight.com/40-lb-capacity-floor-blast-cabinet-93608.html for the odd grits I will occasionally use. It was on sale and with 20% off I paid less that $200 for it. It works fine. I just bought a 12" sander from there too: http://www.harborfreight.com/12-inch-direct-drive-bench-top-disc-sander-43468.html as you can't have enough sanders,and grinders you know. These have some serious power and work great. Of course my Miller welder is great and there is where I would pass on a HF unit. :)
 
Rbeckett said:
I always use the pink rocks on carbide. Much cheaper than diamong and longer lasting. We used them on carbide tipped saw chain for rescue and deck saws and they did a great job. We also used them to resharpen stump frinder teeth and they did a great job also. Just be carefull ot to overheat the base material and fracture the carbide and they will be just fine. Larger diamon wheels and lap sheets are way expensive and have a short life in heavy use. Just my .02. Hope this offers another option to save money.
Bob
Click to expand...

Hi Bob,
Do you mean the pink aluminum oxide wheels? I don't think they make those for the 6" tool grinders (or I haven't seen them yet). This is the grinder:http://www.harborfreight.com/1-2-half-hp-6-inch-tool-grinder-46727.html and it uses the steel backed grinding wheels. But its good to know that the pink ones work as I have other grinders that they would fit on.
 
I don't know the best option, but I have 150 and 220 wheels and they work well for me.

Randy
 
Yes Pink Al Oxide. If you check Norton abrasives I thin kthey may have it in stock. I used an 8 inch for stump grinder teeth and a pointed diamond stick to dress and true the wheel when it got dull or out of contour. Each set of stump grinder teeth was 42 on a side and had teeth in a specific pattern on both sides. The machines were made by vermeer. We also resharpened Tub grinder hammers if they werent too far gone. They normally didnt last much more than a day and they were junk. But we processed 600 to 750 cubic yards of hardwood a day. You should see the loader I built. 800 pound flywheel spinning on a 400 HP cummins N-14. It would chip a 40 inch x 30 foot tree in just under 9 seconds and throw the discharge well beyond the nose of a 53 foot trailer. I almost killed a yard jockey trying to keep up with spotting empty trailers. He couldnt spot em fast enough to not have me building a huge pile off to one side. We ran that machine 6 days a week and filled giant holes with pine and other wood to make top spoil when we were out of empty trailers. Top soil is easy, use the excavator to dig a huge and deep hole. Fill it with wood chips from the more bark, Diamond Z, peterson, or our home built and cover with sand for 2 years. Uncover, screen and sell top soil back to the folks that paid to dump the original trees. Put the big chunks from the screening operation back in the hole and refill with chipped wood. Never ending money maker .

Bob
 
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