Thread: What do you think of your CBN wheel?

Tge speed of my cbn wheel on my scheppach is great. The wheel fits so nice snug and gives such a nice finish. Its a large wheel and higher grit than the others at 280g (I think from memory) it has turned an average wetstine grinder into a sharpening station I will hold onto until it dies

Originally Posted by delbs

Tge speed of my cbn wheel on my scheppach is great.

Better cast a vote then delbs......

After using them for maybe 10 years, they beat standard wheels in every single category you can think of except price. If you consider value, they again, by far, exceed any other wheel available to woodturners. The only advantage to having any thing coarser than the 80 grit wheels would be for shaping. The only tool I really profile is my scrapers, and the local saw shop has a belt grinder that can take care of that way faster than most of our wheels.

I am posting a new topic in the woodturning section here. I have a bunch of new video clips on You Tube, and one is about grinders and grinding wheels.

robo hippy

Originally Posted by robo hippy

After using them for maybe 10 years

So RH, have you been using the same one for ten years (within the one grit, that is)? How many normal wjeels do you think you would have gone through in that time? (just trying to get a feel of longevity here). Have you needed to deglaze them? You must have saved a helluva lot of time in not truing them.

Just for the record

said he would go through a white wheel every 6 months

He has been using the same CBN for 3 years and last I heard still not looking at replacing it ... that was as of November last year

That is by now 7 white wheels he has not had to constantly dress and all this time he has not had to compensate for loss of diameter in wheel size when using jigs etc.

Im thinking if there was something even finer than a 180 that might be worth looking at


Dave the turning cowboy

turning wood into art

Well, it is a bit of a long story, but here is one of my You Tube clips about grinders and wheels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDYdo1IoyRY

I had one set for 6 to 7 years worth of production turning (800 or so bowls per year and other things), and the 80 grit wheel was maybe half worn out. It is a matrix (bonding agent and CBN grit) type bonded onto an aluminum hub. The newer ones are steel hubs with the CBN electroplated onto the steel. They are actually cheaper than my original ones. The cheap wheels that came with my no name grinder from Woodcraft lasted about 6 months. I bought a fancy set of pink wheels which were for woodturning. They also lasted for about 6 months. I then went on a search for diamond wheels, and was told that I really wanted CBN as that is a material that is made for sharpening hardened steel like we turners use. There was a place here in town that made them, and loved them. Even when compared to the blue wheels from Norton which are a ceramic of some sort, they will give you far more dollars worth of value. The ones I have now, I have been using for about 3 plus years. Other than 'softening' up a little over the first month or so, they still cut fast and clean and cool.

robo hippy

I like my CBN wheels, but also like my diamond wheels. IMI, the diamond wheels have been given an unfair press; the matrix versions (the more affordable construction) produce a finer and slower grind than electroplated CBN, and work well with carbon carving tools and kitchen knives. The downside of the matrix construction is that it can wear unevenly, which is not an issue with the electroplated CBN wheels.

My old style vitrified wheels only get used when I have some rough grinding to do, like on gardening tools or a block buster.

One CBN wheel may outlast half a dozen vitrified wheels, but only the most productive of production turners is going to get through half a dozen vitrified wheels. Putting aside the other advantages of CBN wheels, if you were only ever going to get through one or two vitrified wheels, the economics of a CBN wheel may not work for you if you can't justify the cost based on the added advantages of CBN.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Within the context of this thread, speculative comments from those who haven't used them are irrelevant

Fair enough. You can delete my vote then. I mainly wanted to caution anyone thinking of buying cheap wheels from eastern Europe. And if that's irrelevant too then I'm sorry for the intrusion.

Originally Posted by Bryan

Fair enough. You can delete my vote then. I mainly wanted to caution anyone thinking of buying cheap wheels from eastern Europe. And if that's irrelevant too then I'm sorry for the intrusion.

No, that was fine Bryan, and worthwhile mentioning.