Where to buy Grinding Wheels?

[steck]

Hi,
anyone know somewhere near the Oakleigh area where I can buy 200mm White grinding wheels for my bench grinder?
I am after 200mm X 25 mm -120 Grit and 80 Grit with a 5/8 hole.
TIA

[rsser]

Fairly common specs Steve.

Try a local industrial supplies place.

[Scott]

If you're up to ordering from the net I know Carroll's (http://www.cws.au.com/) stock those sizes and grits.

-Scott.

[Astrodog]

I went around to every tool place in my area, including two 'specialist' tool places - nobody had anything except grey SiC wheels - I went online.
I picked up a blue Alox wheel from thesandpaperman.com.au - he has a good range of white wheels too....

[steck]

Any advantage of blue (or Pink) over white ? I have been a bit monochrome up til now!

[Astrodog]

They are supposed to run cooler, and don't need as much dressing, although I could be wrong! I got the 'best' I could find, figured I need all the help I can get.... An extra $30-40 over the life of the wheel I can live with!
Do some searching on - Norton; Blu-max; SG; 3x - you may find more useful info than I can give....

[rsser]

IME Pink come in a mid and a darker (ruby?) version and though I have not kept records of the specs of the two they were not specified as different by the retailers. I'm not a fan of the darker version; harder bond possibly; more prone to clogging.

HTH.

[dr4g0nfly]

I run a Dark Pink (Ruby) 60 grit for rough shaping and a Pink 120 grit for grinding edges, they are great with HSS.

They are 'Friable' that is they breakup easily revealing new cutting surfaces more easily that the old grey Carborundum ones.

I know a professional turner who swears by (not at) the Blue non-crystalline wheels but cannot for the life of me remember why.

I understand the Green is needed for Tungsten Carbide tipped tools.

[robo hippy]

I don't know if these are available over there yet, but they were really selling well at the AAW Symposium. I got one and found it to cut better than my matrix CBN wheels.

Diamond Grinding Wheels - D-Way Tools (http://d-waytools.com/tools-diamond-grinding-wheels.html)

No need to balance, never need to be cleaned, last a long, long, long time. Personally, I think these are the wheels of the future.

robo hippy

[issatree]

Hi Steck,
In a sense it is all about Money.
If you can't afford one of the Diamond Wheels, well the White Alum. Oxide Wheels are the ones & they work well for me.
My 6in. 120 Grit is down to about 4 1/2in. & almost ready to change.
Even so, I don't have a problem with it at all
The other side has a WAO 60Grit.
I clean them quite a bit, but I do like a bit of steel on them anyway, & I can assure you, you definitely would not want to run your finger over the Sharpened Edge on my Tools.
Yes, 1 day I may get a Diamond Wheel, but I would have to look into them to see if the Edges are any better, than what I can archive at the moment.

Woodworking Warehouse should not be to far from you, or as was said, Jim & Irene can send what ever you ask for.

[steck]

As always, there's a lot to consider.
I ended up buying a couple of white wheels but I had to go to 2 different places to get each.
To make a short story long, I moved my grinder from a 5 metre long work bench to a small grinding stand. The bit on the spindle where the flange sits was crooked and the table danced gleefully, chasing me around my shed. I had a hint beforehand, because when it was bolted to "Megabench", the shed used to vibrate! I tried in vain to dress the new wheel and filled the shed with expensive white Alox powder. Still R/S so I bought a new grinder.
It's a Cruesen 150mm and its so smooth that it doesn't even have holes to bolt it down.

I must admit that the Diamond wheels seem very tempting to me but they are 6-7 times the cost of a white wheel. Is the cost worth it, I wonder.

[WOODbTURNER]

Steck,

At least with my CBN and diamond wheels there is no alox dust and truing up to worry about. My Blu max 200x40mm is still in use though.

[robo hippy]

Advantages of the CBN wheels:

Don't ever need to be balanced.

Don't ever need to be cleaned.

Don't ever need to be trued up.

Stay the same size.

Last for years. One of mine, the matrix type is over 5 years old. I have turned maybe 4000 bowls in that time, plus a lot of other things. It still has half the matrix left on it.

For production turning, a must have, and they will pay for themselves in very short order.

I prefer the burr from a CBN wheel on my scrapers to the ones I get from the alox wheels.

robo hippy