Dressing Grinding Wheels. The Dressing Process

In this article, we’ll cover how grinding wheels used in grinding operations are dressed. We’ll introduce grinding wheel dressing tools. If you’re wondering how a grinding wheel is dressed, keep reading.

Dressing Grinding Wheels

Like all cutting tools used in machining, grinding wheels also dull over time. Grinding wheels dull relatively quickly. Since a grinding wheel’s structure is porous, these pores fill up over time and it becomes harder for the grains to cut. Because the pores fill up this way, and the dulled grains don’t shed, the wheel’s surface becomes slick and appears as if it’s been oiled.

The chips produced during cutting turn into a paste at high temperature and clog the pores of the grinding wheel, dulling it. Coolant reduces this paste formation and lowers the heat generated by high cutting pressure. For this reason, using coolant during grinding operations is recommended.

How to Tell a Wheel Is Dull

A dull wheel can be identified from the ground surface as well as from the sound it makes. A sharp wheel makes a high-pitched sound. If the workpiece’s surface is very shiny and shows some burning, the wheel is dull. Since a dull wheel isn’t cutting, it can dig into the work depending on the depth of cut given. This both ruins the work and can produce dangerous results.

How Is Grinding Wheel Dressing Done

Sharpening a wheel that has become dull or lost its sharpness is called dressing. Wheels must be dressed according to the workpiece’s surface quality requirements, meaning the roughness or fineness of the surface. A wheel is dressed coarse for a rough grinding surface, and fine for a fine grinding surface.

Simple dressing tools of the type shown above, or diamond-tipped dressers, are used to dress grinding wheels.

If the diamond dresser’s traverse speed across the wheel is high, the wheel is dressed coarse; if it’s low, it’s dressed fine. Coolant should be used to prevent heat buildup between the diamond dresser and the wheel. While moving the diamond dresser or dressing wheel across the grinding wheel, you should avoid running it off the edges, to prevent chipping the wheel’s edges.

To dress a grinding wheel, the dressing tool is first fixed in place. Then a grinding pass is performed as though material were being removed from a workpiece.

Since the dressing tool used is harder than the wheel, it removes material from the wheel’s surface.

While dressing the wheel, keep the tool under coolant if possible. Coolant prevents the diamond from overheating, excessive diamond wear, and diamond fracture.

Rotate the diamond tool frequently. This creates a new cutting edge — preventing the dulled diamond from overheating the glass-like surface.