The grinding wizard

Why

A superabrasive wheel is specified by what it grinds, the operation and whether it grinds wet or dry.

How

Say what is ground, the machine and operation and wet or dry; add the wheel diameter and spindle speed to have the speed checked.

What it asks for

What is ground

Hardened tool or chrome steel asks its hardness, because CBN is published for steel from 55 HRC. Below that the answer warns that soft steel clogs a bonded wheel and moves to an electroplated wheel where one is published for the job.

Machines and operations

The choices for wet or dry are: Wet, oil; Wet, emulsion; Dry. The choices for what matters most are balanced, stock removal, finish and form holding.

What it returns

• The abrasive, diamond or CBN, with the published reason.
• The wheel shape by its code, with what the parts of the code say.
• The grit size, the concentration and the bond, each from the published row for that operation and workpiece.
• Wet or dry: which bonds grind dry and what the answer moved to when you grind dry.
• The wheel speed worked out from the wheel diameter and the spindle speed, against the published figure and the wheel's maximum operating speed.
• A stocked size to start from: one maker's stock item, shown so a design opens on a real wheel. The size that fits is your machine's.

Internal grinding with the bore given also returns the largest pin, 70% of the bore. Mini and micro tools ask the tool diameter, because the published grit follows it from 0.05 to 4 mm.

What it will not answer

• Stone or concrete and composites: no published wheel specification was read for them, so they are refused by name.
• An operation and a workpiece with no published row: it gives the abrasive, says which operations the catalogue does answer for that workpiece and gives no shape, grit or bond. A row is never carried across to another material.
• A recommended speed range where the catalogue prints only application examples: they are shown as examples.
• A rule for choosing concentration: none is published, so it is read from the stocked row and no priority moves it.
• The permitted speed of a mounted pin: it is printed on the pin's label and depends on the clamping length.
• The speed check, until it has both the wheel diameter and the spindle speed. The answer says the speed was not checked.

What it matches

It ranks the wheels in your catalogue on shape, diameter, grit, bond and concentration. A wheel of the other abrasive or of a diameter that does not fit the wheel size you entered is left out, not ranked low.

Opening it as a design

Have this one made to order opens the Superabrasives design module at /app/design/superabrasive-wheels?prefill=, on the family that draws the shape: a peripheral wheel, a cup wheel, an electroplated wheel or a mounted point.

• The abrasive, the shape, the bond, the grit and the concentration travel, with wet or dry and the workpiece where the design module has a word for it.
• The dimensions are the stocked size from the answer, with your own wheel diameter in place of the stocked one where you gave it. Where the answer has no stocked size, only your wheel diameter travels.
• The maximum operating speed travels only when the speed was checked and passed, as the step of the standard sequence at or above the wheel speed.
• A shape the design module does not draw is never handed over, so the button is not shown for it. It draws 1A1, 1A1R, 1V1, 1F1, 3A1, 14A1, 14F1 and 14V1 as peripheral wheels, 6A2, 9A3, 11A2, 11V9, 12A2 and 12V9 as cup wheels and 1A1, 1V1, 1F1, 14F1, 6A2, 11A2 and 12A2 as electroplated wheels. A mounted point is handed over only for the pin shape the design module draws.

Sources

Read on 10 November 2026: the Norton Winter Tool Grinding catalogue of 2023 for the wheels, the public preview of ISO 6104:2005 for the shape codes, the public preview of EN 13236:2019 for the maximum operating speeds and Machinery's Handbook, 31st edition, for diamond wheel specifications by operation. Only the previews of the two standards were read: check a speed limit against the wheel's own marking.