The ultimate grinding wheel?

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myturn

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I've had my a Creusen 7500TS since I started and the finer of the two (white) wheels was getting smaller and smaller so I decided it was time for a new one.

I'd read about the Cubic Boron Nitride wheels some time ago and convinced myself that I needed one, but only when my stones needed replacing.

I liked the idea of a wheel that stayed the same diameter (gouge bevels stay a constant radius) that didn't get grooved and that didn't need dressing.

It does need the grinder bearings to run absolutely true and I had to take a few thou off the spindle spacer tube that was fitted to mine as it had a bit of runout. This wasn't noticeable with the stone wheel as it could be dressed to take up any slight eccentricity but the CBN of course can't be dressed.

Once the spacer was sorted I started by sharpening some of my gouges and found it takes very little pressure and very little time to get a good edge, and very little heat as a consequence.

Just wipe the gouge across the wheel once or twice and it's back to the lathe with a finer edge than I got from the white stone.

One minor inconvenience is that due to the weight of the wheel it takes ages (over 1 minute) to stop rotating after the grinder is turned off so if you have a couple of different gouges to sharpen at the same time and need to reposition the table/jig/slider etc. you would have to wait. But that's easily overcome using a piece of wood rubbed against the outer edge of the wheel as a brake.

If anyone's looking for a replacement wheel I can highly recommend this one, it may seem expensive but it will outlast a stone wheel many times and sharpen quicker and provide a better edge as well.

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myturn you can also work tungsten carbide with cbn.
Have you got a cbn "dressing stick" if not I suggest you get one, it does not dress the wheel like you think with conventional bonded abrasives, but never the less they are very useful.
cbn is not common in the diy arena due to cost, but we used them all the time on many machines.
As you say though you do need a true running spindle, the better you can get it the better the cut with them
 
Hi Paul,

Yes, I've used it to sharpen TCT cutters for my ML7 quite successfully.

What does the CBN dressing stick actually do then, as it obviously shouldn't remove any of the CBN coating?

Mick
 
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