Die Grinder Help

[Dave's_Not_Here]

dag nabit... message went the way of the sloth somewhere...

"Overs."

I picked up a cheap die grinder to finish off some mod's to my lathe. The grinder works well enough for me but the stones suck.

First off, I know absolutely nothing about what each of the colors represent and it doesn't seem to matter as all three wear out equally fast, and I do mean FAST! I now have a bunch of 1/8 and 1/4 dowel pins....

So, would anyone be kind enough to give me the Die Grinder Stone 101 on-line tutorial?

100: What does each color represent relative to grit and hardness?
101: What is each color more suited to application and material wise?
102: Where does one get a "nice set of stones... )" that last long enough to actually remove some metal?

I am working on CRS, 6061 Aluminum, 4140, some hard chrome (not too often)...

Thanks....

[Chuck Reamer]

I have mostly used the pink stones, I think they are standard aluminum oxide and should be good for most materials. I dont know if the color means much on them, the green ones may be silicone carbide. Then again I have seen blue aluminum oxide wheels as well. I think the color and grit only really matter on surface or tool and cutter grinder stones for the most part.

Small diamater stones with wear very fast because they are not spinning fast enough, anything under a .5" dia with wear quickly. Small pencil grinders work well for the tiny .125" dia shank stones, plus you get very good control with it.

You may want to consider using a carbide burr to do the job instead, they last a long time and remove material at a fast rate. But dont use them on hardend steel, it kills them in a hurry.

What kind of mods are you doing to your lathe?
Hope my ramblings helped a bit.

[roninB4]

Don't use a grinding wheel on aluminum, it will just clog up the pores. Any of the green wheels should be silicon carbide and are used for non ferrous materials (but don't use them on anything but carbide). For small mounted stones there's only what you have available, it's not like surface grinder/cutter grinder wheels. I don't like to use a die grinder if I have to remove more material than .015 or so, I'll use a rotary burr instead to rough out the geometry. If you're wearing out wheels then you should choose another method of roughing out the shape/hole. If you do go with carbide burrs then you'll need to use a very steady hand to avoid chatter. Carbide does cut quite well and last long ONLY if you can avoid chatter/vibration as carbide does tend to chip/shatter under shock/chatter/excess vibration.

[diycnc]

i use carbide burrs for mostly everything. i would recommend getting some specialized course burrs for aluminum and some finer ones for steel. the steel ones plug almost instant in aluminum