Additional Productivity and Quality through Efficient Dressing.

During the abrasive cutting process the grinding wheel is subject to wear and to clogging up with detritus. As a consequence, the defined cutting topography, which is made up of abrasive grains and bonding material, gradually changes for the worse with possible severely detrimental effects on the grinding result (workpiece quality, increased forces, etc.) To maintain workpiece quality and cutting performance, it is of paramount importance to maintain this defined cutting topography by repeated dressing and to make the best  use of the potential tool life of a given grinding wheel.

As there is some confusion concerning dressing terminology, a few clarifying definitions are in order. Generally, all processes which serve to regenerate the cutting ability of a grinding wheel are called “dressing”. Dressing includes the terms “truing” and “conditioning”. However, and unfortunately, these different terms are sometimes used interchangeably.  “Truing” primarily means to create a perfectly round and true running grinding wheel, and it can also mean giving the wheel a particular profile. Therefore, “truing” is often used as just meaning “profiling”. “Conditioning“, strictly speaking, refers to the removing of bond from around the abrasive grains, mostly referred to in the context of resin bonded superabrasive wheels.

Dressing must be seen as an integral part of the grinding process; it increases productivity and quality when targeted and applied in the correct a way. Preconditions that must be met are that the dressing results are reproducible and the wear of dressing tools predictable and controllable.

The correct dressing strategy encompasses the selection of suitable dressing tools – stationary or rotary – and to establish and to maintain the correct dressing parameters. Given the background of a wide field of grinding applications, and the myriad of materials to be ground, the bandwidth of dressing processes has also become wide. As one of the pioneers of dressing technology, WTG has a great wealth of know-how and experience on offer and our customers should not hesitate to draw on and make the best use of this.