Taking the general-purpose grinding wheel path is fast, easy and seemingly economical. It could also be the best way to become noncompetitive.
Shops have several good reasons to use general-purpose cylindrical and centerless grinding wheels. Wheel replacement is time-consuming and requires a fair amount of skill, making changeover an expensive process.
The wheels themselves are also fairly expensive, so it’s only logical that shop management would want ones that can grind as wide a variety of materials as possible, thus minimizing investment.
And wheels must be properly stored when not in use—depending on the size and type of the grinder and the wheels it uses, this can require a significant amount of space.
That said, many grinding experts have strong arguments for taking an application-specific grinding wheel approach, particularly on higher job quantities or where materials are challenging to grind.
Attempting to muscle through with a general-purpose wheel often leads to a host of problems, among them wheel loading, workpiece burning, poor productivity levels and unstable processes.
Worst of all, it can generate scrap at what is typically the final machining operation, when parts are at the highest value and replacing them will potentially require weeks of rework.