What Is The Most Common Dressing Mistake?
By Tom Cappadona, Meister Abrasives USA
When Meister applications engineers are trying to diagnose a grinding problem or optimize a grinding process (running a trial for example), one of the first questions we are likely to ask is “How fast are you running the dresser.” Quite often the users don’t know.
Its an easy mistake to make. When the machine was originally purchased, the installers paid careful attention to optimizing dressing parameters for the work at hand. Some users leave these settings untouched without ever giving them another thought.
They don’t know how fast the dresser is running. Which means they don’t know the speed ratio (the relative speed of the dresser to the wheel). Nor are they likely to know the relative direction of the dresser at the point of contact with the wheel– unidirectional (with the wheel) or counter-directional (against the wheel). These simple dressing factors have a big impact on how the wheel will perform. By manipulating them, you can make the wheel act finer or coarser depending on your objective.
Did You know? The speed ratio (dresser surface speed divided by wheel surface speed) has a significant impact on the effective sharpness of the wheel and the forces experienced during the dressing operation. The optimal ratio seeks to strike a balance between these two variables.
So the most common mistake is not knowing the dressing speed and rotational direction or failing to set them to achieve optimal wheel behavior for your application. If you would like more detail on how to use these and other dressing parameters to optimize wheel performance, please download the Meister Abrasives Dressing Tutorial and acquire your own free copy of the Meister Abrasives’ Dressing Calculation Tool, by visiting the Calculation Tools category of this blog.
Going to IMTS? If you have a specific grinding issue or would like some troubleshooting advice please visit our booth at IMTS and talk to one of our application engineers. We would really appreciate the opportunity to make or renew our acquaintance with you.
