Radiac Grinding Wheel Review

Recently we special ordered a batch of 100 grit RAA soft wheels from Radiac to experiment with. Turned out they provided what may be the fastest way to a finished edge (they are exceptional for lathe tool sharpening too).

First, even at 3600 rpm, this wheel can be used to grind right to the edge of plane irons and leave a burr—evidence that all the dead edge of a dull tool is gone. Then, we found that we could go right to one micron diamond to hone the secondary bevel. One micron diamond on cast iron plate was used.

More detail: Recently a batch of 30+ plane irons was prepared from very abrasion resistant CPM 3V steel. After heat treatment the primary bevel was established with a 46 grit Radiac RAA wheel, followed by a refining grind with the 100 grit wheel. Finally, a secondary bevel was honed using the diamond abrasive. Diamond was used in this case because alumnium oxide is not hard enough to properly hone this steel.

This breakthrough eliminates the cross contamination issues that are a disadvantage when using nonbonded abrasives (diamond paste) for sharpening.