An Overview of External and Outside Diameter Grinding

Grinding is one of the important manufacturing techniques used across industries. There are mainly two types of grinding – external diameter grinding and internal diameter grinding. Of these, external diameter grinding is commonly used in most industries to produce smooth surface finishes. This technique aids manufacturers to achieve the highest level of throughput without sacrificing precision. Do you want to know more about this type of grinding? This post discusses the same and more.

An Overview of External and Outside Diameter Grinding

A surface grinder equipment features a chuck, a rotary table, and an abrasive wheel. In this process, the external surface of the part to be ground is placed between two end units of a chuck. The end units make the part rotate during grinding. During this process, the wheel rotates in the same direction as the object to grind the surface. Although the wheel works in the same direction, due to the constant rotation of the part, the surfaces do not friction or jam up against each other. This helps assure smooth operation and smoother surface finishes.  

Types of External Diameter Grinding

The following are a few popular types of external diameter grinding processes.

• Surface Grinding: Surface grinding is an abrasive grinding process where the spinning wheel covered with abrasives is used to remove the chips of substance from a metallic or non-metallic workpiece. This type of grinding produces a smooth and flat surface.
• Plunge Grinding: In this type of grinding, the wheel is placed perpendicular to the external surface. The wheel acts on a single point of the surface. This type of grinding is employed for smoothening certain surfaces on the parts. 
• Creep Feed Grinding: In this type of grinding, the grinding wheel removes a large section of material in its single pass. This type of grinding helps cut down the manufacturing time by half. A special type of machine is used for this type of grinding. 

Benefits of External Diameter Grinding

The following benefits of external diameter grinding make them popular across industries. 

• OD grinding can be used over hard metal parts to achieve smooth surface finishes.
• It can be used to obtain highly accurate dimensions.
• It helps create perfect round objects. 
• This process helps address circular defects, as well as issues like ovalness.
• External diameter grinding helps remove the lack of concentricity in round parts. 

To take advantage of this grinding technique and build precision parts, it is important to partner with a trusted company like Motor & Gear Engineering. The company provides the best-in-class manual and CNC machining grinding services to its clients. It uses well-equipped CNC grinders with an automatic grinding wheel balancing system, edge locator, and in-process sizing gauges. You can get in touch with the experts at the company to know more about its external and outside diameter grinding features.