There are many different types of grinding wheel applications such as; internal grinding, surface grinding, tool & cutter grinding, off-hand grinding, jig grinding, rotary grinding, and contour grinding.

Tool and cutter grinding is the operation where a grinding wheel is used to sharpen end mills ,drills, shell end  mills, reamers ect… the main function here is to restore the tool outline. More recently however ,many CNC grinders can grind new tools from a solid hardened steel blank

Jig grinding is an operation performed on a Moore jig grinding machine or something comparable. Hole grinding on a Jig Grinder has 3 motions:

1.      High speed rotation of the jig grinding wheel held in a grinding head.

2.      Slow, planetary rotation of jig grinding wheel head around the main spindle axis

3.      Vertical reciprocating movement of this entire planetary action through a range determined by the length of the hole to be ground.

Jig grinding wheels are usually mounted on 3/8 or1/2 diameter mandrels. Rigid support must be provided as close as possible to the spindle nose, length of spindle projection is very important.

Internal grinding, basically, is an operation where a grinding wheel is used to grind a hole to size for various reasons. Sometimes parts are bored undersized and then hardened, then ground after hardening ,this achieves  2 purposes:

1.      Steel parts ,often warp during hardening because of the stress created with the heating and quenching process.Internal grinding relieves those stresses.

2.      Regular machining (drilling boring, ect..) does not leave the desired finish.

Typical machines used are Bosch, Brown and Sharp, Bryant, Cincinnati, Excello, Heald, Jones and Shipman, Kellenbeger, Landis, Majestic, Oerlikon/Springfield, Okomoto, Rivett, Tripet, and UVA.

Surface grinding can be described as a grinding operation where a machine,usually with a horizontal spindle and reciprocating table,grinds a part with the periphery of the grinding wheel. Magnetic chucks are often used to hold the workpiece .Great accuracy can be achieved in a surface grinding application.

Offhand grinding is when a mounted point or grinding wheel is mounted in a pneumatic or electric hand grinder to grind,polish, or finish many different materials  to a certain dimension and or surface quality .Widely used in the many industries,it arguably is the most popular form of grinding. Mounted Points are small grinding wheels(usually under 2”) mounted to a steel shank .Coarse grit mounted points are used for rough grinding with heavy metal removal, finer grit sizes for finishing

Contour grinding, sometimes called profile grinding, also uses a special mounted point normally with a ˝ shank or mandrel. Profile mounted points are generally used to sharpen steel dies.Typical machines that use these wheels are Boyar Shultz and Milwaukee. Sandusky Chicago stocks many profile grinding wheels.   

Grinding wheels are also used to dress CBN and diamond wheels.  These dressing wheels are generally made of silicon carbide abrasive with a special bonding agent.  The object of this operation is to remove bond, and expose fresh CBN or diamond abrasive. Finer grit green silicon carbide(150 grit and finer) seems to work best, however, black silicon carbide does a good job also. Many shops have changed over to Black Silicon Carbide because it is more readily available.