Welding Tips and Tricks

Will a silicone carbide (green wheel) be alright to dedicate to grinding tungstens ?

I use one for final grinding--green wheels are soft, will groove, but good for clean grind.
I use an al oxide wheel for roughing and cleaning up--first.

Diamond Ground Products says to never use a silicone carbide wheel to grind tungsten electrodes due to it will contaminate the tungsten.

How to "Correctly" Grind, Cut & Prepare Tungsten Welding Electrodes by Diamond Ground Products

dynasty200sd wrote:Diamond Ground Products says to never use a silicone carbide wheel to grind tungsten electrodes due to it will contaminate the tungsten.

How to "Correctly" Grind, Cut & Prepare Tungsten Welding Electrodes by Diamond Ground Products

"7. SAFETY SUGGESTIONS
Tungsten welding electrodes should never be manually ground on an abrasive belt or wheel (particularly silicone carbide). The risk of injury when hand (manually) grinding a very hard brittle material like tungsten is quite high. It is important to always follow standard safety guidelines when operating high speed grinding equipment."

The above is from that diamond products blurb sheet--and sez nothing about silicon carbide contaminating the ground surface,
it's talking about safety and never using bench grinders to grind tungsten-apparently they don't like the idea of a soft wheel for
safety reasons. Diamond products is just trying to make the best case it can for using their products and dismissing any other method.

Do you have any other sources or info, leading to your conclusion that green wheels contaminate the tungsten?
My own use sez otherwise.

dave powelson wrote:

dynasty200sd wrote:Diamond Ground Products says to never use a silicone carbide wheel to grind tungsten electrodes due to it will contaminate the tungsten.

How to "Correctly" Grind, Cut & Prepare Tungsten Welding Electrodes by Diamond Ground Products

"7. SAFETY SUGGESTIONS
Tungsten welding electrodes should never be manually ground on an abrasive belt or wheel (particularly silicone carbide). The risk of injury when hand (manually) grinding a very hard brittle material like tungsten is quite high. It is important to always follow standard safety guidelines when operating high speed grinding equipment."

The above is from that diamond products blurb sheet--and sez nothing about silicon carbide contaminating the ground surface,
it's talking about safety and never using bench grinders to grind tungsten-apparently they don't like the idea of a soft wheel for
safety reasons. Diamond products is just trying to make the best case it can for using their products and dismissing any other method.

Do you have any other sources or info, leading to your conclusion that green wheels contaminate the tungsten?
My own use sez otherwise.

Click on the link I posted, and go to page 7. It says on that page; NEVER use a silicone carbide type wheel which contaminates the tungsten.

Diamond Ground Products being a manufacturer of tungsten electrodes, I trust that they know a thing or two more than me.

dynasty200sd wrote:

dave powelson wrote:

dynasty200sd wrote:Diamond Ground Products says to never use a silicone carbide wheel to grind tungsten electrodes due to it will contaminate the tungsten.


Click on the link I posted, and go to page 7. It says on that page; NEVER use a silicone carbide type wheel which contaminates the tungsten.

Diamond Ground Products being a manufacturer of tungsten electrodes, I trust that they know a thing or two more than me.

Thanks! I finally found that note on page 7.

dave powelson wrote:Thanks! I finally found that note on page 7.

As to why silicone carbine wheels contaminate tungsten electrodes, now that I do not know.

Now this information is under the section for cutting tungsten electrodes in the guidebook from Diamond Ground Products. It is repeated also in there 2013 edition of the same guidebook I linked in the post above, titled instead as; Tungsten Guidebook - Guidebook for the Proper Selection and Preparation of Tungsten Electrodes for Arc Welding, but this information is buried a bit more in this edition on page 25 in the last paragraph of Section 3.3, Cutting to Length.

If cutting tungsten electrodes with silicone carbide wheels contaminates, it would seem sharpening tungsten electrodes with the same material will as well.

I did see some argue and claim online that Diamond Ground Products are making this claim to sell their tungsten grinders that use diamond blades. I disagree with this because they do state it is acceptable to use an aluminum oxide wheel to grind tungsten electrodes. They just recommend using diamond wheels due to achieving a finer and smoother finish. Which they say the higher quality finish helps focus the arc better as it comes off the tip of the tungsten electrode.

Time to buy a silicon-carbide wheel and see what she does!

Funny, I just seen this in a mail flyer from Eastwood:

http://www.eastwood.com/6-x-3-4-x-1-arb ... wheel.html

Look at the recommended uses, lol.