More than skin deep

Judge abrasive product quality by relying on brand, price and distributor expertise.

by Kay Falk

Your mother was right. You can’t judge a woman by her looks.

The same is true for abrasives you use on the job. You might be using a coated abrasive flap disc to clean metal surfaces or to remove weld flash, or wielding a demolition saw to remove structures damaged by a hurricane before rebuilding. When it comes to cutting, grinding, sanding and finishing metal or stone, abrasive products are essential. But you can’t always tell at a glance what’s a quality product and what isn’t.

“Appearance alone doesn’t reveal the quality and engineering behind that abrasive products,” Chris Weiler, vice president of marketing for Weiler Corp., says. “For instance, with a coated abrasive flap disc, there’s some trial and error involved in finding the right product for a specific job. Your application, abrasive grit and the disc’s backing material can affect results. Some abrasives just need to be used to judge their quality.”

If you can’t judge quality by looks and don’t have time to test different abrasive products, what do you do? Abrasive manufacturers have three commonsense suggestions.

Ask the experts
“Choosing the right abrasive product with the quality you need is often difficult for users unfamiliar with abrasives,” admits Dean Gendel, marketing manager for J. Walter Inc. “Enrolling in a free one-day training course offered by some abrasive manufacturers, like Walter Surface Technologies, is probably the best way to learn. These classes cover which abrasives to use on specific jobs and how to tell the quality difference among available products.”

Another good source of information is distributors. “Today’s contractor supply houses stay on top of industry trends and new products,” Jim Ballou, Pferd marketing manager explains. “They have experience with product performance through their customers, and it’s in their best interest to supply contractors with the right tool for the job.”

He adds, “With distributors’ knowledge, experience and training, they’re an excellent source of advice on choosing a quality product.”

Quality should drive selection
All manufacturers agree that quality is important. Safety for users is the prime concern. They engineer their products to fit a tool, a power range, spindle speed or tool rpm. They also consider the material of the work piece.

“Abrasive engineers know soft aluminum is prone to loading problems while an exotic alloy with high nickel content is very hard and difficult to grind,” Ballou says. “They design a wheel or other abrasive product for an intended application, but it’s common for users unfamiliar with the great variety of consumable abrasives to use that wheel for a whole host of unintended applications. Improperly used, an abrasive product will not perform well and will waste your time and money. In the worst case scenario, injuries can occur.”

He gives an example of thinking that all 14" wheels are alike. “If someone with this low level of understanding was to mount a chop saw blade onto a hand-portable saw, it would be extremely dangerous,” Ballou says.

Low-powered electric chop saws, which are free cutting, don’t need much pressure to work their way though the cut. “To accomplish this, there’s a single, or double layer of fiberglass reinforcement in the chop saw wheel. Fiberglass does not cut. It’s there for safety, but it inhibits cut rate,” he explains. “So for low-powered stationary wheels, where there’s minimal lateral pressure, manufacturers minimize the amount of fiberglass to maximize cutting performance. Our portable wheels, for example, have internal and external layers of reinforce­ment that are much stronger than what’s used in chop saw wheels. It can take the punishment inherent in demolition saw use. Put that same size wheel on a chop saw, and you’ll stall the motor. If you put the wrong wheel on the wrong machine, you lose your performance, you lose your safety, and you may lose your life.”

Let price guide you
In general, you can assume that the more you pay for abrasive products, the better the quality, the greater the value and the safer the wheel will be, according to these abrasives sources.

A higher price tag reflects quality manufacturing equipment, good engineering and a manufacturer that invests in new products and customer training.

“Spending 30 to 100 percent more for the same abrasive product will usually provide the contractor a product with two to four times the life and better productivity,” Gendel says

“Price and quality go hand in hand,” agrees Weiler. “Better quality products can give you longer life, so the cost per use is actually less when compared with lower-priced items. You really need to consider how much work you want to accomplish before you put a new wheel on the power tool and the labor cost involved in frequent changeovers.”

He points out that paying a higher price may also give you flexibility. “Some abrasive products, like a flap disc, allow you to do more than one job, such as grinding and finishing.

Ballou points out that some contractors focus on low-priced products, even though they care about safety or product life. “Waste is extremely difficult to control on a jobsite,” he says. “If an operator is cutting concrete with a portable saw and needs to switch to a steel blade, the partially used concrete blade is usually discarded. Only a new wheel will be mounted. When wheels are not used to maximize their service life, then it is impossible to benefit from quality.”

Realizing that contractors need abrasives for small and large jobs, manufacturers often offer tiers of products. “Premium products last longer, so if you have a big task to accomplish and finish is important, a bargain won’t last. You want to pay for top-quality abrasive products in that case,” Weiler notes. “If it’s a small, limited application, a lower-cost product may do the job.”

Ballou concurs. “Manufacturers typically produce multiple performance tiers in some product lines. For example, in the .045 wheels, Pferd manufactures a general-purpose wheel (orange label), a high-performance wheel (silver label) and a premium performance wheel (blue label).”

He explains that the cut rate of the three levels is close, but the service life extends dramatically as you step up in performance levels. “If you’re going to make three cuts and then throw the wheel away, a general-purpose wheel is the right choice from a financial perspective,” Ballou says. “However, if the workforce can be trained to fully consume the wheels, the silver line is the best value range that we produce. And for the few who demand the top performance and are willing to pay a premium price, the blue SGP range is unique, special and extremely high end.”

In other product lines, such as the portable wheels for demolition saws, you may find only one quality level. “From our perspective as a manufacturer, users of these wheels need the safest, strongest, fastest cutting and the longest lasting wheels possible,” he notes.

Buy a recognized brand
The three manufacturers agree that you should rely on well-known brands and ones that you’ve had success with in the past.

If you test one brand of burr and like it, chances are you’ll test that same manufacturer’s grinding wheel. Ballou explains, “Pferd, like all manufacturers, recognizes that the success of our organization demands a consistent high quality across all of our product lines.”

He also advises: “The contractor interested in determining which brand best suits his tasks should put the products to a side-by-side test. It doesn’t matter whose wheel has the prettiest label or a name you recognize from a car race. What matters is performance.”

More tips
The wide range of abrasive products and their potential applications could fill this magazine. Safety tips could as well, and our sources offer a few additional tips:

• Look at the packaging to see if the manufacturer is affiliated with safety groups, like the Organization for the Safety of Abrasives (OSA).

• Buy the correct abrasive for the tool it will be used on and the task to be accomplished. Check the rpm of the abrasive product and the maximum rpm of the tool. “You never put a wheel on a tool that has a lower rpm than the tool rpm,” Gendel notes.

• Never put a cutting wheel designed for a chop saw on a gas-powered saw. Gas-powered saws need wheels that are designed for greater lateral force. These wheels have additional reinforcement for safety.

• Never grind with a cut-off wheel.

• Cutting wheels designed for electric circular saws are a wonderful choice for the contractor when cutting large pieces of thin sheet steel. These abrasive cutting wheels work just like saw blades for wood. They cut straight andare safe to use.

• Try a segmented flap wheel or flap disc. “It will grind metal just like a resin-bonded grinding wheel and offer an extra margin of safety,” Gendel says. “These discs may cost a little more but are very safe even for the less-experienced operator. Again, the higher quality ones will cost a little more, but they’re well worth every penny.”

Side Bar:
Proper abrasive care
There are three main care objectives when handling and storing abrasive products:

Keep them dry. Humidity can warp these products and will drastically affect performance, so keep them in a dry place, away from excessive heat and in their original packaging until use.

Handle with care. Dropping abrasive products may not shatter them, but cracks could occur that you can’t see. That will affect safe use. Also, don’t store cut-off wheels on their edges.

Inspect products prior to use. Even if they look fine, be sure to allow the power tool to reach its operating speed and to maintain that speed with guards in place, for at least one minute. This warm-up period often reveals problems not evident at first glance.

Published in the November/December 2005 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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