Vitrified Bond
Vitrified is the most recently developed bond and has some very specific advantages for internal, external, centreless, surface, creepfeed, disc or any grinding application where high precision is required. The easily adaptable structure of the grit bond matrix usually allows truing and dressing in one operation.
Vitrified bondings are basically composed of glass. The bondings are mixed in powdered form along with the CBN or Diamond abrasive. Each component of the mix is precisely determined by the required characteristics of the finished wheel and are tightly controlled in the process. The resulting bond is tough and wear resistant, which makes vitrified bonded wheels ideal for extended wheel life and form holding.
One of the unique properties of vitrified bonds is porosity and the ability to “self-dress”. The porosity of a vitrified wheel provides better flow of coolant into the grind zone and improved clearance of chips. This allows a vitrified wheel to cut considerably faster than other non-porous bond systems under the same grinding loads. The porous structure and brittle nature of vitrified bondings also eliminate the need for stick dressing in most applications.
While the wheel is dressed with a rotary Diamond, small micro fractures are introduced into the bond posts near the surface of the wheel. When the wheel begins to grind the first part, the chips that are produced easily clear away the top layer of bonding, which exposes the sharp abrasive particles beneath. This is not possible with resin or metal bonded wheels. This characteristic of vitrified bonded wheels makes them ideal for high-production CNC grinding applications where operator intervention is kept to a minimum.
Vitrified CBN Products
The Master Vitrified Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN) range of products have been developed to offer our customers high quality premium performance abrasive products at realistic costs. CBN is a highly durable synthetic (manmade) abrasive grain that is second only to diamond in hardness. This makes it ideal for grinding hardened steels, superalloys and difficult to grind materials that conventional abrasives struggle to cope with and rapidly break down. These grain characteristics combined with flexibility and high inherent strength of vitrified bond technology produces a grinding wheel range ideally suited for tough grinding applications, but also giving superior productivity in high volume production environments.
The Master range utilises a wide selection of CBN crystal types combined with vitrified bonds developed to suit real world applications. The range offers wheels from 1mm up to 1200mm diameter in various designs, including thread mounted and formed wheels. We also have formulations that can offer single point dressability and dry grinding both applications areas that are not normally associated with successfully implementation of vitrified CBN products.
The success of vitrified CBN wheels of course is in part down to the wheel formulation, but just as critical is the correct assessment and support applications engineering of the product onto the customers machines. The final part of the equation is the subsequent wheel consistency and continued support of the customer by the supplier. Master offers all this and more in support of the Master vitrified CBN product angle.
