Norton Grinding Wheel, Gemini Bench and Pedestal Aluminum Oxide Bench Grinder Wheel, Coarse Grit 10

This is a fine abrasive wheel for use in sharpening fine tools and working on small soft items. If you put a small piece of steel to it the steel will mark the wheel so use it from the side. It sharpens my screwdriver tips very well.

Great wheel, yes at first it runs out of true in all directions. But after taking a 1" O.D. piece of Aluminum round bar, chuck it up in the lathe and bore the ID to 5/8". Put that in place of the blue spacers and the run out becomes minimal. Once running true the wheel is hard wearing but cuts with a sharp action. I suggest a diamond wheel dresser. Good for hss and will cut C2 carbide but not efficiently. I mainly use it for lathe tooling and sharpening drills.

Just when I thought the bearings on my grinder were toast, I bought a new wire wheel and this grind wheel and all is right again. It's balanced and cuts well.

I was looking for a fine hard grinding wheel and this wheel was perfect. Overall it was great but the packaging was not good and there was a small chip on one side of the wheel, I am keeping it as the chip does not interfere with grinding.

Upon installing this on my grinder with a 5/8" arbor and turning it on the grinder and my whole work bench shook violently and things fell off onto the floor. I immediately shut down the grinder and found upon closer inspection that the grinding wheel was badly out of round by 1/8-3/16th of an inch causing the violent shaking. I removed the grinding wheel and checked the bushing provided were properly in place and they were so it is the grinding wheel itself that is out of round and will never run true. I looks to also have a wobble side to side but I wasn't about to turn on the grinder again. Using Amazon messaging assistant to send a message to Northern Tool & Equipment (the seller) a message was sent requesting a replacement of perhaps a different grinding wheel as I noticed that there are many people complaining to have had the same problem as I have with this particular grinding wheel. Had I checked the comments before buying this grinding wheel I would have never bought it with so many complaints. I thought Norton Products were good quality but that seems not the case here. I will issue a follow up commentary when I see what Northern Tool & Equipment respond. Hopefully it will be positive as I hear they have a good reputation.

liked the 7 inch size ,liked the grit,the plastic bushings where not good enough, chose to buy aluminum bushings, at additional cost...

I'm a hyper mechanical genius. I rebuilt and restored 3 antique grinders in 30 days. I've built grinders with belt drive pulley shafts. I've owned every power tool, and have built my own machinery using a hacksaw and files, and a welder, since 1997. But these grinding wheels are just atrocious.Cons: The paper is too thin on the side, preventing the grinder from being repeatedly removed and re-tightened for applications where you have to change out grinding wheels frequently. For example, if you're using the same grinder for buffing applications or wire wheel applications, and you need to remove the abrasive grinding wheel for a polishing project.Cons: The wheel, despite using a diamond wheel and having the wheel absolutely straight and true, shook so bad on my 7" grinder that I could not use the grinder at all. I removed the Norton wheel, after I had shaved about 1/16" of material off of it using a flat bar diamond dresser, and I reinstalled an original 1965 Craftsman grinding wheel that was factory original, and it had significantly less vibration than the Norton, even before dressing the wheel.Cons: The nylon 4 centering bushings are loose and fly onto the ground. In the year 2024, with thousands of people complaining about this exact issue, and with aftermarket companies making expensive aluminum flanges for centering grinding wheels, perhaps you could consider changing the manufacturing process to make the bushings a press fit? Perhaps they should not fall onto the ground when you open the package?Pros: The abrasive looks to be high quality. Norton is a very good brand, and I'm sure these grinding wheels are outstanding, in terms of reliability and the correct abrasive. Aluminum oxide can be made sharp, or it can be made dull. Friable (sharp) aluminum oxide rapidly degrades, but produces much better grinding results. I'm sure Norton really knows how to make an extremely rapidly wearing grinding wheel that wears out extremely fast, which is ideal for fast material removal without overheating the metal and ruining the temper.

The grinding wheel arrived undamaged (thank you Amazon) and rang true when tested. The reason for making these wheels in a 1" size is to reduce manufacturer cost (increase profit perhaps) by not having to make multiple wheels for different sized arbors.The tolerances on the blue plastic spacers are terrible and render the wheel unusable in its packaged form.You will need to provide your own quality reducer/spacer if these wheels are to operate smoothly and safely.