Grinding and Polishing Steel: What Matters

Depending on which production steps are used for economic surface treatment, it is important to choose the right grit in the abrasive. Some tips for grinding and polishing are summarized below:

• The workpiece should be kept as cool as possible.
• When changing the grinding grit size, the workpieces and the tool must be thoroughly cleaned to avoid carrying over coarser grit from the previous step.
• Care must always be taken to ensure the parallelity of the grinding direction.
• The coarsest grit that can achieve the desired surface quality requires the least processing effort.
• Abrasives and grinding wheels previously used for other metals, especially iron and low-alloy steel types, should not be used to avoid the risk of foreign rust formation.
• After pre-grinding, grind in various grit steps up to grit 220 to remove all scratches. The smallest errors become more visible with finer grit, which can lead to a cloudy grinding pattern. For longer grinding objects, transitions are often unavoidable. Using a brush head can help. A specially designed grinding device with a slotted grinding belt between horsehair brushes allows for seamless and cloud-free grinding.
• An exact pre-grind is a prerequisite. With the brush grinding head, you achieve the characteristic grinding pattern of well-known sheets and save significant time. A beautiful grinding pattern can be achieved with a grit size of 150.

For a lower roughness depth, plastic fiber materials should be used. The various grit grades – coarse, medium, fine, very fine, and ultra-fine – should not be confusing. The achieved effect is crucial:

• Silky smooth shine
• Well-structured grind
• Decorative finish
• Low roughness depth

Similar surfaces with the same roughness depth can also be achieved with grinding discs and plastic fiber discs in rotating processes. This grinding method is often used, for example, for smoothing spot welds, removing rust oxides, or eliminating surface discoloration.

Our tip: Use Trizact™ grinding discs and belts for fine grinding up to pre-polishing. The uniformity of the structured pyramid surface of the Trizact™ abrasive provides a reproducible and consistent grinding result. With Trizact™, the number of grinding steps can be reduced and efficiency increased.