I was thinking about picking up a silicone carbide "green stone" for grinding carbide. In my milling operations I do generate a bit of broken carbide. I was thinking if I could grind it to fit specialty tools made to clamp or hold on the shaft sizes I might never need to buy another insert again.
Will a standard star wheel dressing tool square up a green stone when it gets worn?
It's hard to get a really sharp edge on carbide with a green stone. If you don't need a sharp edge, they work OK. That's what I use, but I finish with a diamond hone because my lathe doesn't have the power to run chamfered-edige cutting tools and I need a sharp edge. It probably would be smarter to go diamond all the way.
I don't use a lot of carbide so I put up with my klutzy approach.
A diamond-tipped dressing tool works a lot better on a vitrified silicon carbide wheel.
Heck, I use a diamond hone to finish my HSS tooling too.
I would go to AliExpress and get a diamond dressing tool. I just looked and there are some for less than $2 including shipping.
Not sure if a standard star dressing tool will work, it probably will but a diamond dressing tool is cheap. ( well not at MSC. )
Dan
A standard star wheel will dress a green stone. But If I was you I wouldn't even consider using a green stone for grinding carbide. Use a diamond wheel. They can be had cheap from China, will way outlast silicon carbide, and they grind carbide to a much finer edge. Much, much finer. Much, much, much finer. And much betterer too. Really. I grind a lot of custom carbide tooling for use in my shop. I use diamond abrasives exclusively for this. Eric
Squaring the face is not the only issue. Silicon carbide depends for its performance on having sharp grains. They're inherently sharper than those of aluminum oxide, and they have to be for the wheel to cut cleanly.
A diamond dresser gives you sharp grains. A star wheel dresser just crushes the binder.
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