Looks good initially but ........... even if it lasts longer the cutting speed is certainly slower. With Al of course even with that, it seems to show loading up of cutting surfaces - a problem with regular disks too. One benefit might be virtually none of the air particle pollution that makes for a black nose snot! Thanks for the demo Rob - agree with your appraisal.
I've looked at them many times and wondered how good they are. Mostly the wet ones, not these newer dry type. I have cut concrete and bricks with stone cutting fibre discs. You can actually use them on steel as well, but the finish is a bit rough. Cheers Rob
Interesting review Rob, thanks for posting it. I don't do a lot of cutting using the angle grinder so I think I'll stick with the regular disks. Cheers, Alan.
Gday Rob, I’ve got the same maktec angle grinder and had it for bloody years, I can’t kill it, I’ve also got 2 5” makita grinders and the maktec is the one I always use first, I expected it to years ago but still going like the day I unboxed it, great review but I think I’ll stay with the old school discs, Matty
I agree Matty on everything you mentioned. For rough take apart/salvage type work I think they are a good idea. But for fine, clean cutting they are not so good. Horses for courses as one viewer said. Apparently they work well on cast iron. I was thinking about trying it on some, but the video was getting a bit long so passed up on that. I was interesting to see how they perform, as I have often looked at them in Bunnys and wondered if they are worth the money. Nice of GRAFF to send one for review. They had offered a number of times, but only later did I think, what the hell, lets check it out. I think this type of video answers a lot of burning questions in home workshop minds, with no cash outlay, when done honestly. Cheers Rob
Good review Rob, i will deff be sticking with the good old carb disc. I much prefer the quicker cleaner cuts of the carb disc's, i also get much the same results that you see between the carb disc's & the diamond when i use the little 25mm diameter disc's on my Dremel as well.
I have some of those small Dremel sized diamond discs but have never got around to using them. I generally go with the 75 x 0.8 mm ally oxide discs. They cut pretty much anything ferrous very cleanly. Cheers Rob
This review is very interesting Rob. I note that in the pre test cuts there is a mark on one portion of the wheel, (Diamond) and that may be part of the out of balance/vibration that you mentioned in this video. Another thing I will note is the diamond is proud of the metal that it is bonded to and as such is less likely to wear on a taper as I have experienced in the past, especially on deep cuts in tough/hard materials. I only use Brand Name XXFXXX wheels as I have found them as good as any other on the market that I can easily purchase. Having said that they will not cut Tungsten Carbide and do not like Cobalt HSS so I can see room for a Diamond Wheel in my small shop, as you said horses for courses Good review Rob. Merry Christmas and happy/safe New Year to ALL. Cheers from John, Australia.
One of the benefits of the aluoxide discs is that the smaller discs (125mm) are just 1mm thick, and as this has to remove a lot less material than larger discs (usually 2mm at 230mm diameter) or diamond wheels like this (3mm), they're much faster and creates a lot less dust even when considering the wear on the disc.
Interesting and well balanced review Rob. I guess it is a case of horses for courses. The individual cuts take longer but you save time on blade change overs and less mess to breathe in or have to sweep up. Removing the risk of blade fracture is important as well as maintaining the depth of cut. I could see a use for me when scrapping old school furniture. I burn through the fibre blades and the loss of cutting depth is a pain and a hazard. Quality of cut is not important for that job, just busting down the furniture into easily stored scrap components.
Hi Mark, if finish is not important then this disc is good for what you intend to do with it. Less mess and constant cutting depth are two big pluses. As you say, it's horses for courses. Cheers Rob
Try it on some tungsten carbide or HSS . You want to try the twin cut saw from Ozito! I need one of those diamond wheels for gashing my endmills in my tool grinder, i had one carbide cutter to sharpen and wasn't it a chore doing it with an angle grinder and a cutting disk !
Hi George, I expect it would go very well, as the thin sharp edge of the sheet can't tear up the disc as with aluminium oxide. However, the cut is likely to be burred more. I would have liked to try more materials, but a video can only be so long ;) Cheers Rob
I tried the Lenox diamond blade, and your experience lines up with mine - it's slow. There's an upside in terms of less smoke and soot, and it maintains its diameter, but it's just too slow.
The diamond disk would be handy when you need the full disk radius at all times. Apart from that it seems a little average performance-wise, it seems to generate a lot more heat in the material too looking at its colour.
Ive used quiet a few dimond cut offs in the last few years and the issue ive had with each was inconsistencies with the dimond media meaning that parts would wear or chip off much faster then others and that was across 4 brands....be interesting to see a long term review
They might be slow but they are rough... Don't think I'll bother, they seem a bit gimicky and besides... I love the smell of aluminium oxide in the morning
G’day Rob. Your review is the second I’ve seen today, same results even though you are both a world apart. Can’t say I’m impressed and buy one for $29 AUD plus postage from USA to see if it outlast the normal disc,”I DON’T think so” Enjoy your freebie and tell us later how long it lasts. Cheers Peter
I have seen a very similar product sold by Bunnings for half the price - Flexovit. Maybe check that out if this type of blade is of interest. Cheers Rob
Well, when you file aluminum, you use chalk to keep the aluminum from melding itself to the deepest bits of the valleys. With a cutting disc you basically cause the surface to melt and then toss it off the mother material with the rubbing motion. I doubt there's any "good" and clean way to cut aluminum with any disc. I do know we used methylated spirits to cut aluminum on the lathe and shaper, (low speed use) it didn't stick to the HSS, but ruined the carbide tips, with or without the spirits.
I have used regular aluminium oxide cutting discs in 75 mm on the lathe and they work well, even on the hardest of metals that a regular slitting saw wouldn't touch. Give a beautiful clean cut, but you have to clean up all the residue afterwards Cheers Rob.
Looks good initially but ........... even if it lasts longer the cutting speed is certainly slower. With Al of course even with that, it seems to show loading up of cutting surfaces - a problem with regular disks too.
One benefit might be virtually none of the air particle pollution that makes for a black nose snot!
Thanks for the demo Rob - agree with your appraisal.
Great review there Rob. I have used diamond blades to cut concrete but never metal.
I've looked at them many times and wondered how good they are. Mostly the wet ones, not these newer dry type. I have cut concrete and bricks with stone cutting fibre discs. You can actually use them on steel as well, but the finish is a bit rough. Cheers Rob
Interesting review Rob, thanks for posting it. I don't do a lot of cutting using the angle grinder so I think I'll stick with the regular disks. Cheers, Alan.
Good, honest comparison. Thanks for sharing.
Gday Rob, I’ve got the same maktec angle grinder and had it for bloody years, I can’t kill it, I’ve also got 2 5” makita grinders and the maktec is the one I always use first, I expected it to years ago but still going like the day I unboxed it, great review but I think I’ll stay with the old school discs, Matty
I agree Matty on everything you mentioned. For rough take apart/salvage type work I think they are a good idea. But for fine, clean cutting they are not so good. Horses for courses as one viewer said. Apparently they work well on cast iron. I was thinking about trying it on some, but the video was getting a bit long so passed up on that.
I was interesting to see how they perform, as I have often looked at them in Bunnys and wondered if they are worth the money. Nice of GRAFF to send one for review. They had offered a number of times, but only later did I think, what the hell, lets check it out.
I think this type of video answers a lot of burning questions in home workshop minds, with no cash outlay, when done honestly.
Cheers Rob
Good review Rob, i will deff be sticking with the good old carb disc. I much prefer the quicker cleaner cuts of the carb disc's, i also get much the same results that you see between the carb disc's & the diamond when i use the little 25mm diameter disc's on my Dremel as well.
I have some of those small Dremel sized diamond discs but have never got around to using them. I generally go with the 75 x 0.8 mm ally oxide discs. They cut pretty much anything ferrous very cleanly. Cheers Rob
Good test, Robbie.
This review is very interesting Rob. I note that in the pre test cuts there is a mark on one portion of the wheel, (Diamond) and that may be part of the out of balance/vibration that you mentioned in this video. Another thing I will note is the diamond is proud of the metal that it is bonded to and as such is less likely to wear on a taper as I have experienced in the past, especially on deep cuts in tough/hard materials. I only use Brand Name XXFXXX wheels as I have found them as good as any other on the market that I can easily purchase. Having said that they will not cut Tungsten Carbide and do not like Cobalt HSS so I can see room for a Diamond Wheel in my small shop, as you said horses for courses Good review Rob.
Merry Christmas and happy/safe New Year to ALL. Cheers from John, Australia.
The vibration is from the coarse cutting action as a result of the low grit rate.
One of the benefits of the aluoxide discs is that the smaller discs (125mm) are just 1mm thick, and as this has to remove a lot less material than larger discs (usually 2mm at 230mm diameter) or diamond wheels like this (3mm), they're much faster and creates a lot less dust even when considering the wear on the disc.
Good review Rob thanks.
Interesting and well balanced review Rob. I guess it is a case of horses for courses. The individual cuts take longer but you save time on blade change overs and less mess to breathe in or have to sweep up. Removing the risk of blade fracture is important as well as maintaining the depth of cut. I could see a use for me when scrapping old school furniture. I burn through the fibre blades and the loss of cutting depth is a pain and a hazard. Quality of cut is not important for that job, just busting down the furniture into easily stored scrap components.
Hi Mark, if finish is not important then this disc is good for what you intend to do with it. Less mess and constant cutting depth are two big pluses. As you say, it's horses for courses. Cheers Rob
Try it on some tungsten carbide or HSS .
You want to try the twin cut saw from Ozito!
I need one of those diamond wheels for gashing my endmills in my tool grinder, i had one carbide cutter to sharpen and wasn't it a chore doing it with an angle grinder and a cutting disk !
Interested to see how it would go on sheet metal ie: corrugated roofing. Thanks for the video Rob
Hi George, I expect it would go very well, as the thin sharp edge of the sheet can't tear up the disc as with aluminium oxide. However, the cut is likely to be burred more. I would have liked to try more materials, but a video can only be so long ;) Cheers Rob
I tried the Lenox diamond blade, and your experience lines up with mine - it's slow. There's an upside in terms of less smoke and soot, and it maintains its diameter, but it's just too slow.
Flexovit also make them. Bunnies have those and Lenox are at Mitre Ten (and Bunnies I think). Cheers Rob
The diamond disk would be handy when you need the full disk radius at all times. Apart from that it seems a little average performance-wise, it seems to generate a lot more heat in the material too looking at its colour.
Agree. It also is not as smooth to use and will run off line more easily. Cheers Rob
Won't be switching anytime soon!
Cool !!!
Might be OK for sharpening carbide tools in the right set up.
Ive used quiet a few dimond cut offs in the last few years and the issue ive had with each was inconsistencies with the dimond media meaning that parts would wear or chip off much faster then others and that was across 4 brands....be interesting to see a long term review
Interesting comment Rob. I will have to see how it goes long term. Flexovit sell a similar product in Australia. Cheers Rob
From what I've seen, this was a long term review lol
Sounds like more power might help. Also would it cut better if you had less blade in the cut ?
Not really. The discs can only cut at their design speed.
For every hour spent grinding, you spend two with a steel blade. However you didn't try a different speed and possibly a slower speed works better?
angle grinders only have one speed - as fast as possible.
They might be slow but they are rough... Don't think I'll bother, they seem a bit gimicky and besides... I love the smell of aluminium oxide in the morning
I just don’t know if I like it had to change to something different
G'day Rob. Have you tried it cutting an old bit of carbide ?
No.
G’day Rob. Your review is the second I’ve seen today, same results even though you are both a world apart.
Can’t say I’m impressed and buy one for $29 AUD plus postage from USA to see if it outlast the normal disc,”I DON’T think so”
Enjoy your freebie and tell us later how long it lasts.
Cheers
Peter
I have seen a very similar product sold by Bunnings for half the price - Flexovit. Maybe check that out if this type of blade is of interest. Cheers Rob
Rob, Would some WD40 or similar have stopped the diamond disc from loading up with aluminium chips?
Hi Mike. I expect so, but the high speed would throw it around badly and it would not last/stay in place very long. Cheers Rob
Well, when you file aluminum, you use chalk to keep the aluminum from melding itself to the deepest bits of the valleys.
With a cutting disc you basically cause the surface to melt and then toss it off the mother material with the rubbing motion.
I doubt there's any "good" and clean way to cut aluminum with any disc.
I do know we used methylated spirits to cut aluminum on the lathe and shaper, (low speed use) it didn't stick to the HSS, but ruined the carbide tips, with or without the spirits.
I've always used kerosene to stop aluminium galling on the lathe and metal cutting bandsaw. Works very well. Cheers Rob
@@Xynudu That is a much cheaper alternative!
Thanks for that info.
I wonder why my genius boss insisted on the spirits....
Kerosene is used for cutting aluminum also.
It says manufactured in PRC which means Taiwan
Wrong. PRC is mainland China : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#People%27s_Republic_(1949%E2%80%93present)
PRC stands for People's Republic of Taiwan? What is this, Common-Core acronyms?
Can you use it for other things, like slitting saw?
I've not seen that done.
Way too slow
Interesting thought. Sure beats worrying about the sharpness of a slitting blade.
I have used regular aluminium oxide cutting discs in 75 mm on the lathe and they work well, even on the hardest of metals that a regular slitting saw wouldn't touch. Give a beautiful clean cut, but you have to clean up all the residue afterwards Cheers Rob.
I think they would be too slow for me, probably stay with the cheap ones. Thanks for the review & video.
I'll take my portable bandsaw any day over both of them
Hahahaha 30 dollars a disc!! That's like 45 beavers Canadian!