Similarities and Differences between Grinding and Machining

Last Updated on April 4, 2022 by Leizi

You may feel doubt about whether the process of grinding belongs to machining. What are the similarities and differences between them? Let’s dive further into grinding and machining!

What Are Grinding and Machining?

Compared to other processing methods, grinding’s uniqueness is that it cuts the material by its grinding wheel. It is often applied when we need to get metal parts with a very smooth surface and high quality.

Machining refers to that applying CNC machines to exact the material by milling, turning, and drilling. Many companies in the fields of automotive and aerospace apply it to make low-volume prototypes to do product development.

The similarities between grinding and machining?

(1). Both grinding and machining process the materials by exacting extra material.

(2). They work on solid materials.

The differences between grinding and machining?

Although grind belongs to machining processing, there are still differences between them.

(1). Machining is used for extracting the material on the lumpy material to get parts of a specific size. Meanwhile, we apply grind to do more precise processing on the surface of the machined parts.

(2). Their “cutters” are different. The tools of machining are usually much harder than the materials to be processed. If not, the tough materials will damage the machining cutters directly. At the same time, the grinding wheel is produced of silica, resin, and metal.

(3). The accuracy that can be achieved by grinding and machining is different. Through grinding, we can get the parts of higher precision.

(4). Different machining cutters work on the specific material with precise size. And grinding tools have no specified geometry.

(5). Compared to grinding, machining won’t produce much heat during processing. During grinding, it may produce sparks, which means that it will create much heat and affect the toughness of the workpiece.

General speaking, grinding is an effective way to do secondary machining on the machined parts. We often combine CNC machining and grinding to make high-precision metal parts. If you get any interest in machining and grinding, you can send us a message and we would be happy to respond to you within 2 hours: emily@szrtmj.com