Quality 4-1/2" Grinding Discs & Cut-Off Discs

[Mike Hutchison]

I am thinking about buying a corded grinder. Have some metal work that is too large for the Dremels.
Any recommendations about discs for the tool that are higher quality than Home Depot's stock items?
Don't want to be worrying about discs shattering while I'm trying to get the hang of the new tool.
I guess what brought this on was remembering stories about carbide tips coming off of blades on some of the Depot's saw blades.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I buy 4-1/2" cut off wheels in 10 packs from Harbor Freight. They are just as good as the Forney ones our local hardware store sells that cost 5 times as much. Going from cutting metal with a Dremel to using an angle grinder is like changing from a chicken to an ostrich, the difference will be huge. Use both hands on the grinder(with the side handle) and just try to keep from making the cutting disc flex and you'll be fine.
Zach

[Matt Day]

Yup, get a $20 grinder and discs from HF. My Makita is a slight bit quieter and has less vibration, but it’s not a big deal.

[Warren Lake]

get a grinder with a speed control, I go for that one almost all the time and adjust speed to what im doing. other grinders I have run at full speed, its noiser and often not needed plus you can remove stuff faster than planned, you can finese better with the speed control, less gyroscopic effect as well at lower speeds.

[Stephen Rosenthal]

I scored a new in box 4” Makita for $10 at a garage sale and use HD discs. They work just fine.

[John K Jordan]

I am thinking about buying a corded grinder. Have some metal work that is too large for the Dremels.
Any recommendations about discs for the tool that are higher quality than Home Depot's stock items?
Don't want to be worrying about discs shattering while I'm trying to get the hang of the new tool.
I guess what brought this on was remembering stories about carbide tips coming off of blades on some of the Depot's saw blades.

I buy mine from the industrial welding suppliers - grinding, thin cutting, flap sanding disks, wire brushes, etc. All pro quality. Never a shatter.
Most of the disks are reinforced with some type of fiber mesh and are quite strong.

I don't know what the cost of quality industrial disks are compared to the cheapies but they have never been unreasonable. And I'd rather pay extra for good quality than to work with what was likely bought in bulk from the lowest bidder. Same thing with the grinder itself. I have four or five and none were cheap (Milwaukee, Makita, Dewalt, and such) but some have had heavy use for 20 years. I know you can get very inexpensive angle grinders from the cheap tool store and they will replace them forever when they break but when I'm working the last thing I want to do is have to stop in the middle of the project and spend two hours driving to the cheap tool store for a replacement.

JKJ

[Ray Newman]

John K Jordon is on to it!

[Zachary Hoyt]

My experience with a HF grinder was not good, it burned out in an hour or two of use, and my DeWalt which I have had for 10 years and dozens of hours is still running like new. The consumables seem just as good at HF as elsewhere, the discs are shatterproof. They can be ruined if you let the grinder wiggle while cutting, but with practice this will not happen, and the expensive ones can get cracked too.
Zach

[Tom M King]

I have so many different kinds, and brands of disks, and in spite of good intentions, I can't remember to think about making comparisons when I'm using one. I'm sure I have all brands of 4-1/2" grinders well represented. I do know that the cheap diamond wheels don't last anything like as long as the higher priced ones.

I do buy the cheap grinders from Walmart (before there was a HF anywhere near here) for using on masonry along with a water hose. I never wanted to subject a good one to a water hose, but didn't want to breathe the dry dust. They last longer than you might expect, even with that treatment.

I will say that the smoothest running, and what seems impossible to kill 4-1/2" grinder has been a 39.95 Hitachi from Lowes. That one ran every day, all day for several weeks, and it still gets used when the wire brush on it gets the call. On a trip through Lowes, I was going to buy another one, just because, but saw that the same grinder now has the Metabo name on it. That one is still in the box, so I can't comment on it yet.

The second favorite, behind the Hitachi, is a Makita that I think cost double what the lighter green one did.

[Alex Zeller]

I friend who owns a sprinkler business buys a lot of HF tools (like grinders). He says you have to replace the grease on the gears and they don't last that long but for him it makes sense. Between theft and employees being rough on tools the expensive ones didn't last any longer. That being said if I was to buy a HF grinder I would buy the most expensive one they sell. I have several DeWalt brand ones that are a couple of steps up from the lowest cost versions. Look for how many amps they draw, anything above 10 amps will allow you to do heavy grinding without letting the smoke out.

As for grinding wheels, I've tried them all and now buy them from Harbor Freight. They may wear out a little quicker but not enough to offset the price difference. I've never had one shatter and I've gone through hundreds of them over the years. The local hardware store sells Forney, Bosch, and Norton brands. They usually sell for up to $5 each for a 1/4" one. For a couple bucks more I can get a 10 pack from HF.

[Jim Andrew]

I have a Makita that is probably 30 years old, still works fine, and a Hitachi that came from Menards on sale, both work fine, but the discs I like best are the thin cutting wheels from Harbor Freight. They will cut metal very well, especially if you use just the edge of the blade. Running the blade deep in the cut shortens the life.

[Bryan Lisowski]

I'm in the HF camp for both the grinder and discs. I don't use often enough to justify anything more expensive.

[H. Gregory Porter]

I am thinking about buying a corded grinder. Have some metal work that is too large for the Dremels.
Any recommendations about discs for the tool that are higher quality than Home Depot's stock items?...


Bad Dog Tools. Lifetime warranty. Buy once, cry once!

[Richard Coers]

I've found that cutoff wheels rated for stainless steel to be the best for my use. I don't know if it's a different compound, or resin, but they last much longer cutting steel. No particular brand.

[Bruce Wrenn]

For cut off wheels, I like the Lennox diamond ones from Lowes. Cost less than twenty bucks, and will outlast a stack of fiber ones. For angle grinder, (40+years) I have owned a B&D industrial, which I paid $39.99 for. Last year, cutting a bathtub into, it let the magic smoke out. Dewalt said no parts available, so they couldn't rebuild it under 1/2 cost of new program. Fast forward to this year, and my Dewalt also let out magic smoke. Looked up parts,and guess what, parts are available. Both grinders use the exact same parts, so now I will force Dewalt to make good on their warranty. Picked up a $9.99 special from HF to tide me over, but haven't used it yet. First thing I noticed on HF grinder is lower part of gear box is plastic, but for ten bucks who cares.

[Lon Crosby]

Second the diamond blade.

[Ole Anderson]

Nothing wrong with the 4 1/2" cutoff discs from HD. They are usually either Dewalt or Diablo. I bought a five pack of Porter Cable discs for my new battery cutoff grinder from Lowes.

[Ole Anderson]

Second the diamond blade. I tried the diamond blade and bent it on the first cut when it caught and dropped to the floor. Operator error or design? Returned it.

[Jacob Reverb]

Lehigh Abrasives

[Joe Rogers]

I tried the diamond blade and bent it on the first cut when it caught and dropped to the floor. Operator error or design? Returned it.
You dropped the tool and bent the blade and returned it. Correct?
Joe

[Randall J Cox]

I have a Milwaukee factory refurbished grinder and use HF discs. Never had an issue with either. I actually think they sell new items labeled refurbished so you think you are getting a deal. I have all sorts of power tools bought "refurbished" and never had an issue with any of them in 15-20 years. Bought a new Milwaukee 18v power tool combo kit new within the last couple of months and so far have had to send the 1/2" drill back and also the 1/4" impact back as neither worked right. They sent me new ones under warranty. Randy

[Ole Anderson]

Joe, Yes I did. When I tried to flatten the blade it bent like it was a price of annealed steel, not hard like a saw blade. Not happy with the design, or maybe it was a bad batch. And it didn’t seem to cut nearly as fast as a traditional abrasive blade.

[Pete Staehling]

The disks from pretty much any vendor are fiber reinforced and not going to shatter. I have not found that it makes all that much difference what brand I buy. I have some dewalt ones and some cheapie ones at the moment and don't see much difference. I don't know about anything more premium than that since I never saw a reason to even try anything more expensive.

As far as the grinder itself... The dewalt that I have now is nicer than the HF one that I used to have, but they both worked okay. The dewalt is better designed ergonomically and will probably last longer, but I really didn't think the HF was bad. Not sure what happened to the HF, somehow it didn't make the move to Florida with me. It might have been in mom's garage when she passed and went with the estate clean out of all of dad's old stuff otherwise I'd most likely still be using it.

[roger wiegand]

Since discovering diamond blades there's been no looking back. I started with some store brand cheapies, they were OK (cut well but wore out quickly), upgraded to Makita disks and they seem to be lasting forever. One blade got me through all the little trim cuts for building and rock veneering my pizza oven and is still going strong.

My main use for the angle grinder now is to run the little Arbortech 2" RO contour sander. Wish I could find something dramatically smaller, lighter, quieter, and more compact for that use.

[John K Jordan]

Since discovering diamond blades there's been no looking back. I started with some store brand cheapies, they were OK (cut well but wore out quickly), upgraded to Makita disks and they seem to be lasting forever. One blade got me through all the little trim cuts for building and rock veneering my pizza oven and is still going strong. [quote]

I haven't tried diamond for masonry but I use one made for steel, mostly for cutting rebar when I don't want to haul out the larger tools. Purchased from HD. Works well.

[QUOTE=roger wiegand;2997017]My main use for the angle grinder now is to run the little Arbortech 2" RO contour sander. Wish I could find something dramatically smaller, lighter, quieter, and more compact for that use.

I haven't used that but from looking on the Arbortech site it appears to be a random orbital sander made for just for angle grinders. Do they have a version that fits on their power carver motor? I have one and I think it's a lot smaller than my angle grinders.

If you use ROS a lot have you considered a pneumatic ROS? I use three and the Grex is my favorite for most sanding on wood turnings. I don't rotary power sanding any more. The Grex is very small, light-weight and comfortable to hold and quiet compared to my angle grinders. I keep a 2" sanding pad on one and a 1" pad on a second.

427132

I keep a 3" pad on a pneumatic palm sander which works well for shallow curved surfaces.

427133

JKJ

[Mark Daily]

Yup, get a $20 grinder and discs from HF. My Makita is a slight bit quieter and has less vibration, but it’s not a big deal.
+1 I bought the HF grinder 10 years ago and used their disks for 3 years to grind and cut rusted bolts off a military truck I was restoring. The grinder still runs like a champ despite lots of use & abuse and never had a disk break. The thin disks cut through metal like butta lol!

When I bought it I figured it might get me through the restoration but I haven’t been able to break it yet.

[roger wiegand]

[QUOTE=roger wiegand;2997017]
If you use ROS a lot have you considered a pneumatic ROS? I use three and the Grex is my favorite for most sanding on wood turnings. I don't rotary power sanding any more. The Grex is very small, light-weight and comfortable to hold and quiet compared to my angle grinders. I keep a 2" sanding pad on one and a 1" pad on a second.
JKJ

That little Grex looks about perfect. Unfortunately I think it would require a significant compressor upgrade and the tool budget is pretty stretched at this point. Hoping to have the current compressor last long enough that I can sandwich a bigger, better bandsaw in before it needs replacing.

Not too familiar with air tools, my compressor alleges that it can do 11 cfm at 90 psi, the sander seems to want 8. Am I correct in thinking that's too close to full capacity?

[John K Jordan]

[QUOTE=John K Jordan;2997088]

That little Grex looks about perfect. Unfortunately I think it would require a significant compressor upgrade ...
my compressor alleges that it can do 11 cfm at 90 psi, the sander seems to want 8. ...

The air used depends on how fast you run it. I typically use slow sanding speeds and the air use is low. I think it should work fine with your compressor even at full speed. Remember to oil occasionally.

Buy from Joe Fleming at Airbrushingwood and I suspect he would take it back if you were not happy with it.

JKJ