Norton Grinding Wheel, Gemini Bench and Pedestal Aluminum Oxide Bench Grinder Wheel, Medium Grit 8 Inch Grinder Wheel, Pack of 1

I was looking for a fine hard grinding wheel and this wheel was perfect. Overall it was great but the packaging was not good and there was a small chip on one side of the wheel, I am keeping it as the chip does not interfere with grinding.

Just when I thought the bearings on my grinder were toast, I bought a new wire wheel and this grind wheel and all is right again. It's balanced and cuts well.

Seams to be of good quality.Sharpens my mower blades.

Upon installing this on my grinder with a 5/8" arbor and turning it on the grinder and my whole work bench shook violently and things fell off onto the floor. I immediately shut down the grinder and found upon closer inspection that the grinding wheel was badly out of round by 1/8-3/16th of an inch causing the violent shaking. I removed the grinding wheel and checked the bushing provided were properly in place and they were so it is the grinding wheel itself that is out of round and will never run true. I looks to also have a wobble side to side but I wasn't about to turn on the grinder again. Using Amazon messaging assistant to send a message to Northern Tool & Equipment (the seller) a message was sent requesting a replacement of perhaps a different grinding wheel as I noticed that there are many people complaining to have had the same problem as I have with this particular grinding wheel. Had I checked the comments before buying this grinding wheel I would have never bought it with so many complaints. I thought Norton Products were good quality but that seems not the case here. I will issue a follow up commentary when I see what Northern Tool & Equipment respond. Hopefully it will be positive as I hear they have a good reputation.

liked the 7 inch size ,liked the grit,the plastic bushings where not good enough, chose to buy aluminum bushings, at additional cost...

I'm a hyper mechanical genius. I rebuilt and restored 3 antique grinders in 30 days. I've built grinders with belt drive pulley shafts. I've owned every power tool, and have built my own machinery using a hacksaw and files, and a welder, since 1997. But these grinding wheels are just atrocious.Cons: The paper is too thin on the side, preventing the grinder from being repeatedly removed and re-tightened for applications where you have to change out grinding wheels frequently. For example, if you're using the same grinder for buffing applications or wire wheel applications, and you need to remove the abrasive grinding wheel for a polishing project.Cons: The wheel, despite using a diamond wheel and having the wheel absolutely straight and true, shook so bad on my 7" grinder that I could not use the grinder at all. I removed the Norton wheel, after I had shaved about 1/16" of material off of it using a flat bar diamond dresser, and I reinstalled an original 1965 Craftsman grinding wheel that was factory original, and it had significantly less vibration than the Norton, even before dressing the wheel.Cons: The nylon 4 centering bushings are loose and fly onto the ground. In the year 2024, with thousands of people complaining about this exact issue, and with aftermarket companies making expensive aluminum flanges for centering grinding wheels, perhaps you could consider changing the manufacturing process to make the bushings a press fit? Perhaps they should not fall onto the ground when you open the package?Pros: The abrasive looks to be high quality. Norton is a very good brand, and I'm sure these grinding wheels are outstanding, in terms of reliability and the correct abrasive. Aluminum oxide can be made sharp, or it can be made dull. Friable (sharp) aluminum oxide rapidly degrades, but produces much better grinding results. I'm sure Norton really knows how to make an extremely rapidly wearing grinding wheel that wears out extremely fast, which is ideal for fast material removal without overheating the metal and ruining the temper.

Works perfect.

Just so everyone knows. Even though the 10" diameter wheel says it has a 1-1/4" diameter hole size, it includes spacers to enable you to use this grinding wheel on grinders that have 1", 7/8", or 3/4" spindle diameter.

This grinding wheel fit my 5” grinder without any issues. It also came with all the necessary shims to fit my particular bench grinder. It comes with 4 shims/spacers allowing it to fit various grinder shafts. After a quick trial run, the grinding wheel was well balanced (no wobbling). Note that it’s max RPM is 4970. Check your device before you buy.

Mercis

Decent quality abrasive, but took some patience to get it to turn true and not wobble. Poor quality arbor bushings.