A dresser is used to restore the abrasive wheels of a bench grinder, which become clogged and dull with use. The dresser removes worn abrasive and foreign material to expose fresh abrasive and even out worn areas. Different types of dressers include star dressers, dresser sticks, and diamond dressers.
A dresser is a tool used to renew or dress up the abrasive wheels of a bench grinder. These grinding wheels wear and become clogged with use and typically develop dull or dull edges or a hollowed-out center area. This can weaken and unbalance the wheel and cause it to break during use and seriously injure the user. Clogging of the abrasive surface of the wheel also decreases its effectiveness to the point that the wheel no longer works. To restore the profile and efficiency of the wheel to its original state, a dresser is placed on the tool holder and pressed against the wheel as it is spinning to restore it.
Grinding wheels consist of a granular abrasive compound mixed with a bonding agent and pressed into shape. With use, this abrasive matrix is stripped from the wheel causing the original profile to deteriorate and the remaining abrasive particles to become dull and round. At the same time, the wheel picks up particles of the workpiece material that clog the pores or spaces between the abrasive grains. This leads to the smoothing or glazing of the wheel surface which is often seen as shiny, reflective areas. To correct these conditions, the wheel must be dressed or refurbished using a dresser.
A wheel dresser is typically a long handle with a variety of different tool heads attached. One of the most common is the star dresser which consists of a number of freely rotating hardened discs arranged at right angles to the handle. These discs are serrated or toothed and held in a U-shaped frame with a tool bearing lip on the underside. To dress the grindstone, the grindstone is turned on and allowed to reach its maximum operating speed, then turned off again. The lip of the tool holder is then hooked to the tool holder to ensure stable operation and the toothed discs brought up against the slowdown wheel.
When force is applied to the dresser, the discs rotate at the same speed as the wheel and the serrations or fingers of the discs remove a dull layer of abrasive and any foreign material lodged on its surface. This exposes fresh abrasive and evens out worn areas of the wheel. Other types of dressers include dresser sticks, which are made of the same material as the wheel with a much stronger bonding agent, and diamond dressers which have a single industrial diamond or matrix of finer diamonds at their tips. These all perform the same function of exposing fresh abrasive and removing foreign material by removing worn abrasive from the grindstone.
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