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Concept
Grinding (abrasive cutting)
Summary
Grinding is a type of abrasive machining process which uses a grinding wheel as cutting tool.
A wide variety of machines are used for grinding, best classified as portable or stationary:
Portable power tools such as angle grinders, die grinders and cut-off saws
Stationary power tools such as bench grinders and cut-off saws
Stationary hydro- or hand-powered sharpening stones
Milling practice is a large and diverse area of manufacturing and toolmaking. It can produce very fine finishes and very accurate dimensions; yet in mass production contexts, it can also rough out large volumes of metal quite rapidly. It is usually better suited to the machining of very hard materials than is "regular" machining (that is, cutting larger chips with cutting tools such as tool bits or milling cutters), and until recent decades it was the only practical way to machine such materials as hardened steels. Compared to "regular" machining, it is usually better suited to taking very shallow cuts, such as reducing a shaft's diameter by half a thousandth of an inch or 12.7 μm.
Grinding is a subset of cutting, as grinding is a true metal-cutting process. Each grain of abrasive functions as a microscopic single-point cutting edge (although of high negative rake angle), and shears a tiny chip that is analogous to what would conventionally be called a "cut" chip (turning, milling, drilling, tapping, etc.) . However, among people who work in the machining fields, the term cutting is often understood to refer to the macroscopic cutting operations, and grinding is often mentally categorized as a "separate" process. This is why the terms are usually used separately in shop-floor practice.
Lapping and sanding are subsets of grinding.
Selecting which of the following grinding operations to be used is determined by the size, shape, features and the desired production rate.
Creep-feed grinding (CFG) was a grinding process which was invented in Germany in the late 1950s by Edmund and Gerhard Lang. Normal grinding is used primarily to finish surfaces.
Official source
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Bar stock
Bar stock, also (colloquially) known as blank, slug or billet, is a common form of raw purified metal, used by industry to manufacture metal parts and products. Bar stock is available in a variety of extrusion shapes and lengths. The most common shapes are round (circular cross-section), rectangular, square and hexagonal. A bar is characterised by an "enclosed invariant convex cross-section", meaning that pipes, angle stock and objects with varying diameter are not considered bar stock.
Rotary tool
A die grinder or rotary tool is a handheld power tool and multitool used for grinding, sanding, honing, polishing, or machining material (typically metal, but also plastic or wood). All such tools are conceptually similar, with no bright dividing line between die grinders and rotary tools, although the die grinder name tends to be used for pneumatically driven heavy-duty versions whereas the rotary tool name tends to be used for electric lighter-duty versions. Flexible shaft drive versions also exist.
Power tool
A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed air are also commonly used. Tools directly driven by animal power are not generally considered power tools. Power tools are used in industry, in construction, in the garden, for housework tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and around the house for purposes of driving (fasteners), drilling, cutting, shaping, sanding, grinding, routing, polishing, painting, heating and more.