Buffalo Abrasive Lathe Wheels · Blue No. 461, 3" x 3/8"

• Grinding Wheels — The coarse step: it shapes the work and removes excess material.
• Flexible Silicone Polishers — The abrasive is embedded in a flexible silicone body.
• Polishing Wheels — A wheel for the smoothing steps that follow grinding.
• Buffing Wheels — Carries the polishing agent to the work.
• Abrasive Discs — Grinds and smooths with its face.
• Mounted Rubber Points — A rubber-bonded point already fixed on its own shank.
• Polishing Discs — The finer steps of the same series.
• Separating & Cut-Off Discs — A thin wheel for cutting, where an abrasive disc works on its side.
• Mounted Stones — A rigid bonded abrasive, for grinding and shaping.
• Ceramic & Porcelain Polishers — Polishes the ceramic itself, in place of a glaze layer.
• Heatless Wheels — Heatless and grinding wheels, radial discs and rubber abrasive shapes, filed under the heatless wheels name.

Heatless wheels are also filed here; no source on our allowed list describes them, so this guide does not.

Coarse tools shape the work and remove excess material; medium ones smooth out the grooves and scratches the coarse ones leave.

Surface: 0.2 micrometres of roughness is considered the threshold for a clinically acceptable restoration.

Speed: OSHA's abrasive-wheel rule has the spindle speed checked against the maximum operating speed marked on the wheel.

Reuse: the CDC states that burs, polishing points and rag wheels used on contaminated appliances or prostheses should be heat-sterilised, disinfected between patients, or discarded.

Dust: the CDC names grinding and polishing castings and porcelain among the laboratory steps that put dust in the air.