This article contains a conversion table, which assists in the conversion of ASTM number to average grain intercept length. It also includes a table that lists European and U.S. grit numbers with their approximate particle size for metallographic grinding papers.

This article describes the secondary operations for cemented carbide parts, namely, diamond grinding, honing, electrical discharge machining, and brazing after sintering to achieve desired results, such as specified size, shape, edge condition, and surface finish.

Superabrasives collectively refer to the diamond and cubic boron nitride (CBN) abrasives used in grinding applications. This article discusses the classification of superabrasive wheels according to a variety of sizes and shapes, construction, concentration, and bond systems. It provides information on the applications of the superabrasive wheels depending on the factors of the grinding system. These factors include machine tool variables, work material, wheel selection, and operational factors. The article describes the methods available for superabrasive wheel truing in production grinding operations, namely, stationary tool, powered, and form truings. It reviews the truing methods, such as truing with abrasive wheels and hard ceramics, for batch production. The article explains practical methods available for dressing CBN wheels, namely, abrasive stick, abrasive-jet, slurry, and high-pressure waterjet dressing. It concludes with information on the conditioning process of the CBN wheel.

Rough grinding and polishing of specimens are required to prepare fiber-reinforced composite samples for optical analysis. This article discusses the consumables, process variables, and the equipment that influence the sample preparation procedure. It describes the hand and automated grinding methods. The article summarizes the rough and final polishing steps for both hand and automated techniques. Common artifacts that may be created during grinding and polishing steps of composite samples are reviewed. These include scratches, fiber pull-out, matrix smears, streaks, erosion of different phases, and fiber and sample edge rounding and relief.

The ultrasonic machining (USM) process consists of two methods, namely, ultrasonic impact grinding and rotary USM. This article lists the major ultrasonic components that are similar to both rotary USM and ultrasonic impact grinding. It also provides schematic representations of the components used in rotary USM and ultrasonic impact grinding. The article describes the operations of the components of the rotary ultrasonic machine and ultrasonic impact grinding machine. It discusses the applications of the rotary ultrasonic machine: drilling, milling, and surface grinding. The article concludes with information on machining characteristics of ultrasonic impact grinding.

Lapping is the lower-pressure, lower-speed, and lower-power application of the use of fixed abrasives. This article begins with a discussion on the process capabilities of lapping and reviews the selection of abrasive and vehicle for lapping. It describes the methods of lapping outer cylindrical surfaces, namely, ring lapping, machine lapping between plates, centerless roll lapping with loose abrasives, and centerless lapping with bonded abrasives. In addition, the article discusses the methods employed for lapping of outer surfaces of piston rings, crankshafts, inner cylindrical surfaces, flat surfaces, end surfaces, spherical surfaces, balls, spring like parts, and gears. It also reviews the problems in flat and end lapping. The article concludes information on the use of lapping in accelerated wearing-in process for matching and aligning components of bearing assemblies.

Honing serves an important purpose of generating specified functional characteristics for surfaces besides removing stock and involves the correction of errors resulting from previous machining operations. This article discusses the process capabilities of honing in terms of bore size, bore shape, and stock removal. It illustrates the uses of air, ring, expanding, plug, and bar gages for automatic size control in power stroking of honing tools. The article provides a short description of various honing processes, such as external honing, gear tooth honing, plateau honing, flat honing, electrochemical honing, and hone forming. It also examines various process parameters in microhoning and concludes with information on the applications of microhoning.

Mechanical finishes usually can be applied to aluminum using the same equipment used for other metals. This article describes the two types of grinding used in mechanical finishing: abrasive belt grinding and abrasive wheel grinding. It reviews the binders and fluid carriers used in buffing, and discusses satin finishing and barrel finishing. It also describes lapping and honing techniques that are of special interest in treating aluminum parts that have received hard anodic coatings. Honing recommendations for aluminum alloys are presented in a table.

This article begins with a description of the advantages and disadvantages of thermal spraying. It provides a discussion on the importance of substrate processing prior to coating and the role of undercutting in repair. The article reviews the steps for substrate preparation, namely, cleaning, roughening, masking, and preheating. Information on the equipment and process variables of dry abrasive grit blasting are also provided. The article describes the roles of spray stream and the spray pattern for all thermal spray processes. It discusses the defects arising from poor temperature control and from the variables influencing the manipulation of the spray torch. The article concludes with helpful information on calculating the process efficiency of thermal spraying.

Passivation; pickling, that is, acid descaling; electropolishing; and mechanical cleaning are important surface treatments for the successful performance of stainless steel used for piping, pressure vessels, tanks, and machined parts in a wide variety of applications. This article provides an overview of the various types of stainless steels and describes the commonly used cleaning methods, namely, alkaline cleaning, emulsion cleaning, solvent cleaning, vapor degreasing, ultrasonic cleaning, and acid cleaning. Finishing operations of stainless steels, such as grinding, polishing, and buffing, are reviewed. The article also explains the procedures of electrocleaning, electropolishing, electroplating, painting, surface blackening, coloring, terne coatings, and thermal spraying. It includes useful information on the surface modification of stainless steels, namely, ion implantation and laser surface processing. Surface hardening techniques, namely, nitriding, carburizing, boriding, and flame hardening, performed to improve the resistance of stainless steel alloys are also reviewed.