The cornerstone of the Krebs & Riedel grinding wheel factory in Bad Karlshafen, Germany was laid some 125 years ago. Today the family owned company operates worldwide as a manufacturer of individually manufactured precision grinding wheels.
Customers from the automotive, aerospace, mechanical engineering, medical technology and wind power sectors rely upon the high-precision products manufactured by Krebs & Riedel. In addition to conventional internal and external grinding wheels, cutting wheels, cup wheels and grinding segments with ceramic and synthetic resin bonds, Krebs & Riedel also manufactures CBN and diamond tools with ceramic bonds.
The company has subsidiaries in China and India, as well as 30 international distributors including Coventry-based Advanced Grinding Solutions here in the UK. A team of application technology consultants looks after customers worldwide.
Krebs & Riedel is a specialist in the field of gear applications and supplies leading manufacturers around the globe. These grinding wheels are used on many gear grinding machines including Gleason, Kapp-Niles, Klingelnberg, Liebherr, Mitsubishi, Reishauer and Samputensili.
Single profile and composite tools for fine or polishing grinding operations are available to achieve fine surface quality and high load-bearing characteristics. These combinations can be combined and delivered with tried and tested compositions as well as with the Blue Moon specification.
Advanced Grinding Solutions now supplies Krebs wheels to several top UK gear manufacturing companies who are able to call off specially profiled wheels for gear production on fast deliveries. Under agreement, Krebs can keep customers’ blank wheels in stock and on order will profile to suit and then supply within just two or three days.
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Blue Moon grinding wheels[/caption]
Blue Moon 147A and 148A are specifications for increased economic efficiency through extended dressing cycles and increased removal rates during the grinding process. By using special abrasive grain geometries and compositions in combination with an optimised pore space design, ease of cutting with little heat input and high cutting performance is achieved. Unprofiled or pre-profiled for modules 1-12 are available according to customer specifications for grinding speeds up to 80m/s
Krebs & Riedel produces a wide range of dressable grinding worms with a ceramic bond for gear machining. All specifications guarantee high profile accuracy with low thermal loads on the workpiece. The combination of Krebs & Riedel grinding worms with fine grain or polishing worms creates powerful tools that enable grinding and polishing in a single application. Unprofiled or pre-profiled compound screws are available for modules 0.8 - 5 with larger variants achievable on request.
Krebs & Riedel also offers a new carbon fibre base body variant for CBN and diamond abrasives. The use of carbon fibre guarantees maximum strength with the lowest weight with the body being up to 75% lighter than a comparable steel body.
In addition to easy handling during assembly, smooth running is guaranteed which means the load on the grinding spindle is lower. In addition, the carbon fibre variant offers significantly better damping properties than conventional base bodies on interrupted cuts and grinding processes with changing contact conditions.
The carbon base bodies are often used when machining small filigree components for improved surface quality. With the new CBN wheels, an increase in productivity can be achieved through enhanced stock removal and improved service life. Thanks to the fact that the base body can be re-assigned, economic efficiency is also achieved, despite the higher material price. Working speeds are up to 100m/s – but depending on the composition, higher speeds can also be achieved.
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Smaller diameter CBN wheels for bore and jig grinding applications[/caption]
Chris Boraston, managing director at Advanced Grinding Solutions comments: “When selling very high precision grinding machines that cost from £250,000 to well over £1 million, it’s important that only the best grinding wheels are used.
“Krebs & Riedel are very process focused and study a customer’s application in fine detail before suggesting what type of wheel should be used.
“Furthermore, we can rely upon the support of technical engineers who will also help set-up a customer’s grinding machine to ensure that test wheels on trial bring improvements in quality, cycle time, or often both.”
He continues: “We now hold extensive stocks of Krebs grinding wheels here in the UK for same/next day delivery. Furthermore, unlike some other grinding wheel companies, Krebs understands that many end users do not want to purchase large quantities of wheels for stock and so, for most grinding applications, there is no real minimum order quantity> Where there is, we are also able to retain wheels here at our base in Coventry and supply when customers need them.
“This is important because some of our UK customers literally only order a single wheel from us two or three times a year, while others have several hundred every month. Some buy large CBN wheels that can be expensive and others need small internal grinding wheels for bore grinding or jig grinding applications.”
Advanced Grinding Solutions www.advancedgrindingsolutions.co.uk
