Grinding consists of removing material from a workpiece with the use of a rotating abrasive wheel or disk. While rotating, each particle of the grinding wheel removes a small chip of the workpiece material as its abrasive edges make contact with the workpiece, usually at high speed.

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Cylindrical Grinding, as its name implies, has to do with the grinding of cylindrical shaped objects, parts or components. Also known as “center-type grinding”, this grinding process is done with a part, or workpiece, held in place between two centers by a carrier (also called a lathe dog or a grinding dog) which transfers the rotation movement from the spindle. The grinding disk or wheel, installed on a seperate spindle can be ajusted at various angles depending on the workpiece final requirements.

In the case of Surface Grinding, the workpiece is held in place on a flat surface either by an electromagnet, by vacuum or some mechanical means. Surface Grinding is used primarely to obtain a desired surface finish or smoothness, precise angularity, perpendicularity and flatness tolerances.

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As for other grinding methods, some of the advantages of cylindrical and surface grinding are: