Proposal for die polishing using a new bonding abrasive type grinding stone: Development of MAGIC grinding stone

Although the full automation of die manufacturing has recently developed markedly, manual polishing is still necessary for die because precision dies have in general three-dimensionally complicated shapes. Complicated and narrow areas of the die are difficult to be polished with the conventional grinding stone. This study proposes a new bonding type grinding stone and introduces its manufacturing process and characteristics. Here, the new bonding type grinding stone is called MAGIC(MAGnetic Intelligent Compounds) grinding stone. MAGIC grinding stone has many advantages as follows: 1) Manufacturing such grinding stone that can follow die shapes using the shape transfer method is possible, 2) Grinding stones in which abrasive grains are uniformly dispersed can be manufactured using magnetic particles and a magnetic field, 3) It is possible to reshape the grinding stone by heating since the binder is made of a thermoplastic resin, 4) Every process can easily be carried out. Stabilized polishing characteristics using MAGIC grinding stone can be predicted from polishing experiment.