Grinding wheel in the context of "Millstone"

Grinding is a type of abrasive machining process which uses a grinding wheel as cutting tool.

A wide variety of machines are used for grinding, best classified as portable or stationary:

Honing is an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on a metal workpiece by scrubbing an abrasive grinding stone or grinding wheel against it along a controlled path. Honing is primarily used to improve the geometric form of a surface, but can also improve the surface finish.

Typical applications are the finishing of cylinders for internal combustion engines, air bearing spindles and gears. There are many types of hones, but all consist of one or more abrasive stones that are held under pressure against the surface they are working on.

A grinding machine, often shortened to grinder, is any of various power tools or machine tools used for grinding. It is a type of material removal using an abrasive wheel as the cutting tool. Each grain of the abrasive on the wheel's surface cuts a small chip from the workpiece via shear deformation.

Grinding as a type of machining is used to finish workpieces that must show high surface quality (e.g., low surface roughness) and high accuracy of shape and dimension. As the accuracy in dimensions in grinding is of the order of 0.000025  mm, in most applications, it tends to be a finishing operation and removes comparatively little metal, about 0.25 to 0.50  mm depth. However, there are some roughing applications in which grinding removes high volumes of metal quite rapidly. Thus, grinding is a diverse field.

An abrasive saw, also known as a cut-off saw or chop saw, is a circular saw (a kind of power tool) which is typically used to cut hard materials, such as metals, tile, and concrete. The cutting action is performed by an abrasive disc, similar to a thin grinding wheel. Technically speaking this is not a saw, as it does not use regularly shaped edges (teeth) for cutting.

These saws are available in a number of configurations, including table top, free hand, and walk behind models. In the table top models, which are commonly used to cut tile and metal, the cutting wheel and motor are mounted on a pivoting arm attached to a fixed base plate. Table top saws are often electrically powered and generally have a built-in vise or other clamping arrangement. The free hand designs are typically used to cut concrete, asphalt, and pipe on construction sites. They are designed with the handles and motor near the operator, with the blade at the far end of the saw. Free hand saws do not feature a vise, because the materials being cut are larger and heavier. Walk-behind models, sometimes called flat saws are larger saws which use a stand or cart to cut into concrete floors as well as asphalt and concrete paving materials.