Metal Bond Diamond Tooling

Match the bond inversely to the concrete: soft bond on hard concrete, hard bond on soft or abrasive concrete. Our color coding makes this quick — gray and yellow are the soft and extreme soft bonds, black is medium, and purple is the extreme hard bond. Getting this backwards is the most common reason tooling either glazes over or wears out in an afternoon.

For coating removal and heavy leveling, start at 16/20 or 30/40 grit. For a slab that only needs to be flattened before polishing, 30/40 is usually the right first cut, then step to 60/80. We stock 16/20, 30/40, 60/80 and 120/150 so you can build a full progression without skipping steps, which is what causes scratch patterns.

Our trapezoid tooling fits the standard quick-change plates on the common ride-on and walk-behind grinders, and we also make wheels and trapezoids to fit specific machines, including Lavina® and Hilti® style plates. These are World Diamond Source tools built to fit those machines, not OEM parts. Tell us your grinder and we will confirm the plate.

Segment count changes how aggressive the tool is and how it finishes. A single round segment concentrates pressure for fast, aggressive cutting on coatings and high spots. Quadruple round segments spread the load over more diamond, so they cut smoother, last longer and are the better choice for flattening and refining passes.

It depends far more on the slab than the tool: aggregate hardness, surface contamination, machine weight and water all change wear rates dramatically. As a guide, expect thousands of square feet per set on clean concrete with the correct bond, and a fraction of that on hard aggregate with a mismatched bond. If a set is wearing unusually fast, it is almost always the wrong bond.