What is the difference between grinding and deburring?

Your newly machined part looks great, but it has sharp, dangerous edges. If you leave these burrs on, parts won’t fit together correctly, and you risk a serious cut. But what’s the right way to remove them, and is that process different from general grinding?

The main difference is intent and precision. Deburring is a specific process focused only on removing sharp, unwanted edges (burrs) for safety and fit. Grinding is a broader manufacturing process used to remove material to achieve a precise shape, dimension, or surface finish.

As a manufacturer of abrasive tools¹ for nearly three decades, we at Reliable see this question come up all the time with our B2B clients. The terms are often used together, but they are not the same. Deburring is really a type of grinding, but it’s a rougher, less precise form. Understanding the difference is key to ordering the right tools and achieving the right result. It’s the difference between simply cleaning an edge and creating a part with high-precision² dimensions.

Is deburring grinding?

You need to clean up a rough edge on a workpiece. Is the tool you need a "grinding" tool or a "deburring" tool? Picking the wrong one can take off too much material and ruin a good part.

Yes, deburring is a form of grinding. It uses abrasive action to remove material. However, it is a very specific type of grinding that focuses only on removing the burr from an edge, not on changing the main dimensions or surfaces of the part.

Think of grinding as the main category, and deburring³ as one specific job within that category. The overall goal of grinding is to use abrasives to remove material. Deburring fits this description. But its goal is very limited: just break the sharp edge. For example, after we use a large cutting disc to cut a steel pipe, a burr is left on the edge. You could use a big, powerful angle grinder to remove that burr, and technically you’d be grinding. But it would be clumsy. A better tool would be a smaller abrasive, like a mounted point or a flap wheel, that gives you more control. This allows you to remove just the burr without accidentally gouging the main surface of the pipe. So, while deburring is grinding, it’s a targeted, less aggressive version of it.

Grinding vs. Deburring: A Closer Look

What is the difference between deburring and polishing?

Your part is finally deburred, and all the sharp edges are gone. But the surface still looks dull and feels rough. Confusing the next step will stop you from getting that smooth, mirror-like finish.

Deburring removes unwanted chunks of material (burrs) from an edge. Polishing is a finishing process that uses very fine abrasives to smooth an entire surface, removing microscopic scratches to make it shiny. Deburring is about function; polishing is about a high-quality surface finish.

These are two different stages of a complete finishing process. Imagine a production line. First, a part is cut or machined. Second, it is deburred to remove the sharp edges for safety and proper assembly. At this point, the part is functional, but its surface is still relatively rough. The third step, if needed, is polishing⁴. Polishing does not remove much material. Instead, it uses progressively finer abrasive grit⁵s to smooth out the tiny peaks and valleys on the part’s surface. This reduces friction and increases reflectivity. You deburr a structural bracket so it fits. You polish a stainless steel medical instrument so it’s perfectly smooth and easy to sterilize. At our factory, we supply coarse abrasives for deburring and ultra-fine abrasives for polishing; they are fundamentally different products for different jobs.

Deburring vs. Polishing: Step by Step

What is the difference between deburring and reaming?

You have a drilled hole that is rough and doesn’t meet the size specification. Just cleaning the edge won’t fix the problem, and parts won’t assemble correctly. You need to distinguish between cleaning an edge and sizing a hole.

Deburring a hole uses an abrasive tool to remove the burr from its entrance or exit. Reaming is a precision cutting process that uses a sharp, multi-fluted tool (a reamer) to enlarge a hole to an exact diameter and create a very smooth internal finish.

The key difference here is the process type: cutting versus grinding. Reaming is a cutting process, like drilling but much more precise. A reamer has a set of sharp, hardened steel cutting edges that shave a tiny amount of material from the inside of a hole to bring it to a very precise final size. It fixes the hole’s diameter. Deburring is an abrasive process. A tool for deburring a hole, like a cone-shaped mounted point we might produce, uses grit to grind away the burr at the edge of the hole. It only cleans up the edge; it does not accurately change the hole’s diameter. In high-precision manufacturing, these two processes are partners. A machinist might drill a hole, ream it to the perfect size, and then deburr the entry and exit points to finish the job.

Two Different Solutions for Holes

What are the two main types of grinding?

You tell a supplier "I need a grinding wheel," but this phrase is too general. This could result in getting a wheel that is totally wrong for your machine and will not produce the result you need.

The two fundamental types of industrial grinding are surface grinding and cylindrical grinding. Surface grinding is used to produce flat surfaces. Cylindrical grinding is used to produce round or cylindrical surfaces on a part.

Nearly every grinding application is a variation of one of these two processes. Surface grinding involves holding a workpiece on a flat, magnetic chuck and moving it back and forth under a spinning grinding wheel. This precision process is used to create perfectly flat, parallel surfaces on things like machine bases, mold components, and square blocks. Cylindrical grinding is used for round parts. The workpiece is mounted between centers and rotated while a grinding wheel moves in to grind the outside diameter. This is essential for manufacturing parts like engine crankshafts, bearings, and precision shafts. There are also variations like internal grinding (for the inside of a hole) and centerless grinding (for high-volume production of small pins), but they all fall under this broader classification. Understanding which type you do is the first step to selecting the right wheel from our factory catalog.

Two Families of Grinding

Conclusion

Deburring removes rough edges, while grinding is a broader process for precision shaping. Understanding these differences ensures you select the correct abrasive tool for a safe, efficient, and high-quality result.