Guides / Process

The Alternatives to Grinding, and When They Are Worth Asking About

July 27, 2026

Diamond grinding does the vast majority of technical ceramic machining, and for good reason. But there are features it handles badly and parts it breaks. Knowing the alternatives lets you ask a useful question instead of accepting a no.

Rotary ultrasonic machining

A diamond tool rotates while vibrating axially at ultrasonic frequency, typically around 20 kHz. Material is removed by microscopic hammering as well as abrasion, which keeps the cutting force very low.

Good for: small holes, deep holes, non round and shaped holes, fragile parts, thin walls, features where grinding pressure would crack the part.

Limits: slower than grinding on bulk removal, tooling is application specific and not every shop has it.

Ask about it when: your quote came back with “cannot hold that hole” or when a thin part keeps breaking in grinding. See holes, slots and threads in ceramic.

Laser processing

Usually a fibre, CO2 or short pulse laser. It removes material thermally.

Good for: cutting and scribing thin sheet, perforating, marking, creating outlines in substrates, high volume patterning.

Limits: a heat affected zone with microcracks, edge taper on thicker sections, recast and debris, plus dimensional accuracy that rarely matches grinding. Short pulse and ultrafast lasers reduce the thermal damage considerably and cost considerably more.

Ask about it when: the part is thin, the quantity is high and the cut edge is not a functional surface.

Electrical discharge machining

EDM erodes material with sparks, so it needs an electrically conductive workpiece. Most technical ceramics are insulators, which rules EDM out for alumina, zirconia and aluminium nitride.

It is usable on:

• Reaction bonded silicon carbide, which contains free silicon
• Conductive composites formulated for the purpose, for example zirconia with added titanium nitride or carbide
• Boron carbide in some grades

Ask about it when: the part is already in a conductive grade and you need a complex internal form that grinding cannot reach.

Abrasive waterjet

A high pressure jet carrying garnet abrasive. It cuts almost anything, including ceramics, without heat.

Good for: rough cutting blanks to shape before grinding, separating parts from plate, reducing the stock a grinder has to remove.

Limits: edge chipping, taper and a tolerance that is not in the same conversation as grinding. Treat it as a blanking process, not a finishing one.

Ask about it when: you are paying for a lot of material removal on a simple outline. Roughing on a waterjet and finishing on a grinder is a real cost saving on some parts, and it is covered in what drives ceramic machining costs.

The route that beats all of them for complex shapes

Green machining. Before firing, the material cuts with ordinary carbide tooling, so features that require ultrasonic or laser work in the sintered state become ordinary milling and drilling. The price is shrinkage and looser tolerance, which is why the hybrid route exists: cut the complexity green, fire, then grind only what carries tolerance. See green machining or hard grinding.

What this means for your RFQ

You do not need to specify a process. You need to describe the feature that is causing trouble and ask whether there is another way to make it. A shop with ultrasonic capability will say so. A shop without it may quote a grinding workaround, or decline.

That is one of the reasons we match a request to more than one shop. Capability in this niche is uneven, and the second quote often solves the feature that the first one could not.

Send your drawing and we match it with up to 3 shops, including shops with non grinding processes. Reply within 24 business hours.

Frequently asked questions

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