>Cutting discs are not designed for sideways pressure, and should never be used as grinding discs.
After having several of them fly around the shop and try to make swiss cheese out of my face, I am of the opinion they are best used to keep my coffee cup from leaving rings on my bench ;P
Just yesterday I cut a bar of hardened tool steel 3 1/2" wide and almost an inch thick in the middle. One side tapers radically making it almost a a pyramid shape. I sliced it with a cutoff disk, did not disturb the temper of the steel, and it hardly took much diameter off the disk either.
Of course, when I started with these disks, I promptly sent myself to the hospital for 6 stitches!
They bite if you screw up.
They are the kind of tool that I am afraid won't be on the market forever. You can screw up and hurt yourself any number of ways with them. Perfect lawsuit material and some greedy lawyer will class action them out of business one day, at 40%.
But meanwhile, they do work nothing else can do. Fast and gentle on the work as long as you guide them in a very straight line.
So enjoy them while you can.
I love flap disks too, btw. Fast and pretty, you can get a pretty decent finish right from the disk with practice.
The little grits hurled at lightspeed can go all the way --through-- an eye though,
so never fail to wear your face shield.
Another great invention they will take away from us one day.
yours Scott