Electro-plating is a process whereby the superabrasive grains are held in place by a nickel matrix which is deposited electro-chemically onto a metal substrate body. Generally speaking, such tools are single layer tools. The grains are classified in size according to FEPA or ANSI standards.

Depending on the application, the composition of the nickel matrix may be adapted by incorporating a variety of organic or inorganic filling materials.
The selection of these fillers depends on the following application criteria: Hardness, Power of adhesion, Resistance to wear, Density.
The body must be electrically conductive. The type of steel, however, is of minor importance for the electro-plating process but should be known to ensure optimal pre-treatment and subsequent final adherence of the grains to the nickel matrix, given the exposure of the tool to high cutting forces.

Generally, the deposited grains should be embedded to the level of at least half their nominal grain size.

This level of embedding leads to the highest possible concentration of abrasive grains and chip clearance spaces. Concentration and chip clearance can be varied substantially and in a controlled manner to create a tool which is perfectly adapted to its specific grinding task.
The high number of exposed cutting edges illustrates the advantages of electro-plated grinding wheels: Aggressive cutting ability, Ability to cope with hard and soft « long chipping » materials, High material removal capacity.

Given the same grit size, resulting surface finishes of surfaces ground with electro-plated wheels tend to be rougher that surfaces ground with other bonding systems (resin, vitrified or metal bonded). Over time, the surface finish will, however, improve due to micro-crystalline wear on the cutting edges and due to the overall increase of active cutting edges. This translates, to some extent, into a variable surface finish over the tool life. The stationary range of the resulting surface finish is, however, considerably broad.

The end of tool life has been reached when the height of the superabrasive layer has been worn to such an extent that the overall volume of chip clearance has become negligible and the cutting edges and the bond matrix are on the same level. In many cases, however, measures can be taken to regenerate the superabrasive layer, or alternatively, the undamaged substrate body can be nickel-stripped and be replated.
This translates into time and cost savings.

Many types of abrasive grains could be plated onto substrate bodies. These include aluminium oxides, silicon carbides, zirconium oxides, boron carbide and many more.

Reishauer, however, restricts itself to the so-called superabrasives such as cubic boron nitride (CBN) and diamond, and, of course, encompasses a great range of variants within these two types of abrasives.