The bond holds the diamond crystals in the diamond tool for the abrasive grinding process of the diamond to the slab surface. Grinding is a mutually abrasive process of the tool and the slab surface but with diamonds being extremely hard with respect to the slab surface, the wear rate of the tool is significantly less than the slab surface. The size of the diamond crystal can dictate the grinding speed and effectiveness in penetrating non-abrasive coatings or sealers, and progressively smaller diamond crystal sizes can remove the scratches from the previous step. For the tool maker, it is important to create a bond based on the quality of the diamond, the size of the diamond and the abrasiveness of the slab surface, so that the bond allows diamonds to wear, fracture to expose new sharp edges, as well as to release old diamonds. If the bond is softer than an optimum bond, the bond will wear away faster and can cause more diamonds to pull out before those diamonds can wear down or fracture, causing the life of the diamond tool to be very short. If the bond is harder than an optimum bond, the bond will have an excess of diamonds that are rounded and worn out, without enough old diamonds being released and replaced with new diamonds and eventually the surface of the diamond tool will glaze over and lose its effectiveness as a grinding tool.

The diamond in a tool is defined by three basic parameters: the quality, the size, and the concentration. The synthetic diamonds used in diamond grinding tools are sorted and graded by the shape of the crystal and the impact strength using quantifiable metrics. The diamonds are also sorted by physical size referred to a grit size. As the grit size increases, the actual size of each diamond crystal decreases. The diamond concentration in the tool is a measurement of the total carat weight of the diamonds per a unit volume of the bonded tool. Typically, diamond tool makers do not define the tools with the diamond quality or concentration. The design of the tool involves so many ingredients so that knowing just several ingredients without understanding all the variables could confuse more than clarify how it impacts the tool performance.