Thread: Getting and Using a Hand Cranked Grinder - Advice Please

Here are three I could get sent from the USA:



Amazon.com: Manual Hand Grinder Stone Jewelers Bench Repair Tool: Home & Kitchen

Amazon.com: Engineer TG-01 Grinder: Home Improvement

Engineer TG-02 Grinder - Amazon.com

Hi Russell

Here is a video by Alf: Sharpening a plane iron freehand - YouTube

Get a 6" 46 grit white Norton wheel and a Veritas grinder stand (or make your own).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Perhaps you could use the search function on the forum?

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Here is a video by Alf: Sharpening a plane iron freehand - YouTube

Seeing as you can't get YouTube in Shanghai, the video shows Alf cranking with her right hand while moving a plane iron back and forth with her left hand.

I contacted Alf to ask if she was left or right handed (thinking that it might be better to hold the iron in the dominant hand) she said she was right handed and simply hadn't tried it with the other hand. HTH.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Russell

Here is a video by Alf: Sharpening a plane iron freehand - YouTube

Get a 6" 46 grit white Norton wheel and a Veritas grinder stand (or make your own).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Russell,

I agree with Derek, but I would get a 1/2 inch wheel. The 1 inch is quite heavy and will bend the spindle over time.

Also, consider the method in this article, Blog: How to Grind. If you cannot locate the article, send me a PM.

With some practice and patience, you'll get the hang of it.

Cheers,

Gunn

The Chinese link doesn't look to bad; nice and solid, it appears.

I wouldn't get one shipped from the US. Probably manufactured in China; no point in paying postage for the enormous round trip.

It's not a difficult skill to acquire, just choose one chisel you don't especially value and by the time it's sharp, you'll know everything you need to. Grinding is not really a precision process - it's really just concerned about wasting away most of the hardened steel behind the edge. It's only if you grind right to the very edge (thus saving a little time on the waterstones) that a good deal of precision is important, and that's something you can really only do with a hand grinder or water-cooled grinder.

The process is made easier by a decent tool rest. Like Derek I would recommend the Veritas. However, given the relaxed pace you'll be working at (if you choose to, that is) the stock tool rest is usually fine, too - just keep an eye on where you're going.

Originally Posted by snafuspyramid

Grinding is not really a precision process ... It's only if you grind right to the very edge ... that a good deal of precision is important, and that's something you can really only do with a hand grinder or water-cooled grinder.

The process is made easier by a decent tool rest. Like Derek I would recommend the Veritas. However, given the relaxed pace you'll be working at (if you choose to, that is) the stock tool rest is usually fine, too - just keep an eye on where you're going.

My eyebrows shot up
You could equally say hand-sharpening is not a precision process ... but it depends on the individual I think.
The wood-turners - as I understand it - do their tools off the grinder, and I think there's a good deal of precision with various gouge profiles and skews etc. No reason not to be able to achieve the same with flat tools.

And I think the high-speed grinder can do all of the above ... a light touch and maybe a crowned wheel like Derek (I think) has mentioned before might help.

Cheers
Paul.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

My eyebrows shot up
You could equally say hand-sharpening is not a precision process ... but it depends on the individual I think.
The wood-turners - as I understand it - do their tools off the grinder, and I think there's a good deal of precision with various gouge profiles and skews etc. No reason not to be able to achieve the same with flat tools.

And I think the high-speed grinder can do all of the above ... a light touch and maybe a crowned wheel like Derek (I think) has mentioned before might help.

Cheers
Paul.

I thought someone would say that - and it's a good point about turning tools. which I confess I know nothing about. And I agree that the more accurate your grinding, the less work and wear on your stones. I do mean, though, that I was initially very intimidated by the "precision" required - for chisels and plane irons, especially skew irons and very wide blades. However, I think that provided you keep a close eye on what you are doing and work slowly, a little bit of practice will get you sufficiently accurate results by eye. I don't think that there is any need for jigs in grinding the tools I use. Again, however, a good tool rest helps.

With sharpening proper, on the other hand, I think that jigs are of enormous benefit and much greater accuracy is required - and of course stones need to be really absolutely dead flat (regardless of what Paul Sellers thinks).

Another thing that makes a big difference to the need for super-accurate grinding is what you actually then do with the ground edge. I personally grind until I have a whisker of the original honed edge all the way along, then use a honing guide to work at an angle slightly higher than the grinding angle to produce a polished bevel etc. Since I rarely grind all the way to the all-important cutting edge it does not matter too much what the rest of the steel looks like provided it is at an appropriate angle to support that edge. With that said, sometimes I do grind off an edge completely, and then I will make a few passes in the jig on the Sigma 120 to remove any inaccuracies in my grinding in a few seconds.

If you are honing straight off a hollow grind where the original edge is completely removed then, yes, your grinding really does need to be precise - because you are using it to form the cutting edge, which is the important bit.

Does that make sense?