Thread: Power Sharpening Options

I'd look for a 24 grit wheel for the grinder and go locate a $5 diamond point refreshing tool on aliexpress.

24 grit wheels are not as hard, even in the cheap trim, as the finer wheels - they aren't even similar to the 36 grit tool room wheels.

If you're worried about bluing tools, use a light touch and lightly spray (squirt bottle, whatever) water on the back of a chisel or plane iron. You'll find out that it doesn't steam off in most cases.

I have two multitool attachments, but they are for heavy grinding on a high power grinder. They're fast, but I would still do maintenance grinding on a wheel grinder- it's easier to do it accurately. Have also had a tormek in the past (long gone) and two smaller grinders and three other belt sanders.

Wheel grinder. I use the contact wheels on the multitool stuff to grind bevels on newly made chisels - but the way I do it isn't something you would do day to day. Multitools are crude and inaccurate, better suited for rough grinding. Their platens do not have a smooth type of operation like you'll see on a 2x72 legitimate belt grinder, and the belt isn't tensioned over the platen as much.

if you grind something more than once a week, I wouldn't want a tormek, but some people love them.

I use 24 grit wheels on an 8" full speed grinder by the way, and couldn't tell you the last time I overheated an edge.

Thanks for the input! I managed to dig up Derek Cohen’s blog article about power sharpening, he seems to do it the same way I was envisioning it.

Yeah I wasn’t sure if the Linishing side would be a generally useful tool to have, my day to day work is as a Builder. I don’t have any experience with them though. I thought this might be a good buy?

ABBOTT & ASHBY 8" Dual Speed Bench Grinder w/ Aa362 Linishing Attachment AA362W8DS | Total Tools

I like the idea of the Tormek, I’m going to borrow one for a few days next week from a friend and see if I like it, but I still think for my needs a bench grinder is the way to go. Just a matter of getting the right tool rests and accessories. I did see the VicMark system too but not sure if that’s right for me either.

what is the volt x amps for you in australia.

Something of that type can be useful, especially if you want to reprofile chisel bevels shallower - the belt grinder is superior to anything wheel wise, but you also have the wheel.

Multitool is australian, right? I have two of them and I vaguely recall they're china made, but the company is from australia. They are crude like I mentioned, but so far durable and I have ridden my two hard making chisels, knives and plane irons.

The one in the foreground is fitted with a 24 grit wheel, and the one in the background with a larger contact wheel has a 36 grit narrow wheel on the wheel side.

My machines run between 1300-1400 watts under full heavy load, but some large fraction of that would be good enough. On the wheel side, you'll never need that kind of power, but if you get a bigger belt you'll appreciate having a kw or more power. If it's in the 500-700 watt range or something, I'd move on to something else. That'll do for the wheel, but not turning the belt at high speed.

There is nothing in any kind of wheel that compares in heavier profiling to a 36 grit ceramic belt at high speed. The bevels on these chisels are all established after the chisels are hardened and tempered -both the end and the sides, and you can do all of it in about 10-12 minutes per chisel including finish passes and adjusting the thickness of the chisel, never getting any part of the chisel hot enough to steam water.

If you do buy that grinder and multitool belt setup with a tiny modification you can put it on the LHS of the grinder. I did, because it suited me better.
Rgds,
Crocy.

I’ve had a tormek t8 and all attachments for a year or two, also with a diamond wheel. find it very useful for repeatability and across all hand tools and variety of blades. But as others have said very slow

So I’ve recently picked up one of the older model vicmarc slow speed bench grinders as it had two cbn wheels both 80 and 180grit for re shaping blades but also my wood turning chisels

Wood turning chisels were painfully slow on the tormek so I’ve setup the bgm-100 on the vicmarc so I can swap over the attachments from both grinders depending on the grinding task I have.

I then have water stones up to 10,000 and a dowel with sandpaper for moulding planes etc.

This so far rounds out my sharpening needs and I’m glad I came across the slow speed grinder recently as that’s really sped up my turning sharpening compared to the tormek.

Cheers
Nathan

At one point, I mentioned on the UK forum that I didn't see the point of the tormek as I"d had two - a knock off and then the real thing. I gave my real thing to George Wilson in a horse trade - or really more as a gift, but that always results in a returned gift.

But I realize now after Graham Haydon pointed out to me more or less - in some shops in the UK, you can't get insurance that will allow a spark, and too on top of that, the CBN wheels and others will put a lot of particles in the air where the tormek doesn't.

But as you imply, if you get in the groove with something that needs a little more, it can wear on your nerves to wait for it.

If I had an infinitely big shop, I'd probably have kept mine, but I don't have infinite places to leave things out.

I'd recommend getting a CBN wheel and sticking it on your current grinder, no need for slow speed grinder as CBN wheels do not heat your tools any where near as quickly as regular grinding wheels does

The Tormek is great for its jigs, but not exactly the most cost effective solution, i do like the low noise and dust suppression it offers. Also might be worth considering the T4, but if you're buying new by the time you add the jigs it comes so the same cost as the T8.

Having said all that, i mostly use my water stones to sharpen my tools, power sharpening is used only for turning tools or when i need to reshape a tool which isn't very often for me.

Yeah the current bench grinder is 6” and leaves a very pronounced hollow grind which is fine on some tools but not really ideal for others. I had thought of just putting a CbN on it, but the cost of the wheel is pushing me towards going up a size to the 8”. No pouring money into something that doesn’t work, that grinder only cost me $70 and it has well and truly paid it’s way.

i agree about the T4 vs T8 pricing if your going to get one the T8 stacks up better as it has more inclusions.

it seems dual speed grinders are tricky to find! I still think I’ll end up with an 8” Grinder, a CBN wheel and a good tool rest, just trying to figure out what the best option or combination of the above is.

thanks,

Originally Posted by Ando967

Thanks for the input! I managed to dig up Derek Cohen’s blog article about power sharpening, he seems to do it the same way I was envisioning it.

Yeah I wasn’t sure if the Linishing side would be a generally useful tool to have, my day to day work is as a Builder. I don’t have any experience with them though. I thought this might be a good buy?

ABBOTT & ASHBY 8" Dual Speed Bench Grinder w/ Aa362 Linishing Attachment AA362W8DS | Total Tools

I like the idea of the Tormek, I’m going to borrow one for a few days next week from a friend and see if I like it, but I still think for my needs a bench grinder is the way to go. Just a matter of getting the right tool rests and accessories. I did see the VicMark system too but not sure if that’s right for me either.

Hi Ando

I have have my set up 9 years now, and it has not changed one iota. The 180 grit CBN wheel gets most use for day-to-day blade prep, with the 80 grit CBN wheel used for heavy grinding. Both continue to cut very well (I cannot say that they feel new, because I cannot determine this). The BGM-100 Tormek tool rest is fantastic, takes seconds to set up each time, can dial in any angle, and may be used with all the Tormek lathe jigs as well. It is like a Tormek on steroids!

Here is my original article: https://www.inthewoodshop.com/Woodwo...ningSetUp.html

An up-to-date photo below. There is a second 8" half-speed bench grinder, and this is set up with two cloth wheels, one tightly sewn and one with loose cloth leaves.



The tightly sewn wheel is used for standard buffing, while the loose sewn one is used for David's Unicorn Profile (which you need to look up and read about. Well worth it): Searching For Unicorns In A Field Of Abrasives And Wood - Metallurgy, Toolmaking, and Heat Treatment - WoodCentral Forums

The remainder of my sharpening station looks like this. I am fortunate to have running water in my garage/workshop ...



A few details for those interested: Hinged board for stability and to clean under. Waterstone holder with stop/fence, and rubber mat from Bunnings ...





Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks for showing that Derek. I came across this today, does anyone have one? It seems like a good option to add some efficiency to the process? And being a wet CBN there’s no dust issue, plus the benefits of sharpening other items?? Probably the most expensive solution to my conundrum.

Knife Grinders

The other issue I’ve seen with CBN wheels is having a decent quality grinder that has a decent tolerance on the shaft and thread??

Originally Posted by Ando967

Thanks for showing that Derek. I came across this today, does anyone have one? It seems like a good option to add some efficiency to the process? And being a wet CBN there’s no dust issue, plus the benefits of sharpening other items?? Probably the most expensive solution to my conundrum.

Knife Grinders

The other issue I’ve seen with CBN wheels is having a decent quality grinder that has a decent tolerance on the shaft and thread??

there aren't many grinders that I've come across where the accuracy of the grinder is the problem. And some of the very good grinders have very crappy flanges, but that's not an issue with an accurately milled CBN wheel.

I would avoid anything on that site for tools. the site is somewhat jarring in the first place, but your takeaway from what you see there is you need a grinder and a wheel. And if needed, you can add a novel rest setup (or adaptation of tormek, etc) of some sort.

I made the comment about dust just from noticing it in the air. however, I've never seen it to be an issue and would not want to try to come up with a drip or lube system on a dry grinder to deal with it - a vacuum hose sitting on top of the grinder would pull in anything significant.

Admittedly, I've never used a particle counter near the grinder for maintenance sharpening, but doubt you'll find anything significant doing that - it's dust backlit somehow that is evident.

If it's absolutely necessary, you can actually use a weed sprayer or something mounted above your wheel dripping water - just nearly close the thing and it will drip for a long time in exactly the same place. that would eliminate dust. I've used a water drip for tool and knife making now for a long time, or some variation on it - it greatly helps with cooling. it does fling a mist on a high speed wheel, or at least can, but it is effective and the cost to set up something like that is the cost of a hand pump sprayer. At this point with four machines that see the drip or see water on a regular basis, I have rust issues on zero of them. But they see the drip for cooling while toolmaking or cutting the full bevel on a plane iron or chisel, which is something I do in less than two minutes from a square edged chisel that is fully hard. With a drip, the bevel never gets too hot to touch.

Hi
I'm a bit late to this thread, but a low cost option is to replace the standard GREY wheels on your bench grinder with white aluminium oxide wheels. I understand that WHITE aluminium oxide wheels run a bit cooler than the standard GREY (silicon carbide?) wheels fitted to most grinders. You can also get BLUE and BROWN aluminium oxide wheels -- I believe the colours are associated the type of aluminium oxide the wheels are made from and are not just a marketing ploy.

Before making the switch, check that your Ryobi grinder's speed does not exceed the recommended spin rate for the new WHITE wheel. As David said, low grit [24] GREY wheels will generally grind faster and cooler than the higher grits.


Also, silicon carbide is a known dust disease (silicosis) risk. Depending on how you use your grinder, you may wish to monitor dust levels in your workshop.

There is but one issue with the really coarse wheels - when they're aluminum oxide, how do you grade them and keep them true. The typical T shaped CBN thing that comes from china for $5 to maintain a wheel is unbelievably good, but they do get eaten by 24 grit wheels.

single point diamond dressers in the US used to be sort of an industrial supply item and expensive. Out of curiosity, I looked on aliexpress last week and got *five* of them for $8.50 shipped to the US for my large wheels (24 grit wheels when making chisels in quantity become something you replace a couple of times a year, they will grade themselves under regular use but can get out of round, which is where one of these is needed).

Capture2.PNG

when i copy the link to the actual item, it says =USA, so I didn't bother to copy it here. You'd probably be redirected and these things are all over the place with word aggregator titles like "5pcs 10mm Wheel Dresser Dressing Diamond Grinding Shaping Pen Tool Metalworking"

Originally Posted by Ando967

Thanks for showing that Derek. I came across this today, does anyone have one? It seems like a good option to add some efficiency to the process? And being a wet CBN there’s no dust issue, plus the benefits of sharpening other items?? Probably the most expensive solution to my conundrum.

Knife Grinders

The other issue I’ve seen with CBN wheels is having a decent quality grinder that has a decent tolerance on the shaft and thread??

Best of luck with them. I got an email from them in response to my query saying they will get back to me, but they never did so I am looking for an alternative wheel from the US.
Rgds,
Crocy.