Thread: Wet/dry grinder or bench stones for sharpening

G'day Harrison,
I have been through the confusing mass of info about sharpening and all the stuff you can buy, and have made my choices. I haven't done anything about this yet - been a bit busy.
1. Get a cheap bench grinder. A 6 inch one is fine, try and get one with wide grinding wheels. You need to be careful not to overheat the metal - dunk it it water and don't keep the tool on the wheel for a long time or use lots of pressure.. When you can feel the heat on the tool, take it off the grinder. A 6 inch one runs more slowly than an 8 inch at the same revs.
2. The water stones seem to be very popular. I think (and maybe the experts can help here) a 2000 grit and a 8000 would get you started.
3. The Ozito wet and dry sharpener is a good idea but I don't see how you can hold a chisel or plane on the wet wheel and it is very hard to fit a little stand. I asked a guy in Bunnings and he could not see how it worked either. It's a good idea and a good price but not well designed.
4. Use the bench grinder to get the angles right on the tool and then use the stones for the fine tuning.
5. The Tormek and Scheppach are great tools and would make sharpening more precise and repeatable, but they are expensive. I have decided that I can't justify the cost of one given the amount of sharpening I will be doing. And I can use a 6 inch grinder for other things like shaping a bit of metal.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Originally Posted by beer is good

2. The water stones seem to be very popular. I think (and maybe the experts can help here) a 2000 grit and a 8000 would get you started.

Can I suggest you go for a 6000 grit waterstone if you're getting started, instead of the 8000 grit one (I did), as they are around a third of the cost - unless cost is not an issue.

I use 1200 & 6000 grit w/stones. You'll need a nagura stone for the 6000/8000 grit w/stone.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by kman-oz

Derek and others have had much to say about the merit of sharpening a tool such that you can shave with it. In essence, being able to shave hair with an edge is not the real goal. You can easily produce an edge that you can shave with using just a grinder, but that edge may be completely inappropriate for a chisel. An edge which is the meeting point of two *very* flat, polished surfaces is the goal.

When it comes to plane irons and chisels you want to acheive a very flat and well polished back, then a very flat and well polished bevel. Using fine stones (or other very flat abrasive surfaces) is the only reliable way to acheive this. After honing with the proper technique for the tool at hand I reckon shaving with it is a reasonable test of sharpness.

In my opinion grinders should only be used for shaping and hollowing bevels. Or with a felt wheel for polishing the bevels of turning tools perhaps. A 320 grit grinding wheels will never achieve the polish of a fine polishing stone, and a felt wheel will always round the edge more than you want on either a chisel or plane iron.

The tried and tested technique is still the best, if not the fastest.

Fair enough, all this makes sense to me. The point still remains, though, once all the flatness and squareness issues are overcome, what minimum grit is necessary and sufficient to obtain a shaving blade? Some say that 1000 is not enough, 6000 is the bee's knees, do I then take it that a 6000 grit flat water stone wider than the widest plane blade I want to sharpen is what I need? The reason of my perplexity is that the Tormek wheel is only 250 grit, yet they state that a pass on the leather wheel is all that's needed to polish a ground blade. Sounds a bit contradictory with the other statements mentioned. If that is true, given that my water cooled grinder's wheel is rated at 400 grit, all I need would appear to be something as mundane as that leather wheel.

Hi Frank, may I ask what it is you are trying to sharpen, and what use you are putting the tool to?

I couldn't find an answer to that question either. I'm still building my sharpening kit, but at the moment I do it like Derek Cohen: hollow grind on the grinder, hone on a stone and then strop as necessary. However, where I deviate is that the best honing stone I have is a red DMT diamond stone, which the DMT website says is 600 mesh or 25 microns. Derek has a Shapton 15,000 or 0.9 micron.

But Derek's system is built around stropping. Veritas reckon their honing compound is 0.5 micron. So, I found could get a good edge using a 600 stone, followed by a decent stropping with Veritas honing compound. I doubt its a 15000 edge, but it gives an edge on a chisel or plane blade which does most of my work. Where I think it falls down most is on my block plane, but that could also be a tuning problem...

There has been a previous discussion here that may help.

pssp, i had to do it as a joke

ive been thinking (long and hard) and this is what ive come up with

buy the ozito grinder $99
Ozito Australia | Power Tools, Garden Tools, Sold through Bunnings Warehouse
or gas weld grinder $119
https://ishop.gasweld.com.au/ishop/stock/item/531499

buy the carbatec chisle grinding jig $52
Carba-Tec Chisel Grinding Jig : CARBA-TEC

buy the carbatec chisle and plane sharpining blade as the brass roler comes off and then it can attach into the chisle grinding jig. $29
Plane & Chisel Sharpening Guide : CARBA-TEC

and buy a japanese water stone 6000 grit $42
Japanese Coarse Stones (8000 grit) : CARBA-TEC

or i could buy a couple water stones, say 300 1200 6000 grits and the sharping guid and maby a flat leather strop but i dont think that the strop would be necacary.

or i could convince mum to buy me a triton wetstone grinder of greys online


but the only thing is i dont know what to get the grinder and acessorys or the water stones?

thoughts coments welcomed apreciated
Cheers Harrison

This is a very interesting discussion as everyone has a way of doing their sharping. I am at a very early stage of sharping since the last time that I have sharpen anything was months ago. Prior to that it was in high school some 20 years ago.

So when I looked at this I started with the scary sharp system. Flat piece of glass with the wet and dry sand paper. I went as high as 600 grit as my finish paper as that is what I had at hand. I have not done any sharpening since then but thought that I would do again but this time end higher with the grit 2000.

I also purchase a honing guide to see if this would be a little earier or different to my process. There is an assumption here in that I currently do not have to put in the initial bevel. If and when I do, I will be using a grinder with your (x???) grit white wheel.

Also mention in this thread to stick to either one or the other type of lubes, oil or water.

For me I can not justify the expence of purchasing a water wheel grinder on the amount of sharping I will be doing.

Thanks for the reference, Greg, Derek's rules rule!

To answer your question, what I really would like to sharpen now is carving gouges and the blades of the moulding planes I am restoring. To put it in context: I learnt to sharpen drill bits by hand before I could speak (English ) and can sharpen a turning gouge better than Richard Raffan did in his video (true! ) but I never got around honing. All I knew was what a professional hospital sharpener (of the days before disposable scalpels) had shown me: cloth wheels and aluminium oxide. Then I bought a Pfeil gouge and discovered what sharp is. Haven't been able to reproduce it yet.

Just to put it down to minimum common denominator: who believes that the Tormek leather wheel can actually achieve that level of sharpness starting from a 250 grit grind?

BTW, my water cooled grinder was branded Porsche when I was given it as a Christmas present 20 years ago, now exactly the same machine is sold by Sherwood. For about the same price as then, less than $500. Its 1/4 HP motor is a bit underpowered, in days when they struggle to pump out 240 volts it takes up to a couple of minutes to get up to speed. It drove me crazy for a while until I thought of sticking the meter in the powerpoint. Rather crude in comparison to the new models, but a turning stone is a turning stone, right?

F&E, after doing 220 grit on the Tormek your sposed to regrade the wheel to 1000, and then hone.

I have a hard felt wheel on my grinder loaded with the Veritas green honing compound, and that's the softest wheel I'd consider using. Actually, I wish I'd got a leather wheel instead of the felt....

It is very easy to round the newly sharpened edge over if you aren't careful.

A piece of flat scrap MDF used with the green honing compound also works well for me. The harder substrate seems to work even better than a leather strop IMHO.

Originally Posted by Christos

For me I can not justify the expence of purchasing a water wheel grinder on the amount of sharping I will be doing.

hey if you look around you might find a cheapy at bunnings water cooled grinder ozito $99 you just have to make a jig to go with it instead of grinding freehand
Ozito Australia | Power Tools, Garden Tools, Sold through Bunnings Warehouse

gas weld also sells the same unit different brand though $119
https://ishop.gasweld.com.au/ishop/stock/item/531499

or you could look around the markets particulay the trash and tressure markets, (the ones in melbourne are good) for a hand powered grinder some come with trays you could fill with water. the guys here are happy with theirs
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/g...grinder-82326/

well worth a look
Cheers Harrison

Originally Posted by rsser

F&E, after doing 220 grit on the Tormek your sposed to regrade the wheel to 1000, and then hone.

Thanks Ern, I did not get that from the specs on line, maybe I missed it. This at least is a good indication that less than 1000 is not the best, which brings into question the video of the guy who shaved his arm with a blade ground to 320 then honed.

So going straight from 400 to honing might not be the best. I am considering making a large (say 2') MDF wheel pedal powered and instead of coating it with abrasives to glue on it a belt of 1000 and 6000 micromesh. No mess, no fuss. Any suggestions?
Should be the same as a Japanese stone without the digging...


PS: what does "regrade" mean?

The Tormek comes with a dual sided stone, bit like a grinder cleaning stick. The coarse side you apply to the wheel to clean and roughen it to c. 220 grit. The fine side smooths it to c. 1000.

FWIW what little honing I do with bench chisels and plane irons I do with 3M micro-abrasive sheets on plate glass - 15, 5 and .5 microns.