Thread: Woodcraft Horizontal Wetstone Grinder is POS

Just a bench grinder mate. Super cheap auto 8" one be fine.

Trick is to buy a seperate white 8" ALO wheel ( $30 bucks) instead of the grey crap ones.

Get a dressing stick or a T-bar.

You won't look back. You'll find you'll be able to grind for a lot longer before water dips with a frequently dressed white wheel.

And a buffing wheel to back up.

You don't need slow grinding setups etc. Really just not necessary.

Vern & Jake
Do a search for grinder gadget which I made for use here. There are a lot of good ideas on this forum.

Have a nice new year

Regards Mike.

Hi Vernon,

As this is an Australian forum, it's unlikely we'll buy one, unless it runs on 240V and has a $5- shipping charge and complies to local standard.

Having said this, you can sharpen most small (less than 3" wide,) edge tools on a bench grinder. Don't force it, just slide it across the face of the stone as though you're taking a shaving off the surface of the stone. It sharpens quicklyand easily. There's a lot of talk about slow speed vs fast grinder speeds.

Any of them are fine - don't waste money on the hype.

You can either use a white wheel or a well dressed grey wheel to sharpen.

http://www.planemaker.com/articles/grinding2.html

Cheers,

eddie

edit: a link for Jake D as well:
http://www.planemaker.com/articles/

Thanks Eddie for that link. Learn't something in there that may help the idea I'm working on. Thinking maybe I should call Bill Clark & Larry Williams. Know they'd like the idea. And they've got the skills to make it straight off.

As for the grinding link. I agree with the important things that were said. uno...things like.

- smaller engine housing than the wheel itself, so your tool has more room to move. In fact, the best setup I feel is a workhead and pulley off a motor. No engine housing.
- high speeds fine.
- keep it well dressed.

The only little differences I have are...

-Still think the white wheels a definete improvement over the grey. Found you develop a better feel for a white wheel. Just got a little bit more time to react to heat build up and pull back. I just don't burn blades off a white wheel. Even the smallest ones.

I've got about 1/2 a dozern grey ones floating about the shed if you want em.

- Also, personally, I think one should use a diamond stick dresser in a jig that squares the wheel perfectly. Don't need it shore....but you'll find with it nearly perfectly square all the time your initial shaping of the blade is more consistant (uno, say taking a chisel in to square off past nicks etc)

- Also don't like traditional tool rests. They limit visability. I have a high one for when grinding wide blades off jigs, but never anything around and in front of the wheel like you get in normal tool rests.

Thats because the rest gets in the way when grinding freehand. You just can't sight the very edge of the blade well when grinding profile blades off a traditional tool rest.

Believe if you want to have a rest, don't have a tool rest, have a hand rest, positioned down lower, so you can pinch the blade in the best jig you've got (your fingers) and dampen the shakes from your body through the hand rest.

Also believe you should remove the grinder guards (the things bolted around the wheels)....they just get in the way. They kill access to a very powerful grinding method - > off the side of the wheel.

Mount the grinder off the walls best I feel around shoulder height....get your eye in closer

Ummm ... can't think of anything else. hang on.

I started a thread on it. Might be something in there to help
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...d=1#post379577
Freehand stuff though. No pictures of the high tool rest in there and how I jig blades, which I thinks important. I don't mind getting a picture if interested. Its just another opinion. But might give you some ideas. Everybodys an expert though .

Cartatec sell a slow rpm 8" grinder with one white and one grey wheel. Runs at 1450 rpm - great for sharpening. $160 when I bought one.

jas