Thread: Sharpening System

haha

I believe what I do is what has been named by forumites as the "crazy sharp" method.

Wet and dry sandpaper then a quick hone on the 6000 grit stone. It may be behind the times but it works well for me.

I am looking at the triton wet stone sharpener but. Once the stone is true it appears to be a good unit. and cheap as well.

BJ

An 8" AlOxide (White) wheel on yer grinder & a simple platform with adjustable angle and wheel clearance is probably the cheapest and simplest option and can be used to sharpen almost all types of turning tools.

They're simple enough to make for yourself; the mitre gauge on the commercial ones can be handy, but is hardly necessary.

It makes it a simple matter to "semi-freehand" all skews, scrapers and detail/bowl/spindle gouges that have a square or only gently curved end profile. Ellsworth grinds & other swept-back wings can also be sharpened on them, although it takes a lot more practice.

If you're specifically after a jig to handle swept-back wings on gouges, then that's a whole new can of worms... I like the Tru-Grind system, but at nearly $200 I won't buy one. I've been meaning to make my own (they ain't hard to make if you have metal-working gear) but first I gotta get a round tuit.

A white stone of a grinder and a oilstone. That's all you need, not some $1000 Tormek wet grinder

The GMC wetstone and lap at Mitre 10 for 150 looks not too bad ,has tool support bars and clamping fixtures for tools similar to what I have seen of tormacs grinding systems. I am still trying to finish a setup for the GMC wetstone I bought a few months ago without these attachments

I use a Sorby Pro-Edge system.
Its REALLY easy to use, convenient, and takes 10 seconds away from the lathe, and knowing that makes it so that you keep tools really sharp often.

http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/proedge.htm



Rod

As you already have a grinder Make your self or get one of these made. you can sharpen most gouges with it and parting tools then you just have to ajust your tool rest to sharpen the skew and scraper.

Rippa

And if your not as slack as me you could even paint it ???

Delta 23-700 wet stone grinder...
The small wheel runs fairly fast, you can rough shape with it, the large stone runs slow, real slow, and wet...you can get a workable edge on anything with it, and like the other poster, after shaping and "rough" sharpening, I use wet n' dry 2000 grit sandpaper on a flat surface, then a leather strop, you can get a razor edge if you want with this.
But remember, sometimes you dont want a razor edge, like with a scraping tool or round nose scraper...if thats the case, simply use the big wheel on the Delta.
These things are pretty inexpensive...I find them on Ebay for under $100.00...have had mine for 10 plus years and have yet to have significant wear on the stone.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Delta-23-700-Universal-Horsepower-Sharpener/dp/B0000223ZT"]Amazon.com: Delta 23-700 Universal 1/5 Horsepower 10-Inch Vertical Wheel Wet/Dry Sharpener/ Grinder: Home Improvement[/ame]
Shop around, you can find them used all over the place, and a lot of other manufactors make stones that fit it in grits up to 1000.

Thanks for all your suggestions. Just getting lazy I suppose after 38 odd years of doing chisels by hand without the jigs.
Cheers all