Thread: Honing a skew

Whilst not having anywhere near the experience of others on this forum, I've used a white stone fitted to a cheapy bunnings combination grinder / belt linisher for ages and have been happy sharpening freehand with that. The oval skew gets the belt treatment and I seem to get pretty consistent results.

However, having had a chance to try my spindle and bowl gouge after re-shaping and sharpening them using the Tormek at 's, I'm very pleased with the difference. this I put down to having a more suitable profile on the tool, as well as the finish from the finer stone / slower grind speed. Clearly my freehand sharpening skills need to be improved!

The issue for me now, however is that while I like the ease of use and consistent results that the tormek would provide, there's no getting away from the price. Turning is just a hobby for me and between work and family commitments I get to the lathe once or twice a month. I don't try and sell my work so any expenditure for turning is a sunk cost.

I'm not against buying a tormek system as such, It would just take a bit of convincing to get agreement from the domestic financial controller. I'm thinking about alternative approaches as well that could possibly deliver some of the benefits at a reduced outlay.

There are a number of cheapy wet/dry grinders out there like this GMC — Global Machinery Company
Would it be worth while to setup some form of jig arrangement on a grinder like these? What do you all think?

Frank, don't know if you're aware but GMC went belly up quite a while ago. Ozito has an equivalent, personally I'd give it a big miss. Jet and Scheppach have more cost friendly wet grinders,

Just for you Ern,

as I mentioned earlier in this thread this is just a 10" dia MDF disc mounted on my lathe. I only use the edge for honing but there's no reason why the face coudn't be used also. I use a polishing compound on the edge just before I apply the tool edge. Penknife blades take about 3 seconds per side!

I've also added a picture of my 1" skew; this item is literally straight out of the box. I gave it a minute or so of honing by hand on a 1000 grit diamond plate then put it on the wheel. The photo is a bit pants I know but the edge is sharp enough to shave my arm with.

What would be better for me personally is a reverse switch on my lathe! As the wheel is running in the normal direction I have to gauge the honing by hand with the blade under the wheel. Having the wheel running the other way would mean that the blade could be placed on top of the wheel and the edge actually seen. That or build another jig to add to my collection.....

Originally Posted by Grumpy John

Frank, don't know if you're aware but GMC went belly up quite a while ago. Ozito has an equivalent, personally I'd give it a big miss. Jet and Scheppach have more cost friendly wet grinders,

Thanks GJ! I hadn't heard that they were no more..
Strange that their website is still up.

Having had a few Ozito tools die very quickly I hear what you say about their grinder.
I'll look into the Jet and Scheppach units as well as the Tormek.

Originally Posted by Farnk

Thanks GJ! I hadn't heard that they were no more..
Strange that their website is still up.

Having had a few Ozito tools die very quickly I hear what you say about their grinder.
I'll look into the Jet and Scheppach units as well as the Tormek.

You might be able to prise my Scheppach out of my hands if Ern wants to sell me his Tormek .

Re chief tiff's setup, I'm assuming there's no space to work behind the lathe?

Either the wheel edge or face should lend itself to mounting a 12mm diam rod on a tool post in order to use Scheppach or Tormek jigs. Or to mounting a Tormek BGM on a bit of RHS welded to a tool post. Providing you can work behind or reverse the lathe of course.

(Sorry GJ; you got the better deal by far anyway!).

Originally Posted by Farnk

Would it be worth while to setup some form of jig arrangement on a grinder like these? What do you all think?

A jig arrangement on any type of grinder is better than freehand, well at least for your first 1,000 regrinds. After that you will have the hang of it and will know if your freehand efforts are working any better than jigging.

Perhaps the exception to this is if you are apprenticed to a master turner, in which case you will be doing whatever they do but under their guidance, and endlessly until you get it right...

.....

Originally Posted by rsser

Re chief tiff's setup, I'm assuming there's no space to work behind the lathe?

Either the wheel edge or face should lend itself to mounting a 12mm diam rod on a tool post in order to use Scheppach or Tormek jigs. Or to mounting a Tormek BGM on a bit of RHS welded to a tool post. Providing you can work behind or reverse the lathe of course.

The current way I have my lathe set up means that working from the rear isn't particularly practical; which probably goes some way to justify to myself why I never thought about working from the back! At the moment nothing is bolted down properly as I'm still fine tuning my set up and want to install dust collection, ready use tool storage and the grinder on the bench too.

I might have to look at building a jig at the rear, it's going to be much easier than honing from the front. Cheers for the mental nudge Ern.

I view a skew as an almost 'everything' tool, not just finishing.
That debate aside, until about a year ago I sharpened all my tools on a low speed (1750 rpm) grinder hand held. Once you get a feel for it, you can be very consistent with this method. I like a 120 grit.
However, I acquired, in a trade a Wolverine rig and like it very much. Consistent and perfect edges can be sharpened on all your tools with this.
But, your skew can be sharpened in any of a half dozen ways.
I don't see honing as necessary at all for turning.

There's an increasing amount of good evidence from tests that a honed or refined edge cuts cleaner, easier and longer than an edge off a dry grinder.

Anyone can PM me their email address if they'd like to read some of it.

Here's some online articles:

Read Scraper Sharpness at http://www.alanlacer.com/
Gouge test, wet vs dry: click

The Farrance article would be more convincing if it had compared apples with apples.

Comparing the finish from an #80 dry wheel honed with a medium Arkansas stone at 17 micron grit with the finish from a #220 wet wheel then honed with Tormek's 3 micron polishing compound may prove that a finer grind/hone performs better but not that "a universally far better performance could be obtained by adopting a wet grinding method, in conjunction with honing".

A dry 220 grit diamond wheel followed by 3 micron paste power honing would have been a better comparison to prove his wet is better thesis.

I'm following Brendan Stemp's trial of his #120 diamond grinding wheel with interest, here. There may be a more economical third way to get a finer edge.

.....

LOL. I advanced a similar argument some years ago on the forum, and it's really only the two articles by Lacer et al. in American Woodturner that persuaded me. One of them is on his website as per my last post.

The full Farrance article (The Tormek site has an abridged version) is also unclear about a key measure of edge life.

's test protocol is a better real life test (but didn't control for the skew's included bevel angle - then again you can't control for everything).

After a few test runs yesterday the protocols may be altered a bit.