Reply To: Tool Sharpening
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A bench grinder works fine for sharpening, so if you can’t afford to switch then don’t. It’s not my preference, but there are many professional woodworkers who do amazing work and sharpen their tools on the bench grinder. A quick search of youtube shows a great many videos on the topic. From what I’ve seen, they tend to use wheels made from MDF and then coated with a mild abrasive for their coarse sharpening, then onto a buffing wheel coated with honing / polishing compounds to get a razor edge. A variable-speed grinder is preferred, but many are just using the single-speed grinders and are shaving their arm hair just fine afterwards, so I guess either way works fine.
Here’s a professional knife maker showing how to make your own MDF wheel:
John Heisz on the topic: