Tool Sharpening
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Good afternoon all,
I’m looking for a way of sharpening my tools. I’m having to manage with a 1/2″ bench grinder which really isn’t up to much, I’ve had mixed success. My budget at the very maximum would be £100 and I’m looking for recommendations for the best sharpening system in that price range. I would appreciate some assistance.
Regards,
Richard.
Not sure exactly what kind of grinder you have and I don’t know if you have stones and a strop for honing your tools. I would consider a single two-sided diamond stone with coarse on one side, fine on the other. DMT makes them and they’re easy to find on the internet. In addition, a homemade leather strop. Hope this helps!
Good afternoon,
Thank you Harvey. I’ve been looking at this. I’ve only got a standard circular bench grinder that I’ve modified.
Regards,
Richard.
You might also consider a two sided oilstone with fine/coarse sides. That’s what I started with. But you will have to flatten it regularly to get good results. You could do that with sandpaper on a flat reference surface. The same holds true for waterstones.
I got a set of 3 3″x8″ of the UltraSharp diamond stones which I have been happy with. I think it was $100 for the set (so hopefully a bit under £100).
I was looking at an “unplugged shop” offering yesterday and this came up:
http://jmawworks.blogspot.com/2017/08/dont-be-fooled-by-rocks-that-i-got.html
Basically very inexpensive diamond wheels used by hand. I’ve never tried this, but it might be worth a shot and will definitely keep you under budget.
First of all, the bench grinder isn’t for sharpening. It’s for grinding out edge nicks and rough shaping of the bevel, not bringing it to a sharp edge. For this work you should use the coarsest wheel possible.
For actual sharpening, I can recommend what I use: an 8″ Norton combination oil stone, a hard Arkansas stone and a leather strop charged with green polishing compound. You should be able to manage that for under 100 pounds.
Dave
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:
Not sure if you can get EZE Lap over there, but they offer a few different dual sided stones. I have the 250/600 2″x8″ and have hod no problems with it. If you only have a 100 pounds, I would go with the 1200/600. You can always used wet/dry sandpaper on a flat surface if you need something courser.
http://www.eze-lap.com/product/double.htm
@richardduffy. You’ll get a lot of advice on water versus oilstones. It’s pretty much personal preference. I recommend you decide on one system and stick with it…..sharpening monogamy I call it.
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