Rexon horizontal grinder update

[Anonymous]

Hi all

Remember the Rexon grinder I bought and discussed in this link https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2302&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Well, I have been using the Rexon quit a bit now to flatten every blade in sight and regrind bevels. It works very nicely indeed and I am chuffed to bits.
Only issue was that the stone didn't wear evenly at first and so I had to dress it - DMT worked nicely but I found a great dressing stone from Axminster for £3 called a devilstone :lol:

I wore the standard 1000 grit down and ordered a replacement 6000 grit for about the same cost as a Tormek stone.

Results speak for themselves - the chisel in this picture has only been on the Rexon; 1000 to flatten it and 6000 to finish. I just stood there and held the chisel on the stone whilst the rexon did all the hard work

(note that the reflection is not distorted as the back is dead flat, the mag page is bent all over the place)

I still hate flattening chisels, but not as much now

A bit of wear on the old 1000 and a picture of the new 6000 grit

 

[Chris Knight]

That is an impressive result Tony.

Why did you get a replacement stone at 6000 grit I wonder? Now you apparently have two stones of that grit and no coarse stone for flattening?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris

The results are pretty impressive. I have never really been a great believer in the need for a mirror finish on chisel backs as I don't think the results when using the tool justify the effort involved in achieving the mirror. However, this way the effort and time is minimal :wink:

I bought another 1000 grit along with the 6000 as I won't be using the Rexon as much now that all of the AI's and others are flattened and both stones should last for ages.

 

[Anonymous]

With wear like that are you shore your not sharpening the whole forums chisels :lol: . Nice job on the chisel i've got atleast 20 that need doing and 3 plane blades i did 3 planes and 3 chisels last night :shock: but have yet to do the backs . Still i plan on doing them as i need them instead of spending a day sharpening .

 

[ike]

Tony,

Have you sharpened planer blades?. I'd like to know if it's any good for doin' me Scheppach.

Ike

 

[SimonA]

Hi Tony......Could you tell us where you ordered the new stones from and how much they where?

I could be up for purchasing one of these fellas!!

Cheers

SimonA

 

[Anonymous]

Wear on 1000 grit is down to flatting of 2 plane iron backs, 16 chisel backs and regrind of bevels on all of these + I ground a couple of old Record chisels into a left and right skew for cleaning dovetails


1000 stone wears as quickly as any 1000 waterstone

Ike

Not sharpened any planer blades as both of my machines have disposable, double edged blades. The jig is really designed for planer blades though and I foresee no problems.


Simon

The stones came from Rexon and the 1000 is about £40 whilst the 6000 is about £60.
I have used the 6000 to finish and polish the back of all 8 of my AI chisels and have seen no perceptable wear. This will last for a loonnnggg time.


When i considered buying new stones, I was a little surprised at the price but when compared to 1000 and 6000 grit waterstones they are quite fairly priced

I phoned Rexon on 01709 876611 and ordered at 4.15pm on Thursday evening - stones arrived Monday 9.30am

 

[SimonA]

Cheers for that Tony.......now should I purchase that new Festool sander or go for that cool sharpening station.....hmmmm

SimonA

 

[ike]

re. Sharpening planer blades on the Rexon WG180.

Here's what I found when using this machine for sharpening planer blades.

Build quality:
The fixed rest and the sliding tool holder are in themselves substantial components, but are let down by imprecise height and angle adjustment, making fine adjustment tricky. The sliding holder has 4 x M6 screws for backsetting the blade however I found that screw one was not aligned parallel to the clamping face due to the tapped hole not being square to the casting. Also the threads were a little sloppy. The effect of this is that the end of the one screw didn't bear onto the back edge of the blade. It was however possible to set the blade position using the other 3 screws.

Performance:
A useful tip I can offer is to thread a nut up each screw in order that you can lock the screws in position when setting the first blade. This ensures the second blade can be located at exactly the same position.
Do as Tony advises and download the Makita manual, as the Rexon manual is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Following the setup instructions for bringing the toolholder parallel to the stone, I then ground a pair of 8" Inca blades that were in poor condition. The 1000 grit stone fitted did a quick job* about 3 minutes per blade and it all worked out of the box without needing to true the stone beforehand. Despite manual recommending 5kg pressure for grinding, the wheel slows significantly with any more than light pressure - (perhaps 2 kg or so).

Results:
The edge straightness was checked with it out of the toolholder and was within 3 thou. over the length of the blade - not perhaps quite as accurate as shop reground blades but good enough that resetting in to the cutter block was no problem.

Pros:
Sharpening performance - very satisfactory (albeit with careful attention to setup). Excellent on narrower blades.
Price.

Cons:
Blade clamping arrangement is OK but otherwise let down by some flexibility in the tool rest mounting and imprecise angle and backset adjustment.
Perhaps a little underpowered.

Verdict:
Competent tool and excellent VFM. The whole shebang cost a lot less than just the Tormek planer blade jig alone. IMHO, its a no-brainer.

Ike

 

[Midnight]

I bought the Rexon during the holidays, recently putting it to task finding some steel under the corrosion in the blades of a half set of moulding planes I bought through Tony Murland. To date, it's performed exactly as the previous posts have outlined, real quiet, under-powered, a tad on the crude side, but for the price - damn good value...

The only irritation I've found is in the water feed. This is gravity fed, flow being restricted by a crude valve that needs to be fiddled with periodically. The flow is good enough to self clean the stone provided the tank's closer to full than empty. As it empties, the pressure drops, gradually causing the stone to clog with spent slurry.

I anticipate my use to be along the same lines as Tony; hi initially as the 1000 grit stone gradually works through flattening these old planes, gradually tailing off, to be kept for working primary bevels... I reckon I'll do the polishing on the bench stones....