Sharpening lathe tools

[marcros]

I understand that turning tools are typically used straight from the grinder.

2 questions:

1. What grit is sharpening typically done at for turning (standard gouges, skew and scrapers)?
2. If I had the choice between a CBN wheel on a 8" grinder or half speed grinder, with shop made jigs as required and the sorby pro-edge which would you go for? I have seen good reviews on both, and either option may be used for bench chisels, planes etc. I think the tormek would be too expensive with the required jigs and messy with the water.

I don't want to start sharpening wars.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Personal choice. I find the pro-edge to be the best compromise. I have a 6" regular grinder with Tormek jig platform. A Tormek and more recently a PE. The Tormek I've had for ages and it started out with bench tools and progressed onto turning as did I. They all have their pro's and cons but to my mind the PE has the least cons and the most pro's.

The elephant in the room with turning tools is the need for both shaping (fast (High speed) steel removal on for example a new grind for a bowl gouge) versus sharpening (achieving a really good edge on an already defined and happy with shape)

The big problem with dry grinders is heat. With the Tormek its speed. The linisher style of the PE seems to overcome both of those. It is really fast at removing HSS with the 60g belt so that's shaping handled. Then you switch to a 180 or 240g belt for edge delivery that's easily good enough for turning. It's not going to give you Japanese waterstone edges but who cares? Within one piko second of that edge being repeatedly smacked by oak revolving at 2000 rpm the very fine edge was gone anyway. So that's sharpening handled.

In addition, the baked in angle settings of the jig platform (platen) are well thought through and give you all the angles you're likely to use.

My only criticism is if you want to grind a low angle detail gouge (say 30 degrees) for fine spindle work, the left wing sweep gets fouled by the motor housing. Other than that, its my go to tool now for skews, parting tools, roughing gouge, spindle gouges (except detail) and carbide bits. I keep the Tormek setup for my favourite bowl gouge and I do my round nose scrapers on the grinder with the Torlok platform permanently setup for them.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

oh...its not bad at touching up knackered drill bits in about 30 seconds either

 

[woodpig]

What Bob said. 60 or 80 grit it good for reshaping, then finish off with 240. You can of course use the leather stropping wheel for a mirror finish though if you want. Don't forget that you aren't limited to Sorby belts. Any decent belt supplier will be able to make up belts to fit in a wide range of grits.

 

[marcros]

Thank you.

If pushed, could you make do with the PE alone- including the round nose scrapers and bowl gouge?

Is there any way around the fine detail spindle on the PE? It won't cause me an issue for some time but I am thinking ahead.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

certainly you could. I only keep the other two because I started with them and so already had them for general bench tool sharpening. All it means is I have multiple sharpening stations now which saves time because two of the three are near permanently setup for a specific job. But the PE has the fastest setup time and the fastest grind.

For the detail gouge....You can get close enough for jazz

 

[Waka]

I'll second the PE, being a novice one of the hurdles I've always struggled with was sharpening, now I have no trouble at all. With the quality of this system I think it's reasonably priced.

 

[RogerP]

I have an old Record Scan slow speed water grinder
Same as http://www.thewoodworks.com.au/technica ... r-grinders (except mine is Record blue ).
Does a good job for routine sharpening. I paid about 50 quid for it 10 or so years ago.

 

[woodpig]

The other thing worth mentioning about the pro edge is that because of all the pre set angles on the machine it could actually save you money in the long run as you'll only need to remove the minimum amount of metal with a fine belt to maintain an edge - your tools will last longer!