rubber-bonded abrasive wheel

[robinson46176]

come on you woodcarvers out there ,.I,m waiting for you to defend your methods of sharpening with all kinds of expensive stones which are almost unused in my workshop,In my opinion all the long winded articles and books describing the best lubricant for a stone and discussion of every kind of stone from Charnley Forest to diamond bench stones ,are all cancelled by the beautiful quick and efficient RUBBER-BONDED ABRASIVE WHEEL!
I speak from 40 years experience as a self employed woodcarver,I too in the beginning read the books and sent many futile hours fiddling away with the latest thing in stones but in the words of the song "its all over now baby blue" Ted 766

I have a good bit of sharpening equipment, some of it pretty specialized like my Belsaw chainsaw chain grinder. Other things could be done on it but I have only used it on chainsaw chains (thousands of them).
I'm not very quick though to run out and buy "the latest".
I do probably 90% of my sharpening in 3 ways.
Number 1 is my Belsaw 1"x42" abrasive belt grinder. Ultra useful and frequently used on all kinds of stuff.
Number 2 is a diamond hone.
Number 3 is a common sheet of sandpaper, usually laid on a smooth cast iron tool table like a table saw. Sorry I don't buy the need for a sheet of glass, I use "working" edges not some perceived ideal.
I also believe in removing the minimum amount of material required to maintain good "working" edge. I see stuff, mostly at yard sales, that has been eaten into oblivion by heavy grinding when most of the time a quick touch would have done the job. Back when I was working as a cutter in a plastic film conversion factory we did most of our everyday cutting with a hand held knife even if we had roughed it out with a electric Eastman knife. We had a bench grinder available for reshaping the blades but most of the time we just used oil stones stationed all around the department. You could tell the experienced cutters from the newer ones because the newer ones spent huge amounts of time grinding away the blade then another huge amount of time trying to wear out an oil stone. The experienced cutters would just hit the blade on the stone a few quick licks as they walked by a stone and would only do some serious oil stone work about once a day and reshape on the grinder about once a week.
I spent over 20 years doing boot and shoe rebuilding and rubber and leather both require sharp tools to work well and safely. I sharpened a lot but generally just a tiny bit at a time. When you pay big bucks for specialty knives you don't want to eat them up unnecessarily.
I tend to work that way in the wood shop as well. Yes I want sharp tools but there are "working" sharp tools and there is silly sharp tools (if you are a carver ignore this).
I grind jointer blades and planer blades with my 1"x42" belt grinder using an extremely light grind. I don't want to grind away good steel unnecessarily. Unlike many folks I do not jump in and grind out every nick if there are any. If I get a tiny nick I don''t yank the blades and grind the bee-jeebers out of them. Most of the time I don't even loosen up a blade and slide a blade over to get rid of the tiny ridge it leaves. No matter how smooth a board come out of a planer I am not going to just slap some varnish on that surface. I am going to sand it first and that tiny ridge will just disappear as if it was never there.
I often touch up jointer and planer blades very lightly with a diamond hone several times before pulling them for a light grind.
Even with hand tools I am quick to touch up a blade very lightly often instead of pulling it and grinding the dickens out of it. I always have some about 400 grit paper around and will often hit something with just a few quick strokes while I work. Sharpening should be a constant process, not a traumatic “event”.
I do sets of 3 mower blades for my son's employer during the summers when ever he brings a set or two home. They are from a huge commercial mower. I absolutely hate doing them because they hit a lot of rocks but when they get them back they want then razor sharp with all traces of any nicks fully removed. Absolutely silly and wasteful. They buy the most expensive blades with hard facing on the bottom of the blade edge then beat them up and keep mowing with them really dull. Then when all of those nicks are gone so is all of the special hard surfacing. That silly sharp edge they insist on is gone in the first 50 feet of mowing... If they would just let me sharpen them well but sensibly and more often their blades would last 10 times longer and they would be using reasonably sharp blades for much more of their mowing. Oh, well, Its their dime.

[holsgo]

As mentioned in a previous post, here is the manufacturers website
http://www.cratex.com/rublgwhl.htm
Don't see prices but a quick call will help.

[ted766]

you can get them at http://www.shorinternational.com/ ,the brown medium is the best ,but care is needed in their use ,fix up some sort ofcover whereby the tool may only be presented in the correct way, I like the top of the wheel turning away from me ,for this you can turn a grinder on its back,if you know what I mean Ted

[ted766]

I,m glad you told carvers to ignore your article Frances, none of what you say has any relevance for woodcarvers ,,I find the combination of a rubberised abrasive wheel and a leather wheel ,unbeatable ,.even when carving oak it will usually restore the burred over edge of a chisel without going to the regular grinder Ted

[robinson46176]

I,m glad you told carvers to ignore your article Frances, none of what you say has any relevance for woodcarvers ,,I find the combination of a rubberised abrasive wheel and a leather wheel ,unbeatable ,.even when carving oak it will usually restore the burred over edge of a chisel without going to the regular grinder Ted

Yep, carving is a whole other ball game. I've not done much of it but I am really good at it. I can take a piece of wood and carve it to where it is an exact replica of a pile of wood chips.

[Ed in Tampa]

Yep, carving is a whole other ball game. I've not done much of it but I am really good at it. I can take a piece of wood and carve it to where it is an exact replica of a pile of wood chips.

We must be related I have the exact same talent!:eek:

[ted766]

I,m intrigued by Frances Robinsons' long list of machinery ,I,m trying to work out what it adds to this debate.,Is it supposed to instil a feeling of awe in those who dont possess such goodies? I,ve done plenty of carving and turning for people with factories full of such gear ,it must really irk them to have to employ a creative artisan. You can have all the machinery you like but it wont turn you into Thomas Chippendale! Ted

[robinson46176]

I,m intrigued by Frances Robinsons' long list of machinery ,I,m trying to work out what it adds to this debate.,Is it supposed to instil a feeling of awe in those who dont possess such goodies? I,ve done plenty of carving and turning for people with factories full of such gear ,it must really irk them to have to employ a creative artisan. You can have all the machinery you like but it wont turn you into Thomas Chippendale! Ted

If you want to attack me please at least spell my name right... It is right there in my sig line.


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[judaspre1982]

===========================
DT aka Agent Orange is a POS
Liar Liar his wonky comb over is on fire

[Ed in Tampa]

I have a buddy that once owned a sharpening business for about 50years. It was a basically a small usually one man operation that did mostly knives and scissors. Interestingly he had a few carvers that would bring him their chisels but many wanted to do their own, so he allowed them to come in after hours and use his equipment.

In any case my buddy was one of these guys that if it had anything to do with sharpening he would buy it and try it. Drove his wife crazy. He went through stages, like his water stone time where everything was sharpened and worked on the water stone. Another time he used the water cooled wheel sharpening and etc. These were all over various periods of time and stages in his life.

He has retired and I was talking to him and asked him out of his business what did he keep to sharpen his own personal knifes and scissors. His answer was a strip sander. His eyes sort of glazed over as he describe the strip sanders ability to put an edge on a knife that was unsurpassed by any other form of sharpening.

My buddy then surprized me with a story, back in the day they actually sharpened scalpels used in surgery(early in his careeer for on humans but later and more common animal). The doctors demanded that their scalpel be sharpened by my buddy. He always did them on the strip sander even though he might have been in his water stone stage or his flat stone stage. He always sharpened scalpels on the strip sander because the customer demanded the sharpest edge.

About 2 weeks ago on the TV program "How it's made" they visited a factory making disposable scalpels which are now the norm. Guess how they put the final edge on these scalpels? You guessed it they used a strip sander.