Shopsmith Forums

charlese wrote:My Strip Sander works wonderfully well for knife and scissor sharpening. Using the knife holder (shown by Nick in video tips - http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Tips_Archives/SST110_Sharpening_Knives.htm I prefer concave bevels on bench chisels so I use a grinding wheel, but the strip sander is super to put secondary bevels on bench chisels. Use of a leather stropping belt gives a super edge. I've even used the strop to polish up the flat backside of bench chisels.

Haven't yet tried out sharpening of lathe chisels or carving chisels, but based on my past experience, it will be a super tool for that use also.

I bought my leather belt from Shopsmith. it is a good belt and the rough side took polishing compound nicely.

The only bad experience with this machine was when it was used for inside sanding. The grit on the necessarily reversed sanding strip wore away one of my plastic idler wheels in no time at all.

Now I have 4 platens. The extra one is a half inch with the upper screw slot ground away to allow it to slide into 1/2" wide holes.

When I got to play with my strip sander the first thing I thought was how would the grit affect the small wheel doing inside cuts. My wheels (1988 model) is made of steel. The new ones are plastic

cincinnati wrote:When I got to play with my strip sander the first thing I thought was how would the grit affect the small wheel doing inside cuts. My wheels (1988 model) is made of steel. The new ones are plastic

Mine is an 02 year model with steel wheels.. Didn't know they changed to plastic wheels?!!

Guess if I ever need to replace a wheel I'll be using plastic to buy to receive plastic!!

BTW, I use my strip sander all the time. It's a very handy tool. Quick setup..

[quote="henecle"]I just received my new stripsander and chisel sharpener from SS before Xmas (ordered 11/7/09 so almost two months on BO). It's great and I use it as a permanent sharpening station on my 510 while I am turning. Grinding new bevels through honing/compounding with a leather belt (Lee Valley & Veritas) it works great! ]

I really can't figure out how the Strip Sander would be used while the Shopsmith is set up for turning. To sharpen tools the Strip Sander should be running in reverse, so the sand paper/stropping belt is going upwards. If a normal lathe set-up is used, the Strip Sander would have to be set up on the accessory side of the headstock. This would make the sandpaper go dowwards across the platen. This is very dangerous and asking for flying sandpaper strips.

However - After thinking about this this afternoon, while sharpening scissors. I thought if I had a second carriage, I would be able to Set up the lathe on the accessory side. Tough, but could be done. Heck, maybe the left hand turning would be refreshing!?

cincinnati wrote:When I got to play with my strip sander the first thing I thought was how would the grit affect the small wheel doing inside cuts. My wheels (1988 model) is made of steel. The new ones are plastic

How does the finish of the steel idler wheels hold up while doing inside sanding?

Yes, one of my plastic wheels quickly developed both a dish in the surface and got out of round. Sorry, don't remember if it was the upper wheel or the lower one. Good thing was replacement weren't too expensive. I only had to get one replacement and it was free, because the machine was only a week or so old.
Don't know if anyone else has had this experience.

While we are on the subject - Has anyone found a need for the funny shaped metal piece they call the idler wheel guide?

charlese wrote:I really can't figure out how the Strip Sander would be used while the Shopsmith is set up for turning. To sharpen tools the Strip Sander should be running in reverse, so the sand paper/stropping belt is going upwards. If a normal lathe set-up is used, the Strip Sander would have to be set up on the accessory side of the headstock. This would make the sandpaper go dowwards across the platen. This is very dangerous and asking for flying sandpaper strips.

However - After thinking about this this afternoon, while sharpening scissors. I thought if I had a second carriage, I would be able to Set up the lathe on the accessory side. Tough, but could be done. Heck, maybe the left hand turning would be refreshing!?

Hi Chuck,

Bill Mayo has done some conversions of the strip sander so you can mount it on the left side of the headstock but turned around, so you can sharpen your tools (with the belt going the right [wrong?]way), while still in lathe mode.

charlese wrote:How does the finish of the steel idler wheels hold up while doing inside sanding?

Yes, one of my plastic wheels quickly developed both a dish in the surface and got out of round. Sorry, don't remember if it was the upper wheel or the lower one. Good thing was replacement weren't too expensive. I only had to get one replacement and it was free, because the machine was only a week or so old.
Don't know if anyone else has had this experience.

While we are on the subject - Has anyone found a need for the funny shaped metal piece they call the idler wheel guide?

I have only used my strip sander to test the set-up doing inside sanding. So I have no extended experience what the paper will do to the metal wheels.

The Idler Wheel Guard, I ordered one just because it was $3.00. When I put it on I thought "What good is that thing for"? Be interesting why Shopsmith added this. It did fix the aliment issue with the belt I had but also did a small washer.

a1gutterman wrote:Hi Chuck,

Bill Mayo has done some conversions of the strip sander so you can mount it on the left side of the headstock but turned around, so you can sharpen your tools (with the belt going the right [wrong?]way), while still in lathe mode.

The simple solution is to get or make a MINI with the sharpening strip sander on the lathe end and other SPTs on the accessory end.

If anyone is interested in my conversion, send me an Email with a picture of the lower strip sander wheel as I believe the drive shaft may have been shorten on later models and did not leave enough shaft space to attach a shorten accessory hub.

charlese wrote:I really can't figure out how the Strip Sander would be used while the Shopsmith is set up for turning. To sharpen tools the Strip Sander should be running in reverse, so the sand paper/stropping belt is going upwards. If a normal lathe set-up is used, the Strip Sander would have to be set up on the accessory side of the headstock. This would make the sandpaper go dowwards across the platen. This is very dangerous and asking for flying sandpaper strips.

However - After thinking about this this afternoon, while sharpening scissors. I thought if I had a second carriage, I would be able to Set up the lathe on the accessory side. Tough, but could be done. Heck, maybe the left hand turning would be refreshing!?

I use a Nova chuck or stopper mandrel with the stripsander mounted on the tailstock end and just remove the chuck, slide the headstock over and connect the power coupler... works just fine with the belt moving in the correct (upward) direction. The chisel sharpener manual spells it all out...

a1gutterman wrote:Hi Chuck,

Bill Mayo has done some conversions of the strip sander so you can mount it on the left side of the headstock but turned around, so you can sharpen your tools (with the belt going the right [wrong?]way), while still in lathe mode.

Ahh, yes. Here we go.

Thanks much, Tim for finding that October, 2008 post from Bill Mayo! Also a big thanks go out to Bill for his many innovations that make the Shopsmith even more versatile. I'm sorry I didn't remember that post. Because I didn't have a Strip Sander at that time, didn't pay enough attention to that thread.

Note to Bill: My Strip Sander is a 2009 model. There is a bit of drive shaft protruding from the drive wheel inside the case. The protruding shaft measures 19/64" or 0.296".

To henecle: Thanks for your reply! It should have been obvious that turnings not using the tail stock would easily allow use of the strip Sander on the quill side. But it wasn't to me! All that is needed is to temporarily remove the chuck/faceplate to sharpen. Then replace the chuck and back to turning!:)

It now appears there are at least three ways to use the Strip sander for sharpening/honing while turning on the Shopsmith.
1) Use a chuck or a face plate for turning and mount the SS in the tail stock position.
2) Make a small adaption to the SS by installing a coupler on the inside of the drive shaft
3) Reverse the position of the headstock and the carriage on the way tubes and use the lathe from the backside of the Mark V from the accessory side. This could use the tail stock or faceplate/chuck method. This method would not require modification of the Strip Sander - only removal and re-installing of the headstock and carriage.