Shopsmith Forums

efmaron wrote:Peter,
That is a beautiful piece of sharpening equipment you made. As others have said I do not see a need for you to buy one yours looks great.
I do not do any turning but I do a lot of carving and one thing that bothers me when reading threads on sharpening lathe chisels. How do you remove the burr left from grinding. Shipwright stated that he touches up his chisel every few minutes with the strip sander.
When carving my knives and chisels are sharpened I use several grit stones to remove the burr from the previous grit and then use a strop to polish them to a mirror finish. They never see a grinder again unless they get nicked and I stop every few minutes to strop them to remove the fine burr on the cutting edge.
Would this method work on lathe chisels and what do you do to remove the burr left from grinding?

With 'scraping' chisels, the burr is left on and acts as a 'razor' edge. Cutting chisels can be 'deburred' as you mentioned.(assuming you concern yourself with it) Since considerably more force is used when turning, the degree of 'sharpness' can be less than that needed for hand carving.

What you have described is referred to by many folks as 'scarey sharp'!:eek:

efmaron, not being an expert at the wood lathe and doing no carving (yet), my advise would be suspect.

When turning before making this attachment, (just finished it yesterday) I was doing ok on a grinder followed by some hand stropping on fine emery paper to remove the wire edge.

I think I will try jpg40504's advise and use the chisel straight from the strip sander. For carving, you might use a leather stropping belt, which I think Nick Engler demos in Sawdust session #10 here:

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... pening.htm

While lathe tools do benefit from sharpness, that scary sharp edge isn't necessary and is very short lived. I sharpen my lathe tools to a degree that many turners consider silly, taking the edge to 400 or 600 grit. Once you get it sharp an occasional light touch up is all that is needed.

My dad and I took a turning class a while back, the instructor, like most professional turners, only used the Wolverine. He sharpened all our tools and the edges he got were nowhere near a good as what I get with the strip sander. Still, these tools cut nicely.

I have considered buying the Wolverine jig for grinding the fingernail shape as I believe this can be adapted to the strip sander. A future project.

While I do have the leather strop, I haven't tried sharpening my carving tools with the strip sander. Those I do on the Tormek. In part because it is all set up for this task and works well, in part because it would irk me to find out that expensive tool is no longer really needed!

Troy

efmaron wrote:Peter,
That is a beautiful piece of sharpening equipment you made. As others have said I do not see a need for you to buy one yours looks great.
I do not do any turning but I do a lot of carving and one thing that bothers me when reading threads on sharpening lathe chisels. How do you remove the burr left from grinding. Shipwright stated that he touches up his chisel every few minutes with the strip sander.
When carving my knives and chisels are sharpened I use several grit stones to remove the burr from the previous grit and then use a strop to polish them to a mirror finish. They never see a grinder again unless they get nicked and I stop every few minutes to strop them to remove the fine burr on the cutting edge.
Would this method work on lathe chisels and what do you do to remove the burr left from grinding?

I don't use a strip sander for my lathe chisels. I use a fine white stone on my bench grinder with the wolverine jig. I also don't "scrape" unless end grain is involved (bowls). An extremely finely tuned edge will be gone very quickly on a lathe while the edge you get from a very light touch on a fine stone has no bur, passes my "sharp test" and only takes about 5 seconds. My sharp test is the one I learned from a very wise old boatbuilder I once worked for. "If you can see the edge, you don't have one". When a chisel or plane iron passes this test (with appropriate glasses these days) it will cut very, very well.

Paul M

Thanks for the explanation Paul,
I have always wondered why removing the wire burr on a lathe chisel was never mentioned when anyone talked about sharpening them.

I don't know how many of you see captain eddie on youtube but he has some pretty neat ideas. One is the blackhawk sharpening system which he will send out plans to build and share. This works great and does not cost an arm and a leg. I will try and attach it to see what anyone thinks of it.
Well it won't attach the plans but here is the youtube site. If you like email me and I will send you the plans he said I could share with anyone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw5eeWvu ... re=channel

His videos are fun to watch regardless.

Well, I discovered one reason to run the strip sander in reverse. I was happily sharpening every chisel in sight and found that the hot sparks were melting a blister in my strip sander cover. See the photo below.
[ATTACH]8987[/ATTACH]
I decided to look at mounting a hub on the belt side, as described by Bill Mayo awhile ago. My shaft sticks out 0.31” so, not much to work with. I succeeded in drilling a 1/8” diameter hole through it using a long drill just clearing the drive wheels rim.
[ATTACH]8988[/ATTACH]
I drilled it without removing anything. I intended to put in a roll pin but went with a cotter pin for now. I made a new brass hub and made it short enough to not rub the cover when it is closed. It happens to be 0.629" thick.
[ATTACH]8989[/ATTACH]
I found that the strip sander does not line up when reversed, by about 3/16”, but the coupling seems to still work ok. With the cover open and the belt throwing stuff upwards, eye protection is certainly needed.
[ATTACH]8990[/ATTACH]
I also made a few improvements to the sharpening attachment. The knob to set the angle is now on the right, and much easier to use. I changed the socket that accepts the butt end of a chisel to allow bigger ones.
[ATTACH]8991[/ATTACH]

prmindartmouth wrote:Well, I discovered one reason to run the strip sander in reverse. I was happily sharpening every chisel in sight and found that the hot sparks were melting a blister in my strip sander cover. See the photo below.

Peter,

Looks like you have discovered reason #2 for the sharpening platen.

The brass hub and socket are great additions, I see in the last photo you do have access to a good sized metal lathe and must have a nice stash of brass stock.

Troy

For anyone who might want to make their own version, here is a parts list with some comments:

Home Made Strip Sander Lathe Chisel Sharpening Attachment

miter gauge..................................1 3/4" deep by 5 1/2" plastic
Metal miter would be more rigid.
connection plate..........................6 5/8" x 2 1/2" x 1/4" aluminum plate
Use the semicircular mount off the ss to lay out the holes.
arm..............................................1" x 1" x 20" long al. tube
Would be better if 28" long for long chisels. (I made a removable extension)
slider............................................1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 3" and 3 1/2" long pcs, welded
cup support..................................1 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 4" Dexion steel angle
cup................................................1 1/4" dia. black plastic in a 2" dia. brass cup
Suggest a 2" dia. wood cup with tapered center hole.
knobs............................................2 required
nut with posts allows knob on rt. side.......1/4" bolts with heads off in 1 1/4" x 1" x 1/2" al.edit fixed dim.
Set posts on arc of the miter gauge.
bolts...............................................all 1/4" x 20 tpi
[ATTACH]9006[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]9007[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]9008[/ATTACH]