8" Hard Felt Wheel

Re: 8" Hard Felt Wheel

Frank Mutchler in Colorado Springs

>Roberto, take a peek HERE

Scroll down towards the bottom of the page.

A different option

Tim of Livermore

>Wow. $95 or so for a felt wheel seems a bit pricey....and I'm not exactly gunshy about spending moola on tools.

The other option is to laminate cardboard and then cut that into a circle and bore the arbor hole out. I saw this through Todd Hurley's video on making hollow and round planes. I'm assuming the hard felt wheel is wanted for sharpening and not for buffing. You'd obviously need to charge the cardboard wheel with an abrasive. Also....use non-corrugated cardboard, ala cereal boxes.

Tim

I'm with Tim.

Ernie Miller

>I did just that Like in Todd's video and it works quite well. Ger buisy eating you Wheaties think of all the energy for planeing you will have. I charged mine with a green stick from Grizley. Cut it close to round find center mount on lathe and use a gouge to true it up on the grinder with it running. make a couple one flat , concave and convex. that will get just about any job done.

Other options...

Dan Moening in Sunny Sacramento

>Drop down to a 6" wheel and you'll save 50% in cost. The smaller diameter shouldn't pose any problems.

Some folks have used MDF discs charged with compound to get the same results as a hard felt wheel.

Harbor Freight had medium felt wheels in 1/2" (6" diamtert) last time I was there. Why not couple 2 of them together? Should be had for ~$20 at HF.

Dan.

Felt wheel sharpening tutorial?

Cooper Suter

>Anyone do alot of sharpening on felt wheels?

Care to share your routine and results?

Bought some stuff out of an old boat shop once. The son showed me how he sharpened for him and his dad. Mostly knives, chisels, gouges.

Old furnace motor w/arbors. One arbor had some sort of scotchbrite type wheel on it, that was for rough shaping and nick removal. The other had a hard felt wheel charged w/polishing compound.

The whole process took minutes from rust to shaving pine end grain.

What's the down side of sharpening like this?

Would it work as good and as easily on plane blades?

Why use stones?

Coop

Re: Felt wheel sharpening tutorial?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Probably OK for the bevel side if you don't mind hollow grinds. How did son flatten the backs?

Pam

How did son flatten the backs?

Cooper Suter

>He didn't.

He just polished the edges of the backs.

Might be the wrong approach technically, but the results were impressive.

His father had been a patternmaker who had seen the writing on the wall regarding the death of the trade, and had gotten out in the 50's.

Dad had gotten into boat work via doing molds for the early fiberglass inventors in Toledo (home of Owens Corning among others).

Dad was no slouch when it came to woodworking ability and technical knowledge, still, he didn't mess w/stones for sharpening, just let junior do it on the wheel for him.

Was an interesting shop, you could see the early history of an entire industry (fiberglass) in it. All be it a not very sexy industry.

Dad had mold and prototypes going back to the late fourties early fifties on forward. Boat stuff, faux alps horns, early decoys, nazi type motorcyle helmet blanks, etc.

Coop

Re: A different option

Roberto Perez F

>Excellent recommendation $95.00 is too much money for me. Thanks for the tip…

Re: Other options...

Roberto Perez F

>Thanks, this is also a good idea. I was tempted to do that but I had some apprehension that a 6" wheel will have some side effects on an 8” grinder

Re: How did son flatten the backs?

Roberto Perez F

>I would be very interested to know from others about their experience on using felt wheels for final sharpening

Re: How did son flatten the backs?

William Claspy in Cleveland

>Was an interesting shop

If it's the shop I'm thinking of, he had some impressive large, old, cast iron power tools. And a few nice sticks of lumber too! :-)

Just finishing up a book case made from those wide white oak boards I bought from you, Coop. They were full of bug-borer holes, but that just adds to the "vintage" look, right?

Bill

Sorry about the bugs!

Cooper Suter

>

A reminder

Tim of Livermore

>Somethings seem obvious but then we'd not have the word 'accident' in our diction if obvious wasn't always so obvious.

Felt wheels and cardboard wheels need to be used with the wheel rotating up while you're honing/sharpening with them. Rotating down can easily lead to catching the edge and then throwing the relatively sharp cutter around. I do suppose you could hold the tool bevel up and use the part of the wheel below the center and have the wheel rotating down.

At any rate, the wheel should be turning away from the tool edge with a felt or cardboard wheel to prevent the edge from catching.

Tim

Re: 8" Hard Felt Wheel

Doug in Leawood KS

>Maybe I just had bad luck, but I bought two hard felt wheels (one was from Garret Wade, I don't recall where I got the other) for my 3450 rpm grinder. Both wheels vibrated so much that I had to take them off. I never could use them. So I would recommend that you ask about return policies before you plunk down $95.

Re: 8" Hard Felt Wheel *LINK*

Roberto Perez F

>I found the attached site where the sell hard wheels, do any of you have any experience with them?


http://www.knifeandgun.com/catalog/felt_wheels_1606987.htm

Re: 8" Hard Felt Wheel

Roberto Perez F

>I have another question, which hard wheel work best for sharpening hand plane blades and chisels; soft, medium or hard

AFAIK...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>The hard wheels are best for chisels and blades.