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Sharpening heresy

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Sharpening heresy

#1

Sharpening heresy

woodburnbob

>At my machine shop class last night, I had a chance to clarify what an older gentleman, who was the teaching assistant in the wood shop class next door, mentioned to me the week before. I was running a machine at the time and didn't completely track what he was saying. I did remember him mentining he was working on rehabbing a big antique gap-bed wood-turning lathe that's shown on the OWWN.com site. The one in the picuture below.

Anyway, to the point: he was telling me how he sharpens blades, chisels and turning gouges. He grinds a bevel, then turns a burr with a polished hard steel burnisher and then takes the burr off with a slip stone he carries in a pocket.

Last night he gave me a name of a guy who produced a shapening video, a guy who advocated this method and from whom he first learned the technique. Alas, I forgot the name almost instantly. Maybe next week.

I'm going to try the method a few times and see what I think. On one hand, it should be the perfect way to completely destroy a carefully prepared arris. On the other, it might be a cunning idea.

Any of you done this?


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Re: Sharpening heresy

#2

RE:lathe

bill tindal, E.TN

>Drool!

Let us know about the sharpening. I'm not optimistic. I have met some of these old tool collectors. They know their (cast) iron but don't do much woodworking.

Re: Sharpening heresy

#3

Re: Sharpening heresy

Brent

>Encouraged by someone on the oldtools list, who actually sent me a burnisher, I did try to burnish a plane iron several years ago.

I took microscope pictures of the edge and it did appear to smooth out some of the scratches. Unfortunately, I eventually pressed too hard - the burnisher was a rod about 1/8" in diameter - and chipped the edge. The burnisher was not turning a 15 micron microbevel into a 0.5 micron microbevel.

Perhaps with the right sized burnisher (larger diameter so less likely to chip the edge) and the right angle (1 or 2 degrees only) and some practice it might be possible to do this.

For wood turning tools, which are often used right off a fairly coarse grinding wheel, this might work pretty well - like steeling a knife since the tool will have lots of burr.

Re: Sharpening heresy

#4

That Lathe Looks Like Mine

Greg B�tit, Vergennes VT

>Wish I knew something about the manufacturer.

greg


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Re: Sharpening heresy

#5

Re: That Lathe Looks Like Mine *LINK*

woodburnbob

>The link takes you to the machine I posted about. The OWWM site has a huge database.


Thayer on OWWM

Re: Sharpening heresy

#6

Re: That Lathe Looks Like Mine

Greg B�tit, Vergennes VT

>Yes, that site is huge, indeed. Thanks for posting the link Bob.

My lathe has no sign of a manufacturer's name plate. It came with a whole series of shop made tenon cutters in sizes that fit with my chair making interests. It came rigged for with a four step flat belt pulley. It must have run off a water mill counter shaft.

greg

Re: Sharpening heresy

#7

Curious coincidence?

woodburnbob

>Vergennes VT has a good ring to it. I notice another Greg B�tit also posts from Crown Point NY. Wonder if the two of you are related?

Re: Sharpening heresy

#8

Re: Curious coincidence?

Greg B�tit, Vergennes VT

>There is a relationship there. One of us lives in Crown Point, the other works in Vergennes. We're twenty miles apart, over the Champlain Bridge.

greg

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