On Feb 18, 12:45*pm, Tim Wescott wrote:
Of late when I need a cutter I rough it out of an appropriate HSS blank
with a Makita hand grinder, then finish it on a bench grinder.

The reason for this is because the bench grinder is very slow, and
shaping convex profiles (as you find on the shoulders of a cutoff tool)
erodes the hell out of the corners of my grinding wheels. *Since I want
to get things done, and I want to do it without dulling the corners on my
bench grinder, I use the hand grinder.

This works fine, but it's ugly as hell.

Is there a "more right" way to do this? *The tools that I have at my
disposal are the afore-mentioned hand- and bench grinder, a truely
ancient Dremel tool (for which I have cutoff wheels, and can afford a few
odds and ends), and some stones for finishing things off nice and sharp. *
I vaguely remember trying to cut off a corner of a 1/4" tool blank with
the Dremel cut-off tool and thinking that it's a dandy way to turn cut-
off wheels into powder.

If you just couldn't stand the thought of doing it with the above tools,
what one tool would you make me buy, and how would you tell me to use it?

--http://www.wescottdesign.com

Angle grinder with a thin cutoff wheel works for gross shaping, like
making a grooving tool out of a 3/8" blank. I use a 1x42" belt
grinder for general tool sharpening, then touch things up with a
diamond hone afterwards. For a real finish, I use the hard Arkansas,
like for midget threading tools. Use a coarse belt on the belt
grinder, 40 grit or so.

Stan