Bill Rubenstein wrote:
I bought the 7" Baldor from Amazon for $199.00.

Bill

In article ,
says...
Ditto to Bill and Rusty.

I uesed a Delta vertical wet wheel for about a year for all my
sharpening. I then took a class from John Jordan who showed me the
correct way to use a regular 3450 rpm grinder. I bought an 8" JET
the
next week and a Wolverine system. I drained the pond on the wet
wheel
and shelved it. I never looked back.

The additional benefit for having the fast wheel is that if you ever
go to someone else's shop or do a club demo, you will be ready to
grind in the most "difficult" situation - a fast, dry wheel.

As for grinders, Baldor is the standard, but pricy. Deltas can work,
but I've seen a number of them that vibrate excessively. You may end
up returning them for another or buying a wheel balancing system.
For
what it is worth, my JET 8" is heavy-rock solid with no vibration.
It
cost about $175. The 8" Baldor approaches $500.

Joe Fleming - San Diego
------------------------------------------------------

Bill Rubenstein wrote in message
.net...
And I agree with Rusty. Get a high-speed grinder (I use a 7"
Baldor) and the Oneway jig system. Then have someone show you how
to use them -- it will save you a lot of time and steel. The slow
speed grinder may help at first but as you get better at using it
it will become a frustration -- too slow -- and you will not grind
when you really should.

Also, for your primary bowl gouges, I like a removable handle which
comes off easily. That allows me to turn with a very heavy tool,
remove the handle quickly, and grind with just the light gouge so
that I can get the feel of what I'm doing.

Tormek is a waste of money for turners, I think. The Oneway
balancing kit is a really nice- to-have also.

Another thing, don't buy wheels which are too fine. For most of
us, 100 grit is plenty fine. I use a 36 on one side and an 80 on
the other. Buy white wheels as a minimum. There are some premium
blue wheels which are also very nice to have.

Bill


In article ,
says...
I agree with Peter. I have a high speed 8" grinder and a
Woodcraft 8" slow speed plus a Tormek. The Tormek never gets used
with the turning tools. Too much prep and maintenance, plus too
slow. In fact, I use the high speed grinder the most because I
haven't ever moved my Wolverine setup over to it. I have a couple
of homemade setups on the slow speed that mimic some of the
Wolverine, but are harder to adjust. So they are fixed for
certain grinds. Very fast to sharpen my tools, just turn around
from the lathe, flick the switch, tool on the wheel, switch off,
back to turning. No water container

Ended up buying the dual speed 8" from Woodcraft and the Wolverine jig. The
guy at woodcraft was trying to sell me the Tormek but I talked him out of
it.

Thanks again for all of the advice. Now I can start turning again with
sharp chisels!

Mike