First, I'm a newbie. I've turned three bowls and IMHO they are 'works of
art'. However, I don't think the wife will have them in the living room
Sooner or later I'll have to sharpen my tools. I'm slowly gathering a
few of the basic gouges, scrapers and, most recently a pretty good - thin-
parting tool. I'm going to try and work with one popular grind/bevel and if
I get that right, I'll branch out. If I understand current thinking,
'fingernail' grinds are the way to go?? Rob't Scorsby (sp?) quality is my
direction.

I have a basic 6" grinder. Wheels that came with it.

I have seen the Wolverine jig in action and it seems to do the job the
operator had in mind. A 'repeatable' grind was his take on the jig.
However, the Wolverine, with all of its attachment fetches over $225 Cdn.

My question is: What is the best sharpening jig? bearing in mind, I only
want to buy one, once. I don't think that I can freehand a fingernail grind.

Thanks for any suggestions, Tom

--
Remove the 'p' from 'shaw' to e-mail me.

"Tom Storey" wrote in message
news:BaBpc.467422$Pk3.22950@pd7tw1no...
First, I'm a newbie. I've turned three bowls and IMHO they are 'works of
art'. However, I don't think the wife will have them in the living room
Sooner or later I'll have to sharpen my tools. I'm slowly gathering a
few of the basic gouges, scrapers and, most recently a pretty good - thin-
parting tool. I'm going to try and work with one popular grind/bevel and
if
I get that right, I'll branch out. If I understand current thinking,
'fingernail' grinds are the way to go?? Rob't Scorsby (sp?) quality is my
direction.

I have a basic 6" grinder. Wheels that came with it.

I have seen the Wolverine jig in action and it seems to do the job the
operator had in mind. A 'repeatable' grind was his take on the jig.
However, the Wolverine, with all of its attachment fetches over $225 Cdn.

My question is: What is the best sharpening jig? bearing in mind, I only
want to buy one, once. I don't think that I can freehand a fingernail
grind.

Thanks for any suggestions, Tom

--
Remove the 'p' from 'shaw' to e-mail me.



You probably can freehand a fingernail grind or at least a very satisfactory
facsimile with a bit of practice. However, I bought a Oneway Varigrind jig
after freehanding and do like the repeatability I can get. I made the
angle-iron looking support myself.

If you want to make a jig rather than buy one go to this site and click on
the link to request plans by email. Lots of turners use his jig and if you
look at the site which is in both English and French you'll find all sorts
of real clever stuff you might want to make.

http://www.jeanmichel.org/woodturnjigs.htm

You indicated your grinder has the wheels that came with it. If these are
the grey wheels you will be better off getting the white aluminum oxide
wheels. They wear faster but give better results with less heating.

Billh

For a six inch grinder, and being somewhat new to woodturning, I'd
suggest the Woodcut Tru-Grind. It is small, very versatile and comes
with good instructions (even a CD illustrating its use).

You can see it he
http://woodcut-tools.com/

and purchase it either he
http://www.craftusa.com/

or he
http://www.kmstools.com/

or also through the Woodcut Web site.

The Oneway Wolverine and Kelton Sharpening System are very similar and
well suited to large grinders and large tools. I am very impressed with
the new Kelton system, but don't think it is apt to be as good a match
for our situation as the Tru-Grind. If in the future you decided to get
a larger grinder and wanted the Oneway or Kelton Systems, you could use
the Tru-Grind jig with either, and save yourself from having to purchase
their gouge jigs.

All three are good, versatile, systems that each have followers
believing they are the best.

Lyn

Tom Storey wrote:
First, I'm a newbie. I've turned three bowls and IMHO they are 'works of
art'. However, I don't think the wife will have them in the living room
Sooner or later I'll have to sharpen my tools. I'm slowly gathering a
few of the basic gouges, scrapers and, most recently a pretty good - thin-
parting tool. I'm going to try and work with one popular grind/bevel and if
I get that right, I'll branch out. If I understand current thinking,
'fingernail' grinds are the way to go?? Rob't Scorsby (sp?) quality is my
direction.

I have a basic 6" grinder. Wheels that came with it.

I have seen the Wolverine jig in action and it seems to do the job the
operator had in mind. A 'repeatable' grind was his take on the jig.
However, the Wolverine, with all of its attachment fetches over $225 Cdn.

My question is: What is the best sharpening jig? bearing in mind, I only
want to buy one, once. I don't think that I can freehand a fingernail grind.

Thanks for any suggestions, Tom

In article et,
"Lyn J. Mangiameli" wrote:

You can see it he
http://woodcut-tools.com/

and purchase it either he
http://www.craftusa.com/

or he
http://www.kmstools.com/

or also through the Woodcut Web site.

The Oneway Wolverine and Kelton Sharpening System are very similar and
well suited to large grinders and large tools. I am very impressed with
the new Kelton system, but don't think it is apt to be as good a match
for our situation as the Tru-Grind. If in the future you decided to get
a larger grinder and wanted the Oneway or Kelton Systems, you could use
the Tru-Grind jig with either, and save yourself from having to purchase
their gouge jigs.

All three are good, versatile, systems that each have followers
believing they are the best.

Hi Lyn. I've had no experience with the Ellsworth jig, but it's
certainly less expensive (and less versatile) than the others. Do you
have any info/experience with it?

Hello Owen,

I'm not Lyn, but I do have the Ellsworth Jig as well as the Woodcut Jig, the
Wolverine system, and the Tormek. Some time back, I got an Ellsworth Signature
gouge from Crown tools and didn't seem to be able to exactly match the grind
with any of my jigs, so I purchased the Ellsworth Jig and made a block of wood
to fit into my Wolverine slide to put the jig in the right position according to
the instructions from the Woodcraft site. It does an excellent job on the 5/8"
Ellsworth Signature Gouge or any gouge of that size. It is very easy to use. I
should note that many people have problems using the Ellsworth Grind. It is a
bit different, but I find it work great for hollowing bowls and does a fine job
on the outside of bowls.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

In article , Owen Lowe
says...

In article et,
"Lyn J. Mangiameli" wrote:

You can see it he
http://woodcut-tools.com/

and purchase it either he
http://www.craftusa.com/

or he
http://www.kmstools.com/

or also through the Woodcut Web site.

The Oneway Wolverine and Kelton Sharpening System are very similar and
well suited to large grinders and large tools. I am very impressed with
the new Kelton system, but don't think it is apt to be as good a match
for our situation as the Tru-Grind. If in the future you decided to get
a larger grinder and wanted the Oneway or Kelton Systems, you could use
the Tru-Grind jig with either, and save yourself from having to purchase
their gouge jigs.

All three are good, versatile, systems that each have followers
believing they are the best.

Hi Lyn. I've had no experience with the Ellsworth jig, but it's
certainly less expensive (and less versatile) than the others. Do you
have any info/experience with it?

Hello Fred
What does this customized block of wood look like that you made for your
Wolverine slide. I connected to your site but I could not find any info
there.
Thanks Edward

Hi Owen,
Yes, I've had an Ellsworth jig for a couple of years. It does a great
job reproducing his grind on his gouge. As Fred so well described, it
can be rather easily adapted to use with the Wolverine, doesn't even
need adaption to be used with the new Kelton sharpening system, and can
even be adapted for use with the Tormek.

It is, however, very limited in function. It not only is limited to only
reproducing his swept back grind on a bowl gouge, but it only fits a 5/8
inch bowl gouge (and while it can be adapted for smaller ones, it is not
easy to do so and maintain his geometry).

If those limitations are not bothersome, it works great, is well
manufactured, and is relatively inexpensive.

I didn't recommend it to the original poster as it sounded like he was
desirous of a more versatile system.


It is at least a few months away, but I am working towards a comparative
review of most of the sharpening sytems, both grinders/sanders and
jigging systems. It's not been such a simple project, both because of
the range of set ups possible, and that it becomes a rather expensive
undertaking when most of the options are included.

Lyn

Owen Lowe wrote:
In article et,
"Lyn J. Mangiameli" wrote:


You can see it he
http://woodcut-tools.com/

and purchase it either he
http://www.craftusa.com/

or he
http://www.kmstools.com/

or also through the Woodcut Web site.

The Oneway Wolverine and Kelton Sharpening System are very similar and
well suited to large grinders and large tools. I am very impressed with
the new Kelton system, but don't think it is apt to be as good a match
for our situation as the Tru-Grind. If in the future you decided to get
a larger grinder and wanted the Oneway or Kelton Systems, you could use
the Tru-Grind jig with either, and save yourself from having to purchase
their gouge jigs.

All three are good, versatile, systems that each have followers
believing they are the best.


Hi Lyn. I've had no experience with the Ellsworth jig, but it's
certainly less expensive (and less versatile) than the others. Do you
have any info/experience with it?

In article et,
"Lyn J. Mangiameli" wrote:

I didn't recommend it to the original poster as it sounded like he was
desirous of a more versatile system.


It is at least a few months away, but I am working towards a comparative
review of most of the sharpening sytems, both grinders/sanders and
jigging systems. It's not been such a simple project, both because of
the range of set ups possible, and that it becomes a rather expensive
undertaking when most of the options are included.

Thanks Lyn. I wasn't that familiar with Ellsworth's jig and had vague
recollections about it being only useable with one size gouge - but that
may not be a big deal if the OP doesn't currently have a bowl gouge and
could buy the jig and gouge size to match.

Did you ever finish the sanding series? I recall two (?) installments
but was thinking you were going to write about the brands of abrasives
in the final article.

Ah, the sanding article, bane of my existance. I have two segments to
go. One on accessories for power sanding (pads, extensions, etc.) that I
just can't get very excited about, and the big study of the abrasive
types that has been driving me nuts. It is much harder to objectively
measure sand paper in a meaningful way that I expected. A typical
objective measure is how much material they remove in a specified amount
of time for a given pressure. That can be set up, but it really isn't
all that meaninful to woodturners. Of greater interest IMO is whether
they have uniform grain size and that they don't load, and that the
sandpaper grains have good life and stick to the disk, and that the
velcro backing sticks to the abrasive paper. These have not been such
easy things to measure. I just start to get a sense that I have a
technique and then I find that there is so much variability within a
specific sandpaper brand, that no consistent measurements can be made.
It is also very hard to isolate out all the variables. How does one
establish at what temperarature delamination of the backing occurs, and
how that meaningfully translates to actual practice. How does one
measure just the heat sensitivity of the loops on the velcro backing in
a meaningful way. I'm still working on it, but it may in the end result
in an impressionistic than the objective quantitative comparisions I has
hoped to make.

Lyn

Owen Lowe wrote:
In article et,
"Lyn J. Mangiameli" wrote:


I didn't recommend it to the original poster as it sounded like he was
desirous of a more versatile system.


It is at least a few months away, but I am working towards a comparative
review of most of the sharpening sytems, both grinders/sanders and
jigging systems. It's not been such a simple project, both because of
the range of set ups possible, and that it becomes a rather expensive
undertaking when most of the options are included.


Thanks Lyn. I wasn't that familiar with Ellsworth's jig and had vague
recollections about it being only useable with one size gouge - but that
may not be a big deal if the OP doesn't currently have a bowl gouge and
could buy the jig and gouge size to match.

Did you ever finish the sanding series? I recall two (?) installments
but was thinking you were going to write about the brands of abrasives
in the final article.

"Lyn J. Mangiameli" skrev i melding
nk.net...
For a six inch grinder, and being somewhat new to woodturning, I'd
suggest the Woodcut Tru-Grind. It is small, very versatile and comes
with good instructions (even a CD illustrating its use).


Absolutely agree!

Bjarte

Tom
For a quick and versatile jig take a look at my web page under
sharpening. I am upgrading that page and should have some new info up in
a few days. It is a bit slow as I am also video taping how to turn a
small grinder into a sharpening system and as such have torn down the
grinder and am making some new jigs. However, I have used the system on
the site for years with good results.
--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS, Canada
http://www.aroundthewoods.com

I use the Feltmate jig on my grinder for my main 1/2" bowl gouge with a
fingernail grind. It is great to use a jig as you can take the minimum
grind each time since you are not freehanding.

Derek

Yes. That's "Robert Sorby".

Barry


"Tom Storey" wrote in message
news:BaBpc.467422$Pk3.22950@pd7tw1no...
First, I'm a newbie. I've turned three bowls and IMHO they are 'works of
art'. However, I don't think the wife will have them in the living room
Sooner or later I'll have to sharpen my tools. I'm slowly gathering
a
few of the basic gouges, scrapers and, most recently a pretty good -
thin-
parting tool. I'm going to try and work with one popular grind/bevel and
if
I get that right, I'll branch out. If I understand current thinking,
'fingernail' grinds are the way to go?? Rob't Scorsby (sp?) quality is
my
direction.

I have a basic 6" grinder. Wheels that came with it.

I have seen the Wolverine jig in action and it seems to do the job the
operator had in mind. A 'repeatable' grind was his take on the jig.
However, the Wolverine, with all of its attachment fetches over $225
Cdn.

My question is: What is the best sharpening jig? bearing in mind, I only
want to buy one, once. I don't think that I can freehand a fingernail
grind.

Thanks for any suggestions, Tom

--
Remove the 'p' from 'shaw' to e-mail me.