Power Hone vs tool Sharpener

[txtwang]

Yesterday I was in the Rockler Woodworking store and came across this tool sharpener...looks similiar to the power hone that GRS sells.
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?Offerings_ID=17398
I tried to find the specs on both hones(mostly rpm) but to no avail.
Anyone else seen the Rockler sharpener and have any thoughts on using it for sharpening gravers?
My new Gravermach and 901 handpiece was delivered last Friday...the block I bought from the classisfieds is lost in Fedex's system somewhere. Almost ready...I think!!

Thanks
Jerry

 

[vilts]

GRS power hone has speed of 340 rpm, I don't know about the other one.

 

[Swede]

Jerry, try a google search for lapidary or faceting equipment as well. The guys who cut gems use a tool almost exactly like a GRS power hone. Or the tool you found, equipped with diamond wheels, would also do the job. In my opinion, the GRS hone's RPM is too slow; the system screams out for a variable speed rheostat dial. I can't understand why they didn't put one on there. There's no reason when you are hogging a new carbide rgaver not to speed things up a bit. Likewise, when resharpening a face, I want to slow it WAY down with a 1200 grit wheel. Yo can get a variable speed effect a bit with your graver position on the wheel. Contact closer to the periphery is faster than the hub.

The hone is only part of the equation. You'll also need a sharpening fixture, and may I suggest that you figure out a way to firmly affix it to the hone so that when you remount a graver, it'll be exactly where it was when you last sharpened it. For example, on my gravers with a 45 degree face, when I initially sharpen them, I'll give them a heel which will withstand about 3 or 4 more sharpenings of JUST THE FACE before the heels need to be retouched. It's nice to know that when I reinstall it at 0 degrees roll and 45 degrees pitch, the entire face will be presented to the wheel perfectly for a quick touch-up, with no waste of the metal, or fiddling with the fixture.

 

[Peter E]

A couple things I see with the Rockler sharpener is that the abrasive does not appear to be diamond and there is not a provision to hold a graver at precise angles needed.

On the Lindsay forum, there was a thread that showed a setup made to emulate the Power Hone.

If you are a machinist or have access to metal working tools, you could perhaps make something comparable to a Power Hone that would work.

Peter

 

[sword]

lapidary units also have the added option of using water or other lube and a guard to keep the spray and dust down. I always wondered why GRS didn't include these options when they made the power hone.

Tom

 

[monk]

i'm a bit confused about "hogging" a few miligrams of metal from a graver. i'm not sure the grs hone was made to hog, but mine does rather ok for its' intended purpose. if you need fast removal, go to a lower grit number. i was never a fan of higher rpm speed for graver work. the heat can build up amazingly fast in those little points. i keep it slow and cool with mineral oil.

 

[rhenrichs]

I use a harbor freight horizontal grinder ($100.00) turns 400 rpm and 8" diamond laps from Rock Peddler at $30.00-$40.00 each. Added a table for my dual angle fixture and I was in business. Can be used as a dry grinder or wet grinder. I must warn you that this is not a Swiss Watch quality grinder. Out of the box it needs tuning before use. I have used this set up for a couple of years.

Roger

 

[Steve223]

Hey Jerry Heres the specs on the sharpner you posted the pic of.and a link to a clip of it being used.
http://www.worksharptools.com/


The Work Sharp WS3000 is a precision wood tool sharpener that offers unmatched accuracy, ease of use, and repeatability. This innovative dry sharpening system produces predictable and accurate results every time on a multitude of chisels, plane irons, lathe tools, carving tools and more.

Work Sharp offers advanced features like integrated heat sink air cooling, a flat tempered glass grinding wheel and a powerful motor with a 580 RPM wheel speed. The WS3000 offers features that the discerning fine woodworker expects and demands and the Work Sharp wood tool sharpener will quickly earn a permanent place on your workbench.

The WS3000 Wood Tool Sharpener includes:
WS3000 Wood Tool Sharpener
2 tempered glass wheels
Slotted see-through wheel
Top tool rest
Crepe stick (abrasive cleaner)
Abrasive kit
The abrasive kit includes the following abrasives:
P120
P400
P1000
Micro-Mesh™ P3600 honing material
Slotted P80
Slotted P400
Slotted P1200

 

[txtwang]

Yep Steve, that's the one..I don't see a place to set the sharpening fixture but suppose one could be made.
Being brand new to engraving, I'm always kinda leery of buying something(trying to save a few bucks) that's not going to work without some kind of tinkering. I spent all day chasing parts and trying to get my compressor rigged up to the 1/4" air hose...after adding up the gas and time spent in Dallas traffic...maybe the GRS sharpener isn't such a bad deal after all....
thanks All

Jerry

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Jerry................you make a very good point.

I'm a very "technically challenged" person. I've been down the road of trying to save a few bucks by buying somthing cheaper and bringing it up to speed. Usually it costs me more in the long run not to mention the time wasted and grief involved.

Believe me I have nothing but admiration for people that can turn a thingy into a whatsit by tinkering with it. Some folks also just enjoy making their own tools for the sheer pleasure of it.

One of the things that amazes me is that we are serviced by some very clever people that sell some very accurate machinery specifically designed for engravers. Yes it costs, but all good tools do. When you stack up the price of it and the convieniance factor along with the lifetime that these tools will last it's peanuts what we are paying.

GRS, Lindsay, N-Graver, etc. they all have a very serious commitment to our industry and the art of engraving. My theory is.......bite the bullet and buy the proper tool. Then you can get on with what we are supposed to be doing in the first place, engraving.

I've seen some people seriously struggling with their engraving simply because they refuse to spend a buck and buy the tool that will help them out. It's personal choice I guess and that's what makes the world go round.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Ray Cover]

I agree that for fast removal a variable speed hone is good. I built a variable speed hone into one of my benches and having an 80 grit lap turning FAST does rough out a graver a lot faster without getting hot enough to burn your fingers let alone the cobalt bearing HSS or carbide.

I also have two variable speed grinders at the school with 6" diamond wheels from GRS turning at 2000 rpm that we use for rough out and they will also eat a graver without getting very hot.

Like Swede, I also hate to spend valuable time in front of a 240 rpm power hone waiting to remove 3/4 of the top of a 3/32" blank on a 5 degree taper to rough in a square graver or a bulino graver. Why take 15-20 minutes when you can do it in 5 or less. My average square graver is .020" across the face and .020" from heel to the top of the face. It takes a LONG time to grind a blank down to that with a regular power hone.

It would be an improvement (and a welcome one) if GRS would offer a variable speed motor. I personally would rather have a variable speed motor than a reversible one.

Ray

 

[Swede]

There's some good information here. Please also remember that if you are using strictly high-speed steel and carbide gravers, there's very little danger of destroying the temper of the graver on a typical diamond hone. I've seen people continually dipping a high-speed tool into water at the slightest sign of heat build-up. This is absolutely unnecessary. These steels are designed to maintain their hardness at extremely high temperatures. They will retain their hardness (and effectiveness as a cutting tool) to almost 1,000 degrees F. or over 500 degrees C. So if it's high-speed, grind away without fear.

In many circumstances, I've used a gloved hand to press the graver fairly hard into the diamond wheel to speed removal. Do this only when you've already created a facet, or flat area, otherwise, you risk scoring the wheel.

The time to worry about heat is when you are using an older-fashioned carbon steel graver.

 

[Steve223]

I like tinkerin and building my own stuff but yall are prolly right...it ends up costin more money in time and frustration. but if you just dont have the extra money and you are mecheniclly inclined it can give you alot of satasfaction building your own tools.

 

[John B.]

Hi Swede.
I know you know a lot about the quality of tool metals and agree with most that you say about HS, cobalt and carbide.
I don't want to challenge your knowledge but do need to offer another side to this problem.
Lathe tool bits made of these materials are mostly OK when ground or run hot if they are used in regular turning operations.
This is a scraping cut.
But my good old machinest friend tell me that they should be shaped, sharpened and run cool when making interupted cuts such as turning square stock into a round cross section.
This is an impact cut and is very much the same thing we are doing with a graver whether it is driven by a hammer or a power tool.
It's still an impact cut.
I find a real difference in the amount of sudden, unexpected breaks I experience from gravers that have been subjected to heat whether HS, cobalt or carbide.
Having seen thousands of HS and cobalt gravers shaped on grinders then sharpened on slow speed diamond laps by the students over the years I have noticed a huge amount of difference in their quick breakage of the tools that showed high heat color and those that did not.
I know it's not what the Machinest's Handbook says should happen with these metals, but I have to believe what I've experienced over the years.
Maybe you have a better explanation?

Respectfully, John B.

 

[Peter E]

I had some similar experiences using Glensteel HSS gravers to what John B. described. When hogging to get the basic point shape, I used a high speed grinder and generated enough heat to cause some bluing to the graver.

Once sharpened, I was breaking points a LOT. The next graver I sharpened, I was careful to prevent discoloring and had no issues with breaking points.

Granted it is a limited test, but I would tend to agree that high speed, high pressure, enough to cause some yellow or bluing does seem to make the tip more brittle.

Peter

 

[Barry Lee Hands]

Andrew, I am in complete agreement with you on buying the proper tool. I have two power hones, and I like them a lot. I keep em slathered in mineral oil to keep down the dust. I also have a diamond wheel on a 1000 rpm motor for hogging.
And John you are right about getting tools hot, they never seem to be as good afterwards.
I just recieved a prototype for the new Lindsay universal sharpening fixture and it is sweet. I can't wait till its released so I can post about it.
As to the speed of the commercial engraver sharpeners, I think they are slow so us kids won't injure ourselves, hehe...

 

[Swede]

John and Peter, I will happily bow to real world experience. I have been a machinist for many years, and my experience with HSS has always been "nary a problem" if you generate straw or blue on a grinder, but that's been with bulkier tools, not these skinny little guys. Machinery's handbook explicitly states relatively little loss of hardness up to 1,000 degrees. It seems that there are other issues that apparently crop up with the crystalline structure, grain, what have you, with these tiny gravers, at lower temps. In use, they undoubtedly experience tremendous pressures/forces at the tips. If you've seen a lot of breakage, then something's going on.

Hmm, I just had a thought... the very minute tip is somewhat isolated from the bulk of the graver. The temperatures are always generated in a gradient fashion, with the hottest being at the tip, and the heat flowing upwards. Perhaps by the time you dump enough heat into the graver to see any color at all, that poor little tip has maybe seen 700 or 900 degrees for a very brief moment, and that heat then travels up the shank, dropping as it goes, and causing some blue in the bulkier shank portion.

Maybe I should rephrase it: "Use caution when honing. If you see any heat discoloration, you may be affecting the strength of the tool. Heat discoloration will normally start at around 375 or 400 f. so if the graver burns your bare skin, time to back off."

I can't imagine temps of less than 400 hurting HSS, but I've been surprised before... like just now!

I've become very spoiled with the current crop of carbide gravers. Boy do they ever remain sharp and do a great job, at least with my limited experience, and they seem to vastly outperform HSS. But along with that comes a bit more brittleness, no doubt.

 

[Cody]

Even tho I just dabble in engraveing for my own entertainment and therefore time is not a financial factor I get impatient with the time it takes to "hog down" a new graver with the power hone. Y'all have given me an idea tho. I have a ceramic tile cutter which basically looks like a small table saw with a diamond wheel and the wheel runs in a pan of water under the table for cooling. A guy could install a diamond wheel from a power hone (it would have to be thinned on the lathe) and hog down a graver quite fast with no heat build up. It would have to be done by hand unless a dual angle fixture was used.

 

[Peter E]

Cody,
To try using a diamond wheel on your tile cutter, just purchase a diamond lapidary lap. They are thin, similar to a saw blade. They can be had in various grits for about $25 - $40 depending on grit. For quick material removal I would suggest an 80 or 100 grit.

Sounds interesting.

Peter

 

[pilkguns]

GRS, Lindsay, N-Graver, etc. they all have a very serious commitment to our industry and the art of engraving. My theory is.......bite the bullet and buy the proper tool. Then you can get on with what we are supposed to be doing in the first place, engraving.

I've seen some people seriously struggling with their engraving simply because they refuse to spend a buck and buy the tool that will help them out.

this advice IMO is worthy of being added to the tips archive