Sharpening jigs ...meh.. who needs them ?

[warren smith]

Rather than purchasing any sort of expensive sharpening set up , I simply attach a small disc of steel to a foredom mandrel then impregnate it with various diamond grits. I hold the tools in my hands and with practice am able to achieve perfect facets in seconds . ...fast and cheap.....

 

[Sam]

Sounds like it's working well for you. I've watched diamond setter Alexandre in Belgium sharpen with a flex shaft and diamond wheel and get perfect results. I sharpened for years with out sharpening fixtures myself but now use 'em and love 'em.

 

[warren smith]

that's exactly as I do .... best of all is you can purchase diamond grit so inexpensively .. I bought ten years of 8000 grit for $4.50 the whole set up is about an hour of your time and ten bucks of material ... Plus I find I'm switching materials so often that I'm constantly changing angles on the fly.

 

[Gemsetterchris]

I've been using a fine diamond wheel (yellow) to polish my gravers, end up with all kinds of weird heel angles but they still seem to cut well & very brightly so long as they are sharp.
I'll re-do with a template once in a while just to get the shape back.

 

[Willem Parel]

Do you mean this one Chris.
http://www.ottofrei.com/Jura-Swiss-Ceragloss-Yellow-Fine-Diamond-Polishing-Wheel.html

I use this one to and I am glad to read you end up with all kind of weird heel angles, I thought it was just me....

 

[tim wolf]

I took a class at Alexandres in antwerp and i use the same method, i have a black, blue, and yellow diamond wheel.
They last long, sharpening goes fast but it takes some practice to sharpen them each time under same angle...

 

[Willem Parel]

They last long, ..

I support them with a copper euro coin to make them more stable, it works very well I think an American coin will do as well, I don't think it's a matter of exchange market.....

 

[Gemsetterchris]

Do you mean this one Chris.
http://www.ottofrei.com/Jura-Swiss-Ceragloss-Yellow-Fine-Diamond-Polishing-Wheel.html

I use this one to and I am glad to read you end up with all kind of weird heel angles, I thought it was just me....

Could well be that, I get mine from another source..certainly the quickest way to get a mirror finish but yes it does take abit of practice not to mess up the angles too much.

 

[warren smith]

... I first started with a copper disc but found steel to be better ... every once in a while I will anneal the plate so that it takes a better charge ...

 

[warren smith]

are those coloured discs rubberized or hard ?

 

[monk]

i can use my proxxon to rough grind gravers with a diamond disk.. i'd fall way short of perfection, though. thanks to the 2 sharpening systems i'm glad to have, i'm able to get the needed results.

 

[Newton Pens]

I'll never say I won't need jigs b/c I haven't tried any yet, but I did just put a decent point on a square HSS piece I was just given. Using a 6" aluminum oxide wheel. The heel is a bit funky, but it cuts plastic real nice!

 

[akintagleocarving]

These Edenta discs made of hard rubber. Works well for me.

 

[warren smith]

If you use any sort of rubber wheel you will always get rounded facets… You need to use a steel plate charged with diamond dust...

 

[warren smith]

occasionally I have to re-anneal the steel plate in order for it to be able to charge properly ...

 

[James Roettger]

I have found for "V" shaped engravers that I like using the dual angle sharpening fixture by GRS. I believe machine sharpened tips work better with pneumatic drive. For hand pushing I still like using hand sharpened tips. This is because all of the facets become slightly rounded which works well hand pushing because the super hard corners of machine made tips tend to break off hand pushing. Hand pushing causes slight wavering in it's delivery of force. Round corners accommodate this wavering better than hard perfectly crisp corners do.
However I do very little hand pushing anymore. For flat gravers I also prefer hand sharpened. The slightly round leading edge seems to steer better than a perfectly flat machine sharpened edge. I also find with flat gravers that hand sharpened ones last longer, being less prone to have the perfect corners break off.

 

[devonsaunders]

I use a fixture for roughing out my gravers, for retouching I use a hard diamond wheel and edenta diamond impregnated rubber green and yellow on a 3/32 shaft for final polish ( It took a lot of practice to get proficient) if you have groves in the rubber wheels or apply to much pressure it's very easy to end up with rounded facets.

 

[rod]

As Warren observes,

Rubber diamond impregnated small wheels defeat the huge advantage of hard ceramic or steel/cast iron lapping surfaces loaded with diamond fine grit. Rubber destroys crisp geometry, ceramic and steel loaded laps maintain it. You can hand lap a graver edge when you know what you are doing, with a ceramic or steel flat under the microscope, or with optivisor. Rubber wheels, I would venture to say are like leather strops, they will burnish and polish the surface, as they destroy its crisp geometry. A few strops on leather with diamond loading is quite a good idea, especially to remove a feather edge, but a lot of stropping or rubber wheel work must surely round over your geometry. No?

Rod

 

[Gemsetterchris]

They do, but It's faster & they still cut well which is all that matters.
I do re-shape with a template once in a while if they start getting problematic.

 

[Doc Mark]

In answer to your posit. "Sharpening jigs, who needs them". Frankly, I DO! Why should I struggle to do a task, when there is such a simple, easy way to create perfectly sharpened gravers? Yes, I know that you can sharpen perfectly well by hand. Hell, we once started our cars with a hand crank too, but I sure don't want to go back to that technique. I can understand if finances do not permit a power hone, but save your pennies and buy at least a dual angle fixture. That's my two centavos.