A Very Inexpensive Way To Sharpen Brazed Carbide Lathe Cutters

GarageGuy said:
Another cheap way to touch up brazed carbide cutting tools is a carbide saw sharpening blade from Harbor Freight. It is a 4" diamond wheel. Here is a photo with part #:

View attachment 101348

Then make a bushing and mount to a small bench grinder to make it very easy to use:


View attachment 101349

The blade is $10 at Harbor Freight, and the 5" bench grinder was $10 on Craigslist. It also works well for sharpening TIG tungstens.

GG
Click to expand...

yes ... that's the one I have mounted alongside the green wheel.
 
GarageGuy said:
Another cheap way to touch up brazed carbide cutting tools is a carbide saw sharpening blade from Harbor Freight. It is a 4" diamond wheel...
Click to expand...

A most excellent and cost effective sharpening idea and I'm going to imitate your idea for free-hand grinding !

I still like using the small diamond wheel in a drill press with the carbide tool in a drill press vise at the correct angle (which can be set fairly precisely with a protractor). Lowering the drill press handle for a few seconds gives a near-perfect facet. (I have tremors in my hands and grinding by eye is sort of an iffy proposition now) :)
 
Thank you, a very useful and ingenious use of currently owned tools to help the shop to grow.

Charlie
 
Hey thanks for posting
Thought the same thing about making a cheap carbide grinder... took a few looks at HF and started thinking if that carbide blade sharpener was joke ... and didn't know if those cheap"inexpensive" wheels would hold up . Thanks for confirmation . I was willing to spend $10-20 to find out but not much more .

prob going to go with the Resin Cup Diamond Grinding Wheel.. and mount on something temp before making all the fixings.
Does anyone use this method and what grit a did you find works well ?
thanks
 
I just use my bench grinder with standard gray aluminum oxide wheels. You just have to push a little harder, and the underlying steel shank won't hurt the wheel. Have had the same wheel on the grinder for about 20 years.
 
Interesting I've been trying to figure out a way to sharpen the broken carbide lathe and mill bits. This will certainly help me save those cnmg carbide inserts from the recycler.

Thanks
 
I was inspired by the inexpensive HF98862 that GarageGuy mentioned in his post. I do have a Baldor with a diamond wheel, but keep hearing that diamonds and steel don't work together too well at high speed - excessive heat causes the carbon to dissolve in the steel, and goodbye diamonds.

How to get a low-speed grinding setup for steel? I suppose I could have found a way to mount the HF wheel on a drill press, ala randyc, but it wouldn't be a full-time tool. Something like rwm's Sherline-based diamond grinder would be great, but I don't have a spare Sherline kicking around. Then I remembered that I had a motor salvaged from a discarded ceiling fan. These fans run at a nice slow rate. Mine is a single speed motor, rated at 200 RPM. All it needed was an arbor to adapt the motor's 25mm shaft to the diamond wheel's 20mm hole.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get to Industrial Metals before they closed Saturday, and no aluminum of suitable size on hand. Fortunately, I did have some 1 ¾" Delrin - OK for this low speed, low stress application. Got the arbor turned this evening, installed on the motor, and tested. WORKS! All that's needed now is some dust protection for the motor. If the grinder works out, I'll buy the diamond wheel that rwm bought from Amazon and make another arbor.

Thanks to all of you for some fine ideas and great inspiration!
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The Amazon diamond wheel finally showed up today. I opted to mount it on my variable speed bench grinder. Needed to turn an adapter bushing 1.220 long x .793 diameter with the step length .330 (unknown Alum alloy). Took a bit of time to get the bushing made as I needed it to run true and a pristine finish was desired. Also ended up using some 316 SS bushing material for a washer that would take up space and help secure the wheel and bushing.

I need to make a small table to bolt onto the side of the grinder, needless to say I was excited to use it so out came some lathe bits that were chipped years ago.

Still intend to make a bushing for the lathe so i can mount the diamond cut off wheel in the lathe and take off those busted ends on my endmills. Did have a nightmare last night that prompts me to remember the lathe chuck and ways wont be friends with the diamond and carbide particles that come off-be sure to cover or make a cover for both.

edited to shrink it.

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