Grinding bevel on chisel or plane blades with a bench grinder

[Tom M King]

I've used my CBN wheel on the Metabo grinder a number of times lately while spending days with a chisel. It has the nice LV rests, and set it with the Batty gauge. Not just fast, but dayam fast. I do dip still in water if a big chunk needs to be ground out-have found a few flooring nails. It's a bigger jump to this setup, with no fiddling/truing required, than it was going to power windows in a car from crank up windows. I'm sure going back to friable wheels would be more aggravating than going back to window cranks.

[Winton Applegate]

I don't know . . .
Setting the angle of a tool rest . . .
clamping a C clamp on the blade . . .
that all smacks too much of " Sharpening Jig".
That's unnnnnnnn cool.
Keep that up and you will be sitting on the B squad bench with me.

I will show you my prize wheel dresser I got from an old time hardware store.
I have other ones, diamond and carbide or some such.

[bridger berdel]

Thanks all for your information. Mine is an off brand bench grinder (Astro power) with 6 inch wheels and one piece tool rests. It is stated as 3450 RPM, is that too fast? The wheels are the dark gray (cheap) type. One is coarse, one is finer. Its a fine grinder for sharpening lawn mower blades but I never tried to do a real tool. Both wheels are pretty bad shape and could use a good dressing or replacement. I will look into the white wheels - I think Rockler has them but I don't recall seeing them at Home Depot or hardware stores - maybe I just missed them.
Attachment 294255
I think steven and George are telling me the same thing - I will give the C clamp idea a try and see what happens with these wheels

Oh, and Joshua, counter to the way I see it done on the pictures on the internet such as FWW site, I was thinking to pull out the tool rest, get the tip of the chisel pointing downward in-between the tool rest and the wheel and then push downward on the handle to rotate the bevel up, into the wheel. That's the direction I have been going to do my lawnmower blade, just can't use the tool rest to do it.

Like this:
Attachment 294256

That is about the only way there is to have a chisel "catch" while grinding.

[Bernadette Semilla]

From what I know, you want to always be pointing the tool against the rotation of the wheel. I start using a light touch where there is more bulk in the metal, so the very back of the bevel you are creating, to get a good feel and to get comfortable. I do quench with water and use touch as the others have said.

I recently did a whole batch of very old pre-HSS Sheffield chisels freehand on a 3600 rpm 6" Ryobi bench grinder (one of your big box 'chaiwanese' things) using the stock coarse wheel. It was very nerve wracking and I had to finish on 100 grit sandpaper to even out all the little grooves but it certainly can be done if care is taken, even by a first timer like me! Yes, this was my first time grinding any of handtool blades. I did use some unladylike language as a result of burning the corners, so my advice for the very edge would be to either dunk in water every one or two passes or leave it be to do on sandpaper or stone, which won't take much time at all. In the future, I'll just do the bulk of the bevel on my grinder and the very edge that way. Definitely get a dresser, my wheels glazed after a while and this began to cause overheating much more quickly than at first. I have only had experience with a diamond T-bar so I can't advise on different types.

Since I didn't have a rest or angle setting jig, I had a square and angle gauge at hand to check the squareness and angle of my bevel against, and did so often.

[Pat Barry]

That is about the only way there is to have a chisel "catch" while grinding.

bridger, please clarify if you would. Are you saying that grinding with the tip down as a I showed in the picture is to only way to have a chisel catch? I just don't see this as possible. Now that David and other have clarified (in another thread) that you don't actually want to grind right up to the tip the whole method of grinding tip up seems a whole lot safer. I was afraid of the tip digging in and that won't happen if you grind short of the tip.

[Pat Barry]

From what I know, you want to always be pointing the tool against the rotation of the wheel. I start using a light touch where there is more bulk in the metal, so the very back of the bevel you are creating, to get a good feel and to get comfortable. I do quench with water and use touch as the others have said.

I recently did a whole batch of very old pre-HSS Sheffield chisels freehand on a 3600 rpm 6" Ryobi bench grinder (one of your big box 'chaiwanese' things) using the stock coarse wheel. It was very nerve wracking and I had to finish on 100 grit sandpaper to even out all the little grooves but it certainly can be done if care is taken, even by a first timer like me! Yes, this was my first time grinding any of handtool blades. I did use some unladylike language as a result of burning the corners, so my advice for the very edge would be to either dunk in water every one or two passes or leave it be to do on sandpaper or stone, which won't take much time at all. In the future, I'll just do the bulk of the bevel on my grinder and the very edge that way. Definitely get a dresser, my wheels glazed after a while and this began to cause overheating much more quickly than at first. I have only had experience with a diamond T-bar so I can't advise on different types.

Since I didn't have a rest or angle setting jig, I had a square and angle gauge at hand to check the squareness and angle of my bevel against, and did so often.

Thanks for the reply - you noted that it was very nerve wracking. Did something happen or were you just having trouble controlling the heat and squareness? I think grinding from the tip toward the fat part of the tool will drive heat in that direction preferentially, whereas grinding tip down almost certainly causes excessive heat to be pushed to the tip itself and therefore higher likelihood of overheating.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Burning an edge sucks, but it's not the end of the world. The steel is still harder than wood, and you'll get through that steel sooner or later.

Pat, I just skimmed this thread again, and I realize my initial post probably came off as a little rude, I apologize, I didn't mean it that way. . .

[Pat Barry]

Burning an edge sucks, but it's not the end of the world. The steel is still harder than wood, and you'll get through that steel sooner or later.

Pat, I just skimmed this thread again, and I realize my initial post probably came off as a little rude, I apologize, I didn't mean it that way. . .

Burning? I most likely wouldn't know the difference in terms of cutting for what I do any way. Rude? I didn't see it that way at all. Thanks