Veritas Mk. II Power Sharpener Problems

[Joe Hollis]

I've owned on of these units now for about 6 years, but haven't found it to be very good when it comes to consistency of angles set with the supplied jig that holds the tool, which I find to be less than optimal. Another issue I have is that I don't have the world's strongest arms or hands (not even close), and the adhesive on the 3M PSA discs Lee Valley sells for this machine is very tenacious. Removing two worn out discs on one platter - and the finer 20 and 9 micron discs wear out ridiculously quickly in my opinion, takes me 25-30 minutes if you include the time to remove all the adhesive residue and get the platter ready for new discs. My hands, now black from the grinding dust on the worn discs don't like this task at all...

I'm reluctant to go back to stones alone, since I find using a 100% water stone system slow and messy.


If there are any of you that own this machine, I'd be very interested in hearing your tips and tricks (for sharpening as well as set up and disc change). Have you found solutions to the challenges this machine presents, or have you thrown in the towel and bought the Tormek T-7, which it hardly seems gets a bad review anywhere?


Thanks a lot,

Joe

[Jim Matthews]

I know people that swear by this device, and how well it works.

I wonder if Lee Valley would lead you in the direction of something
to get the adhesive to 'release'?

******

I highly recommend keeping a fine stone and strop for touch ups,
using the powered wheel to do the 'grunt work'.

I use oil on diamond stones, freehand after a belt
grinder gets my profiles close.

The people at Lee Valley want you to be satisfied,
try them first. You can't be alone in this.

[ian maybury]

Moderate heat is often a big help in removing pressure sensitive adhesives and stickers - they will sometimes peel away leaving no residue and without tearing. It seesm to depend on the specific adhesive used - some even with heat are very difficult and leave lots of residue behind. The WorkSharp OEM discs are pretty good in this regard - they use a low tack adhesive that can usually be peeled off the glass discs cleanly.

Wonder if part of the problem could be using commodity self adhesive discs? I've had some that were pretty much more trouble than they were worth - they used a very high strenth adhesive that made removal a scrape off job.

There's commerically available sticker removers that work to a degree too - better than say cellulose thinners for removing adhesive anyway. Again not 100% effective in my experience. I'm currently experimenting with low strength contact adhesives like 3M Spray Mount and similar. Not too sure how they may work out - it could be that the bond builds to become high strength over time.

Would love to hear of any more methods that work...

[Frederick Skelly]

Joe,
I have a Worksharp, which as best I can tell is a cheaper version of the LV machine you have. At the suggestion of folks here, I switched from PSA to using diamond lapping disks sold by Kent Supplies. (On Amazon, they are Kent Blades.) These are lapidary supplies used to polish rocks. I just put them on top or bottom of one of the worksharp plates. They work fine on the worksharp and might work for your LV.

Hope it helps,
Fred

[ian maybury]

Hi Frederick. I've been buying diamond discs for my WorkSharp on the web from this guy in Hong Kong: http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Grit-80-Diamo...-/151053987667

Two orders so far, very good service both times.

Seems like most of these budget discs come from a source somewhere in China. I've been using 80 grit and 150grit. They last much better than paper discs, but are far from permanent. There's quite a difference between how they cut when new, and after some running in - they have some tendency to scratch until they get some use.

One way to kill them more quickly i've found is to apply to much pressure. Better to keep it light and let the diamond cut. Strictly speaking diamond is not suited to grinding steel (it's used for non-ferrous metals) - if it gets above 600 deg C at the point of cutting it breaks down into graphite and carbon dioxide in the presence of iron and many of its constituents. Keeping the pressure low may help avoid this issue?

CBN (cubic boron nitride) is seemingly the better deal for steel (short write up on the basics here: http://www.gearsolutions.com/article...diamond-or-cbn ) , but a quick search suggests that so far there's nobody doing cheap CBN discs in the 6in OD x 1/2in ID size for our kind of use. Seems likely they are out there for industrial use though: http://www.ukam.com/diamond_deposition.htm (??? - maybe somebody reading knows better)