Honing Chisels

[William C Rogers]

Do any of you hone your lathe chisels. I had a Jet wet grinder (Tormek knock-off) that the motor died and sometimes honed my chisels, not often. I have an extra Delta 1 X 42 belt sander that I am going to get a leather strope. I'm guessing this would be much faster to hone tools than the slow speed wet sander. Does anyone use this type of system. Does your honed tools seem to stay sharper longer and what tools do you hone. I am also getting the Tormek adapter for my wolverine system. The main jig I used was the one to sharpen tear drop style scrapers, but have some other jigs that I used occasionally.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Hone or strop?
I have a Tormek, and I did initially strop chisels, but stopped, since it really is too much trouble to swap the bar and strop. I do strop the inside flutes since that doesn't require much effort. I also hone chisels between trips to the Tormek with a diamond card. And inside the chisels with a teardrop hone. I hone a couple times before using the Tormek to sharpen. Hone the inside mostly to get rid of the pithy stuff.

[Reed Gray]

I don't hone, but the edges from the 600 and 1000 grit CBN wheels do not hold up for heavy roughing, but excellent for fine finish cuts...

robo hippy

[William C Rogers]

I only have the 180 grit CBN wheel. I did not strope much when I had the wet grinder running. Just too much time. I also don't hone with a diamond file much since it is so easy to resharpen with CBN wheel. From what Robo Hippy said it might be beneficial for the finishing cuts, but not so much for roughing cuts.