Sharpening Station Setups?

[Christopher Charles]

I have a slow speed grinder on the other side of the shop and this set up on a short cabinet that's ~24"x24".

The sharpening station is next to my workbench and while cramped, it gets the job done. I picked the shapton pros because they are spritz and go, important because I don't have running water and the shop would freeze annually (and could still should we have a really cold snap).

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[Jimmy Harris]

Ease of use and space is one reason I switched to a sandpaper on glass setup. I just have an 18x24 piece of plate glass on which I spray glue (3M Super 77) some sandpaper strips to. Then squirt them down with a bottle of water and go. I sometimes have a leather strop out as well. I like to have 5 grits on my glass, 240, 400, 800, 1500, 3000. It allows me to quickly and easily progress through each grit, which saves a lot of time. I just lay it on top of the workbench and put a benchdog at the top to keep it from sliding. I'll put the strop in a vise if I have it out.

This way I don't have to have my sharpening setup out, taking up valuable space. But, if I do need to sharpen something, all I have to do is clear out a patch on my workbench, and pull out 2, maybe 3 items (depending on if I want the strop), and immediately get to it. Then, for tear down put the glass and bottle back on a shelf. I don't even worry about cleaning the sandpaper when done because it's replaceable. Even switching out sandpaper is easy with some mineral spirits and spray glue. And really, you don't have to do that as often as you'd think. Sure, the sandpaper becomes less effective pretty quickly, but it keeps working with a few extra passes for quite a while.

[Cameron Wood]

Ease of use and space is one reason I switched to a sandpaper on glass setup. I just have an 18x24 piece of plate glass on which I spray glue (3M Super 77) some sandpaper strips to. Then squirt them down with a bottle of water and go. I sometimes have a leather strop out as well. I like to have 5 grits on my glass, 240, 400, 800, 1500, 3000. It allows me to quickly and easily progress through each grit, which saves a lot of time. I just lay it on top of the workbench and put a benchdog at the top to keep it from sliding. I'll put the strop in a vise if I have it out.

This way I don't have to have my sharpening setup out, taking up valuable space. But, if I do need to sharpen something, all I have to do is clear out a patch on my workbench, and pull out 2, maybe 3 items (depending on if I want the strop), and immediately get to it. Then, for tear down put the glass and bottle back on a shelf. I don't even worry about cleaning the sandpaper when done because it's replaceable. Even switching out sandpaper is easy with some mineral spirits and spray glue. And really, you don't have to do that as often as you'd think. Sure, the sandpaper becomes less effective pretty quickly, but it keeps working with a few extra passes for quite a while.

How do you deal with the backs of the tools?

[Tony Wilkins]

I didn’t want this to devolve into a which is best sharpening system debate (which is hasn’t). However, I picked up a lapping film kit with a Lee Valley order a while back. With the mess my current stones made on my bench, I’m wondering about the films to make setting up a cleaner (in more ways than one) operation.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

When using the Tormek copy I use the leather strop wheel to roll the burr off. If I am using a stone or brick I drag the burr off by pulling the tool backwards on its backside. This technique is only for flat things like chisels and plane irons

[kenneth hatch]

I agree with Rob Luter, "Sharp solves all manner of problems". Your sharpening station may be the most important "tool" in your shop. Mine is just off the end of my work benches and covers the whole wall. On the left is the "stone" area, slightly to the right is the Tormek setup and saw vise with high speed grinder and metal vise at the right end of the bench. Works for me and is a good use of limited space.

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As always click it to big it.

ken

[Jimmy Harris]

How do you deal with the backs of the tools?

I have the edge of the glass plate aligned with the edge of my workbench. And I glue each sheet of sandpaper near the edge of glass plate. For plane irons, it's no big deal. But for chisels, I use the bottom half of the sandpaper so the handle can hang over and below the edge if need be. That way I can get that 3° angle to attack the burr or whatever. Most of the time, if I'm sharpening the bevel of the blade, I'll start near the center and work my way towards the top to even out the wear so I'm not replacing sandpaper too often and leave the bottom third or so for the backs of chisels and whatever.

It's only really a problem when I'm trying to flatten the back of a new chisel or some other rare occurrence. For that, I'll go ahead and use a traditional whetstone. I still own a bunch of whetstones for things like scissors, kitchen and pocketknives, drawknives, and other weirdly shaped blades. It doesn't completely replace the need for whetstones. But 98% of the time, I find I can do what I need in the shop with just the plate glass and water bottle.

[Dan Kraakenes]

Since I am still building my little shop, it consits of a kitchen counter top made out of stone, looks like marble with a sink installed.

Its 2.4m or 95’’ long.
Our kitchen installer ordered plate with wrong sink, so we got to keep the plate.

I will find some IKEA cabinets to place it on, with plenty of drawers for storage sake. Or I will try to build some myself, depending on how quickly I want to have it up and running.

A grinder, a Tormek and some Diamond plates will be placed on top.

[Richard Hutchings]

What's the point of all those things? I thought the Tormek was a one stop deal, at least replaces the grinder.

[Tom M King]

The slow speed wet grinders serve a useful purpose if they fit what you want to do, and how to do it. They're slow so they don't sling water all over everything. The slow rpm makes them very slow to remove metal regardless of the wheel you have on it. The dry grinders remove metal WAY faster, but make another kind of mess, and it is possible to burn an edge with any of them. It depends entirely on what you want to accomplish, and how fast you want to do it.

If one needs the bevel changed, from damage or any other reason, I remove most of the metal with a dry grinder, and finish the bevel to the edge with the wet grinder. The wet grinder alone will never get edges as sharp as I want them by itself. Without damage to the edge other than simply getting dull, mine never visit a grinder.

[Tom M King]

Dan, that length sounds about right to me. Mine is 92" long. I had a shorter one for a while with a drainboard on one side of the sink, but 48" total was just not big enough for what I wanted. It looks too big in my first pictures here, but I have a larger granite surface plate to go on the end that I'm waiting until I have enough time to finish the cabinet under it to support the 85 pounds. I use it for sandpaper sharpening of jointer knives and things larger than the stones.

The stoneholder sink bridge came off Amazon. They have several different sizes. At first I thought it might be too flimsy, but works fine.

[mike stenson]

Yea, to be honest I don't use my tormek for anything other than turning tools. It's just too slow. So I use a high-speed grinder, my fingers and a cup of water. Then move to water stones. Since I have a couple benches I just pull them out and place them in a boot bin on the bench I use less. While they tend to live there for a while, they get packed up and put away.

[kenneth hatch]

BTW, the JNATS are in the cabinet with the "Bear Crossing" sign.

[George Yetka]

Dont tell my wife its not normal but i do all my stone work on the kitchen counter. I do my kitchen knives every time I break out the stones. Easy cleanup on kitchen counter. I just make sure I thoroughly rinse the SS sink. Otherwise it all sits in a drawer. The 1 time every other year I run the wolverine jig for the lathe tools I setup the grinder.

[steven c newman]

Ok...Dungeon Woodshop. The ONLY water being used (besides when the clothes washer is running) is in a tall, plastic glass, sitting beside the grinder...I use oil stones, I use a very worn sanding disc of my sanding machine, I use wet-or-dry Sandpaper with oil...sitting on an oil stone I just got done using, then set up and use a cloth wheel grinder, and some Green stick..
WEDs Night, edges.JPG
Wider one..left a hair-free patch on my left forearm, about 1-3/4" wide..