Already slid down the slippery slope...

[Randy Klein]

That link you have is for $0.00, so that is a really good deal.

Yeah, for fun I tried to checkout with it in my cart. No go. Darn computers are too smart...

[Randy Klein]

So is there an equivalent honing process for turning tools, as there is for plane irons and chisels (like on waterstones or hard felt wheel)?

Or is the tool used right off the grinder?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Randy......I use a diamond hone on my skews and an indian slip stone on my gouges but most folks, I believe, use them right off the grinder.

[Dean Thomas]

Those neander tools, they'll collect dust. We are the true vortex! Neader is just a gravitational pull, we're a black hole!!!

Tyler's pretty close, but my neander tools NEVER collect dust. I have them covered up by a 3" layer of CHIPS, no dust! And out of sight most of the time!

You're right, IMO about the 1220 and about gifts out of freewood and cheapwood. At least for a little while...

And there is indeed some wiggle room in what is designated as HSS. HF's tools are still HSS, but certainly not in the high end. Mass is a little light, too, and handles are often quite light and flimsy for people with ham hands. I just did another post on another thread that talks about why that set of HF tools is a good investment. Once you've been at this a little while, they will not be your main tools, but you'll still use them for all sorts of things including special shapes, playing with bevel angles, learning to sharpen, learning to use a jig to sharpen, etc. The HF tools have plenty of LENGTH on their tools. That's a REALLY good thing. Most of the cheapie HSS tools are not long enough to sharpen on most grinders--the ferrule keeps the steel from touching the wheels! HF's have nice long flutes and will be sharpenable for a good long while. Because the tools are less than $5 apiece, there's no guilt when you mess up and lose 1/2" to sharpening. When you use 1/2" of steel from a $100 tool, learning to sharpen it, you've killed maybe 10-15% of its useful life. If you grind the whole HF tool away, you've spent $5, not $15 or more. Sounds like a good deal to me. I have a set of the tools that I bought to use with my little kids when I was teaching some 10-year-olds how to turn. They did just fine with them. Again, no guilt. If they dropped the gouge or skew point first onto concrete, I could just smile and resharpen instead of having heart palpitations.

[Charles Hannemann]

check this out: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...=1,330&p=56745
the set of six or the set of nine

Charles