A Beginner Grinding Lathe Tools

Discussion in 'Hints & Tips' started by Rob Pulham, Mar 10, 2022.

  1. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

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    Over the weekend I was re-reading the late David LO Smith's (DLOS) workbench thread and I recalled that one of the things that I had asked him (I hadn't realised how ill he was at that point) was in a future video would he do one on grinding lathe tools.

    Encouraged by another Guild member, Ian Middleditch who kindly described in a message how I might make a small form tool for making whistles, I have subsequently ground a few lathe tools of my own so needing to grind some more I thought I might attempt to make a video of the process.

    Having ground the form tool I sought out a few YouTube videos on tool grinding which helped and some went into great detail about clearance angles for different materials much of which went over my head. The one thing that did stick was that for turning brass which is what I will be tuning mostly there is no need for any top rake so you only need to grind the front and sides of the tool.

    The engineers amongst our fellow members please look away now! I am only a beginner to this and I have found that the curve of the grinding wheel pretty much creates the rake for you as you grind I suspect that it's not remotely precise enough for many materials but so far it's worked for me.

    Now the first question is what sort of grinder do you need and the reality is that you don't need to spend a fortune or have something that takes up half your bench space.

    This is what I use, Middle Lidl at £18.99 when I bought it about 4 years ago. The minor annoyance with it as bought, is that the tool rests are plastic with ridges on the top surface which make movement of the tool while grinding quite difficult. To make it easier to use I have glued on a couple of small pieces of bent brass sheet using thick superglue.

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    Below are some of the tools that I have ground on it. They are all pieces of HSS tool steel that I got when I bought my very first lathe but had no idea what to do with them at the time.

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    I recorded the grinding of parts of the middle tool in the first couple of images probably not ideal as an example but that was all I had left to do when I thought about making a video.

    There is no voiceover, so I would suggest unless you like lots of machine noise that you watch it with the sound off:scratchchin: I will be the first to say that it's not the best video in the world, but hopefully it will help someone to overcome their fears and have a go

     
    jakesdad13 and gormo like this.

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