can barrell trimmers be sharpened?

[redfishsc]

After reading Paul's post in the casual forum, I remembered that my current 3/4 trimmer is wearing down. Anyone have any advice on trying to sharpen it? I was thinking chuck it in my 3-jaw mini chuck on the lathe, low speed, and use a fine Arkansas oilstone and polish up the face a good bit.

Has anyone tried this or something similar?

 

[ctEaglesc]

You won't cut anything if you sharpen it flat.
Use a diamond stone up the face of each cutter,not the top.
Count the number of strokes.
There have been a number of threads on this.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=8252&SearchTerms=pen+mill+sharpening


http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=7901&SearchTerms=pen+mill+sharpening

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=4492&SearchTerms=pen+mill+sharpening

 

[Rudy Vey]

Send them to Paul Huffman in OK, he does a great job on sharpening my barrel trimmers.

 

[Ron in Drums PA]

I'm only touching the side of the wheel, not the front.
Practice holding the mill to the wheel with the grinder off to get the feel of how it should be positioned.

 

[redfishsc]

Thanks for the info. Eagle, I'll read each of those-- thanks.

Ron, good pic-- I'll keep that in mind if my diamond files don't work.

Rudy, I'll keep that in mind-- our cabinet shop has a company that sharpens all our carbide tooling, he may be able to touch my trimmer up, but I'm not sure he'd charge a reasonable price for it. I'd have to ask.

 

[redfishsc]

Eagle, after reading your thread (whereby you "vindicated" Tom, lol), it seems to me like you were doing basically what I was suggesting in my first post above (the vertical "face"-- the squaring edge-- of the trimmer), and you said it works. Have you since found that method to be less useful since then? Or am I reading the post wrong?

Just seems to me that regardless of which side you sharpen, you will get a good cutting edge.

Either way, I have a couple of old pen mills that were worn out when they were given to me. Time to play with them and mess up a couple on someone else's budget[].


Hmmm... just had an idea to keep the face perfectly square-- mound the cutter on the tailstock with the jaw chuck and the sharpening stone to the headstock (faceplate with a plywood scrap, and small, light diamond stone (the lil HF stones) adhered to the plywood. I have some killer contact adhesive, it'll hold the stone plenty strong enough. Just advance the tailstock a touch and it will do *something* to the pen mill..... whether sharpen it or not we shall see....

I'll try to take a few pics and post if it works.

 

[ctEaglesc]

You still won't cut anything if you mill the face of the cutter flat.

 

[leehljp]

Eagle,

I just recently learned that! Having said that, I did use a flat (600) diamond hone and make one to two light swipes on it face down and it did well. But the key here is "hone" the flat face edge very gently, not mill, sharpen, or grind. In fact I did this about 3 times before I figured out it was time to gently and precisely file the face back at an angle to get the cuting edge back. For the short term and for a quick edge, it works OK. For the long term, doing the face defeats and destroys usefullness of the cutter head. I just started doing as Ron showed above, with one or two hones in between. Actualy I know better as I do know and insist on the proper sharpening methods on wood chisels.

One of the keys here is to take the time to sharpen it right, square and proper. I have had a few people say that too fine an edge is inviting it to be damaged quicker. But for me I think that the sharper it can be made, even to the point that it has a mirror like gloss and razor edge, it will cut longer, smoother and quicker. This takes about twice as much time to do (for me) on such a small head, but if it works like my wood chisel sharpening, I should get 4 times more cuts. From my experience with chisels, I have learned that the more time I spend doing quality sharpening, the better results I get, the more cuts I can make.

Another factor is that sharper edges are safer. Less "catches".

 

[redfishsc]

You're right about sharper edges lasting longer. They don't generate nearly as much heat as a duller edge, and heat is a good way to ruin a cutting edge.

I'll keep this second warning about face-milling in mind. Thanks for the input.

 

[ctEaglesc]

Rons meathod uses a wheel, I use a diamond stone, I don't have enough confidence in my technique to do it the way Ron does.We are both "honeing" the same surface.
For me it takes longer to ruin the mill if I do 10 swipes with the diamond stone by hand.
I use a $6.00 diamond stone from Lowes I bought for this specific purpose.
I only touch it up when necessary.HAving it sharpened every couple of weeks is worth it for $5.00