New Toy

[Daniel]

I owned a foley belsaw Sharp all grinder in the past. At one point I had to move my shop into a space that was to small to hold it, so I sold it.
the original cost of the machine was nearly $2000 with all the accessories.
the other day I was helping my boss with some personal things at her house. under a tarp in her back yard was a sharp all in fairly good condition. she sold it to me for $20.
I'm toying with the idea of building a jig for it that will hold barrel trimmer heads so they can be sharpened on it. hope it works out. I also hope to be able to make my own trimmer heads as well.
I'll let you all know how that works out.

 

[Mudder]

Nice find Daniel,

I don't know anything about it but there are a couple on ebay right now. If worse comes to worse you can always fix it up and resell it.

 

[Daniel]

Mudder,
I hae more grinders, sharpeners and what not in my shop than I will admit here. Everyone woudl think I've become a collector. but hey all have a pourpose. this one is made specifically to sharpen just about anything and everything. think a barrel trimmer is tough. this thing will sharpen a circular saw blade.
being made as an all in one tool it does have it's draw backs. but it will get the job done, chain sawa blades, circular saws, band saaw blades, hand saws, turning tools, knives, planes, you name it and there is a way to sharpen it on this machine.
if you read the recent thread about how to sharpen a barrel trimmer. you get the idea of how the grinding stone fits into the notch in the trimmer to grind a new edge. well with this machine you mount the trimmer in a fixture. adn the stone moves into the trimmer head. not the other way around. you get dead even grinding on all for cutters that way. I'll get a pick of the machine in a bit. but lots of possabilities with this one. I made myslef a bunck of barrel trimmer pilots. 20 some of them. btu have nto been able to get the groove ground in them that reams the glue and stuff out fo the tube. this tool will do that also. that alone made it worth buying, and was actualy the reason I did buy it. if all works aout well I hope to start making custom pilots for people. any tube size you need. they woudl be for those that make a lot of pens in a style you can't get a pilot for. not necessarily cheap. but not killer expensive either. probably what you would pay for a pilot from any supplier anyway, still not something you want to buy to make only one or two pens.

 

[Daniel]

Here is the photo I said I would take

hope some of you get soemthing about other ways to get barrel trimmers ahrpened and thigns like that.
the handle above the large grinding whell is for actually puling the entire grinder forward into the item you are working on. the bar sticking out fron holds various holders. the one on there right now holds circualr saw blades. there si also one for holding chain saw cahins and many other accesories. sadly most of those are missing for this one. I will need to build a holder for the end mill cutter and the pilot that will fit on this bar. it can then be tilted as needed, positioned closer of farther away from the grinding stone as needed. and can even be set at an angle to the stone. basically compound grinding with depth control. this is how you could gring off the top edges of a barrell trimmer and still leave them all the same height.
notice the nob at teh center of the front of the grinder. this controls how far forward the machine can be moved. creating a consistant depth of grind.
now nto very many people are going to either run out and buy one fo these things, they are far from cheap. adn even fewer are going to find them for $20 like I did. heck one grinding stone for this machine is nearly $20. but you can rig up the same idea for a regular bench grinder. I thought of using my cross slide vise to be able to move the cutter head into my bench grinder. you could also mount a bench grinder to a plate hinded to a bench so it can be tipped forward like this one does.
in short you need a way to move the item you are sharpening in a controled direction, at a controled angle, and for a controled distance.
this particual sharpener is very high speed, you have to work in very short taps at a time allowing the tool to cool off between taps. but it takes off a lot of metal with each tap. I thik I could take a 5/8 inck drill rod and simply grind a barrel trimmer cutter out of it with no problem with this machine. I'll let you all know after I've tried it.

 

[Paul in OKC]

That looks like a fun gadget to play with! []