Sharpening with a Lansky..

[sschering]

Last night I broke out my Lansky knife sharpening kit and went to work on one of my Skews. It took me about 30 minutes to get done but that was mostly the roughing work to repair my ham-fisted attempts at sharpening on the grinder and belt sander.

I have to say that skew is deadly sharp now. It runs through paper like my best kitchen knife and shaves wood of like my scary sharpened chisels.

Anyone see any reason this isn't a good method to sharpen turning tools?

I haven't tried turning with it yet since it was late and my shop is right next to the grumpy teen who dwells in my basement.
Is there such a thing as too sharp?

I may try and work up a rig to use it on the roughing and spindle gouges if I like how it turns.

 

[kovalcik]

I don't think you can be too sharp. I think the issue is hw much time do you want to spend to keep it that sharp? If it is 30 minutes each time then that is a lot of time you could be turning. If it is 30 minutes once in a while and a couple minutes to touch up between pens no problem.

 

[sschering]

Unless I did some major damage all it should take is a minute or two with the fine stone to clean the edge up. Getting the initial angle cut is the tough part..

 

[sschering]

I modded an old pair of deep jaw vice grips to act as a sharpening guide for the Lansky.

Works great and won't slip!

 

[mikespenturningz]

If you are happy with the time it takes that is all that counts. For me I go to my grinder put it into the wolverine skew jig and a few passes on each side of the 120 grit wheel and it is ready to go in less than a minute. It peels the wood off my pen blanks in very fine shavings with a great finish. I got the Rikon grinder for $99 at WoodCraft and it works great.

 

[sschering]

Yeah someday I'll invest in a grinder guide or build something for the lathe since my grandfather left me a nice set of fine grit stones mounted on arbors.

For now this does a very nice job with stuff I already have.

 

[Marko50]

I modded an old pair of deep jaw vice grips to act as a sharpening guide for the Lansky.

Works great and won't slip!

What? And to think I dropped 700 Benjamin's on a Tormek! I let somebody "should" on me. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. That is slick!

 

[johncrane]

Cool idea! if it works for you 10 otta 10 for giving it ago.

 

[edstreet]

The #1 rule in sharpening is consistency and uniformity. Once you have that down you can obtain all levels of sharpness. It is that simple.