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Can anyone please advise ,which is the best honing plate for woodturning tools
I have seen plates which use a lapping fliud and others which do not
I would prefer a plate without a lapping fluid but are there any advantages to plates which use a lapping fluid
regards Brian
Brian, you query will no doubt stir the never ending debate as whether to hone or not. Many turners do not hone their edges - others do, and both have valid points of argument. It might be best for those responding to avoid a revival of that debate and offer any advise you may have on the topic of which plate to use.
Although I do not hone, I would mention this - D-Way Tools did offer a CBN honing plate that has 360 grit on one side and 600 on the other, though on his website he does not show order info. I have heard good things about that plate and you may want to call Dave to see if it is still available.
I prefer the small honing paddles sold by DMT and Ez-Lap; I don't use them with fluid. I use the Fine and Super Fine paddles.
I use the D-Way Tools CBN hone. Works great, never used fluid. I do wish it had a radiused edge to catch the inside flute edge though like a slipstone. I use a diamond honing rod for inside the flute edge. Makes for a quick touch-up between trips to the grinder. I use it a lot when coring to keep the tips on the McNaughton sharp.
What are you honing?
Honing card? I use Trend and fluid. I have 300/600/1200 grits. Other brands are available, I like the Trend cards.
Craft Supplies sells a radiused CBN hone which also works great, although I do prefer the Trend Diamond. I use the radiused ends to hone the inside of the flutes.
I have DMT plates, but I find it very difficult to hone turning tools with them. I use those for flat work tools.
Fluid or not? I look at it this way. It cannot hurt the card/plate/stone (I think), it cleans it, gives a bit of rust prevention, when you're done, wipe it off and it seems to remove all that fine metal powder.
Just my $0.02
I have some old DMT diamond honing plates, 25 years old or so. They had pretty much stopped working from loading till I started using the lapping fluid. There are lots of home made lapping fluids that can be used that may be cheaper, but they do keep the artificial stones in good cutting shape. The lapping fluids are also good on the CBN wheels, though I apply to the tool bevel rather than the wheel to prevent spray. I also have Dave's CBN plates. The main thing I use the honing plates for is to remove the burr on my scrapers before sharpening and raising a new/fresh burr. I have actually been playing around with skews more for peeling cuts, and hone the burr off of them. For this, I go to my 25 year old Tormek. I have tried the lapping plates to remove the burr from the skews, and it seems to push it over from one side to the other rather than getting rid of it like the Tormek does. It is quite possible that I was doing the hand honing wrong... Same for the inside flute of a gouge if I want that, but never really do that. For the McNaughton, I use the CBN wheels and just kiss the bevel. If I was to hone them, I would do like Kel said to do, use the coarse hones as they raise a better burr. Never tried to burnish a burr on the McNaughton other than one that I put a tantung tip on.
robo hippy
If I wanted to hone my chisels I would use the same leather strop that I use for my woodcarving chisels and gouges.
Brian,Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Deakin
I use the Eze-Lap diamond paddle hones on turning tools without lubricant. I use Trend diamond lapping fluid on larger diamond honing plates.
I personally see no advantage of CBN over diamond for hand honing, it just doesn't make sense to me since the way I understand it the advantage of using CBN over diamond is primarily when high temperatures are present. I read that the diamond can degrade under the heat of grinding where CBN does not. I found this just now which looks good - I'll have to study it later! http://www.gearsolutions.com/article...diamond-or-cbn
There is a current thread on another forum that discusses this. (A gentleman was having problems with his hones "gumming up".):
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Don, I do the same - I use the little Eze-Lap diamond "paddle" hones dry on turning tool edges, mostly the extra fine grit. I like the control I get holding it with my forefinger on the end - I find this much easier to control that the credit card size I started out with. BTW, these things are pretty expensive but I discovered I could buy them directly from the Eze-Lap company at a huge discount in quantity - I have a lifetime supply now.
I use the lapping fluid for the diamond honing "plates" - I special-ordered a variety of 3"x8" plates from Ken Rizza. I originally got these for lapping ceramic cutters for the livestock shears I use on the llamas and alpacas. The ceramic cutters last a lot longer than steel but they expensive and are throwaway when dull. A 1/2 hour with the diamond plates (with Trend fluid) and they are good as new. I also use these on my carving tools. I also use the Trend fluid on my 1200 grit CBN wheel on the Tormek when sharpening my spindle gouges.
BTW, Rizza also sells CBN honing plates. I bought some on impulse to try then had buyers remorse - when I thought of the reason CBN was better than diamond for high speed wheels (the heat) and the relative hardness of diamond vs CBN, I wished I'd skipped the CBN. I have a set of 6 CBN grits on three plates if anyone is interested, new condition! For now, I'm using them as weights to hold hair-thin wires in place to support small turnings for photography.:)
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Send me a PM if you want more info.
JKJ
I cheated--just before the CBN wheels came out( they work very well) I bought several 6" lapidary discs in 600 to 180 grit in diamond. Mounted them on a cheap double ended HF buffer giving me 4 grits showing at once. I shape on blue grindstones or the 180 diamond and touch up on the diamonds discs very lightly several times before reshaping. Maybe not ideal but cheap and very effective. The discs are worth having for sharpening drill bits and fosner bits ect. Cajun engineering yeah.
http://stores.alanswoodturningstore....hone-600-grit/ Alan Lacer sells a diamond stone with rounded edges so you can get in the flute.
The only turning tools I hone are the straight edge (skew, parting tool, etc), the small cutters for the Sorby (hollowing, scraping, etc), and carbide tips. I have about a 2" X 4" that I keep in a pocket on my shoulder which my wife was nice enough to sew on for use at the lathe.
I have a setup similar to Roberts with a 9" lapidary disc, which IIRC is 1200 grit, mounted to a garage door opener motor.
The motor is only 74 rpm which works fine because it will not sling items off. At the outside edge you have about 30" of disc sliding under the item per second so it only takes a few seconds. The only problem with the door opener is that it has the electronics to keep it from closing on a stupid putty cats head so you can't apply a lot of pressure without it knocking off.
+1 for what Dave Fritz says. I have a D-Way CBN hone and two Alan Lacer diamond hones. I really like the Lacer hone. It has two curved sides with diamonds for flutes and two non-radius ends for sharpening router bits and Forstner bits. Also, since it is coated with diamonds, you can sharpen the flat Easy Wood carbide cutters. Not recommended that you sharpen carbide with CBN hones.
A huge thank you to everyone for the advice and information provided
regards Brian
John I have decided to purchase a DMT double side honing plate what combination grit size ould you suggest
regard Brian