Odd failure with an MDF honing wheel.

[Joshua Dinerstein]

So this last weekend I took the rough blank I made last weekend and tried to complete my MDF honing wheel.

I took 3 3/4" thick MDF 9" squares and glued them together 2 weekends ago. Then last weekend I got it mounted onto a faceplate and turned down to round. It worked well. Man alive does MDF make a ton of dust but my DC made pretty quick work of that.

I bought some green compound from the local HF. I was there and they had it and well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I tried to charge the wheel and it was slow to do so. When it finally did work and "charge" onto the surface, it was extremely clumpy on the surface of the wheel. I tried to hone with it thinking it would smooth out. I packed it onto the surface of the skew and got no real honing done.

So I would scrape it off the back of the bevel and try again. I have to try and fix this. I would really like to get things going better with my skews.

So anyone else experienced this? Was it just that it was 35 or so in my shop yesterday. Which is cold BTW even for me. Or is it bad compound? I was thinking I would try to get something else from Home Depot on my way home tonight.

So any suggestions? Anyone else run into this? Alan Lacer makes it look so easy in his video.

Thanks,
Joshua

[Bob Hamilton]

Hi, Joshua:
I had the same experience when I first made my MDF wheel. Then I saw a video from Stu in Tokyo where he suggests spraying the surface of the wheel with penetrating oil and letting it soak in. That really seems to make the surface more receptive to the compound.

http://www.youtube.com/user/StuInTokyo#p/u/7/1TEIPEiPW58

Take care
Bob

[Allen Neighbors]

Hello, Joshua.
I liked that video that Bob mentioned. It's pretty neat, to see how Stu does the charging of the wheel. You can see it melting into the wheel.
I also think you may have had a problem the temperature. I charged my MDF wheel with black rouge ('cause I didn't have the green), by turning the speed of the lathe (my wheel mounts on the backside of the headstock) up to about 2000 rpm, and applying the rouge lightly and allowing it to melt into the MDF. Worked well.

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Hi, Joshua:
I had the same experience when I first made my MDF wheel. Then I saw a video from Stu in Tokyo where he suggests spraying the surface of the wheel with penetrating oil and letting it soak in. That really seems to make the surface more receptive to the compound.

I think it might have been a combination of the 2. I got some time last night to go out and play. I scraped the wheel clean of the big clumps. I sprayed it with the only spray oil I had. A can of PB Blaster. I let it soak into the MDF and then tried to charge it. It worked so much better it was scary. It was a bit warmer in the garage/shop and I now had the oil on the mdf wheel. It went on clean. I mean visibly I could see it coat the surface quite evenly.

So I tried honing my skew. WOW! It worked perfectly. I got the blackish mud coming up over the edge of the skew. It polished it so smoothly it shines. And the edge is extremely sharp. I have gotten to this point before with hand honing but it has been a bit hit and miss. I liked the speed of this process and the quickness and ease with which I put on an extremely keen edge. So I honed my smaller 1/2" skew the same way. Once again amazingly keen.

Thanks, Bob, for the ever so helpful response. And thanks Allen for suggesting another possible component. I think both had a major impact on my finally getting successful.

I then found a problem with my old lathe which I used to drive it but that is another thread altogether. I am just glad I got this working!

Joshua

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Ok. I think I might have put too much oil or the wrong kind of oil on my honing wheel. All i had as a spray was some penetrating oil. I got my lathe working last night to drive this so I started honing.

I put my skew to this and I started honing. Man alive I started getting oil running down the blade over my hands and onto the handle. It is black black black. (I think this is the steel that was removed.) So I put on some more honing compound and tried again. Again it worked but it didn't change the way the oil came out everywhere.

The edge was honed to razor sharpness. I just made a serious mess. I got covered, I had to scrub the tool, I had to scrub the wall behind the lathe etc...

Is this a problem of using penetrating oil or it is just too much oil period. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Joshua

[Mike Lipke]

I would think it was too much oil. The green compound is actually powder, held together in a stick by a waxlike substance. This binder gets softer when hot, harder when cold. You said you tried to charge the wheel when temps were near freezing, which would make the green even harder to go from the stick to the MDF. A THIN coat of oil would help the stick dissolve in colder temps.I wouldn't add any more oil for a long time. It should eventually get better.
You better hang an old shower curtain or something behind this machine for a while.

[Joshua Dinerstein]

I would think it was too much oil. The green compound is actually powder, held together in a stick by a waxlike substance. This binder gets softer when hot, harder when cold. You said you tried to charge the wheel when temps were near freezing, which would make the green even harder to go from the stick to the MDF. A THIN coat of oil would help the stick dissolve in colder temps.I wouldn't add any more oil for a long time. It should eventually get better.
You better hang an old shower curtain or something behind this machine for a while.
Yeah. I thought about that. Trying to put some cardboard or something behind it. But I also need the smell to dissipate. I have thought about turning the wheel down in size but I didn't want to shrink the diameter needlessly. I think I will wait and see if it will stop in the next little while and if not I will turn it down. I am just afraid it is really soaking and will have to be turned down further than I want. But hey it was 3 pieces of 3/4" MDF. Not exactly a major outlay in cash. ;)

Joshua

[Vince Welch]

Hi Joshua,

Way to hang in there and go after getting that skew sharp! lol! In my veiw, honing should be fast easy and efficient not beng a distraction from the work peice on the lathe. You can use many things as honing compound. Do you have a buffing system? Any of those 2 compounds works very well. Tripoli or AO.
I am sold on the DMT sharpening stones! I simply place a small peice of plexiglass with a DMT non skid matt right on my lathe bed ways down by my tail stock. On the non skid matt I have a double sided DMT honing stone with a fine( 600 grit) and extra fine(1200) surface. In fact, DMT just came out with a product called the WAVE allowing you to hone your gouges. OMG!! It is great! Let me know and I will send you a pic of my set up. I am so impressed and being a DMT distributor I just got the products in and am carry DMT products on my site. Anyways, they are fast, efficient, and I do not have to move away from my work piece to hone. Regardless of how you get the job done honing removes less material then sharpening meaning your tools can last longer. Learning to sharpen your tools and hone exactly the way you want is a skill that will last all of your turning career. Good Topic. Vince