Grinding wheel setup...grit?

[Rick Cicciarelli]

I just got my first lathe yesterday. I am going to pick up an 8" variable speed grinder this week for my sharpening set up. I got the Wolverine sharpening jig as well. The grinder I am going with comes with two gray stones. I was going to leave the 80 grit on there, but I was going to purchase a Norton stone. I keep reading differing opinions though on grit. I was thinking of leaving the 80 grit gray stone on one side and going with the Norton 120 for most of my sharpening. Does this sound like a reasonable plan? How much does one really need a rougher grit for "reshaping"? I would think you are sharpening most of the time, and for this, I would think the 120 grit is the way to go. I would certainly appreciate any insight though.
Thanks.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Rick - I use 120 and 150 grit wheels. Once you have the tool profile that you want - you only need to lightly touch up the edge when sharpening. Everyone has a different setup that works for them - this just happens to work for me.

[Reed Gray]

80 and 120 grit are fairly common choices. The grey wheels usually aren't very good, and are replaced. Some will use a 60 or coarser grit wheel for shaping, and an 80 for sharpening. Personally, I have an 80 grit wheel for scrapers, and a 150 grit wheel for my gouges and skews. I also have a grinder, which I wish was high speed, for shaping, and it has a 40 grit wheel on one side, and a 60 on the other.

robo hippy

[Doug Thompson]

I find the Norton 3X 80 grit "K" grade ("K" is a hard wheel) is fine for bowl or spindle gouges and at $45 it's priced fair. The other wheel could be a course gray wheel or a Norton 3X, 46 grit "K" grade to reshape the tools.

[Tim Thiebaut]

I use the 120 on both wheels, I grind only gouges on the right side...because of the groove that is created I can go a while longer before useing my diamond wheel dresser as the profile is basicly the same on the gouges. And on the left wheel I do only skews as it keeps the wheel fairly flat most all the time. When I only had one wheel I had to true the wheel every time I wanted to go from gouge to skew sharpening because of the gouge in the wheel from the gouges...I hope that makes sense? Anyway, I have found this way it keeps the profile of the wheel basicly the same as the tools I use on them...just my 2 cents.

[bob svoboda]

Slow speed grinder with 8" wheels. Norton 3X 'K' at 80 and 120 grit. Works for me.

[Jim Burr]

I'm in the 80, 120 club also, but use a Delta 3200 rpm grinder coverted to 8" from 6".