What's Wrong With This Picture

[Burt Alcantara]

Seems like I am unable to sharpen with my Vari-Grind. I viewed the vari-grind video numerous times and tried the article by Kirk DeHeer in American Woodturner, Spring 2006. Whatever I do, it always comes out like this.

In frustration, I took the gouge and flattened the nose to look like a roughing gouge and put a sharp profile on the flute. Ground if from ground zero, so to speak. Still came out the same way.

Doesn't cut worth a pig's ear either.

I'm hoping some of you will see the problem and have a good solution so I can get back to making shavings.

Thanks,
Burt

[Jim Ketron]

Once you have the tip end ground to the correct angle that you want, you don't need to take much time there, the wings needs more grinding to get the shape your after. try rolling the gouge on over more on each side and I think you will have it.
After that it's basically the same each time to sharpen, I just touch the tip for a brief moment and the wings takes a little more time.

[Mark Pruitt]

What Jim said.
Basically, I rotate the VariGrind to the point that the jig itself almost makes contact with the grinder wheel.

[Mike Vickery]

60435

I am not an expert or anything so take this with a grain of salt. First of all the area highlighted with the circle has a tooth, this is your main cutting adge and that has to be a smooth edge. I do not think the tool will cut until this is smoothed out. Second the angle of the bevel and the wings should be less than 90 degrees. Your looks considerably more than 90 and I believe that will cause entry problem when working on the inside.

Your grind looks to be more like what I call a side grind than a fingernail grind. Their is nothing wrong with that but you should be aware you are doing it. I used a side grind for a while but have since switched to a fingernail grind. I found that if you have the angle of your varigrind set near the front you get the side grind and when set closer to the back you get the fingernail (mine is set about 75% back). When useing the varigrind I find that using you left hand on the Knob and your right hand on the tool shaft (not the handle) of the gouge you get better control. Also make sure to try to grind near the middle of the grinding wheel and not go back and forth across it. I usually start grinding in the center of the gouge and roll it to the left for my first pass. Then start at the center and roll it to the right for my next pass. Use a controlled even motion when grinding.
I had similiar problems at first when using the varigrind but they seems to have gone away pretty quickly. I had a lot more problems with gouges with V shaped flutes and a side grind than any of the U shaped flute gouges ( no idea what yours is).

Good luck!

[Bob Opsitos]

If you can, get ahold of a gouge with the grind you like, and use it for reference. For as much as the vari-grind is a jig, it's really not.

It took me a while to stop butchering my gouges. Getting a fingernail ground gouge that I could use for learning to use the jig helped me to grind my other gouges. It was far less a setup of the jig thing as it was technique and what part of the gouge to spend time grinding on.

HTH
Bob

[Wilbur Pan]

Once you have the tip end ground to the correct angle that you want, you don't need to take much time there, the wings needs more grinding to get the shape your after. try rolling the gouge on over more on each side and I think you will have it.
After that it's basically the same each time to sharpen, I just touch the tip for a brief moment and the wings takes a little more time.
Just to expand on this, at the Woodworking Show that was in NJ a few weeks ago, I saw a turning tool sharpening demonstration by Kirk DeHeer. He showed how most of the sharpening time for a gouge should be on the sides. He said that many people grind the sides, sweep over to the other side, grind that, and sweep back. Since every time you sweep over you grind the tip, and since the tip is a lot thinner than the sides, it's easy to grind the tip a lot more than you think you are.

His suggestion was to grind the nose angle until it is where you want it, grind one side, lift the tool off the grinder completely, grind the other side, then finally sweep across the whole of the tool.

I've since found that spending up to 90% of the time on the wings is really not too much.

[Burt Alcantara]

Since I have nothing to reference except pictures, I don't have any idea how to grind a fingernail. Secondly, I've butchered my 1/2" & 3/8" gouges beyond recognition.

The Oneway Vari-grind video does not have any close ups of the resultant grind. I used that method for a while but was never satisfied with it.

The next version was Kirk DeHeer's. What I liked was the absolute repeatability. Unfortunately, the grinds shown above were done with his method. I'm probably dwelling too much on the nose.

In the Oneway video, he starts with a traditional grind and converts it to his swept back grind. Same with DeHeer.

I tried grinding back to a traditional - square front with straight flute. Then grounding a small tip and grounding down the flute to about 45 degrees +/-.

I repeated this with both methods. Kept coming out the same. I know I'm doing something very wrong but I don't know what that is.

If you can supply detail as to what I should be doing, I'd appreciate that very much!

Thanks,
Burt

[Bob Hampton]

Burt here is a little trick i learned along time ago that helped me with the varigrind..
use a black ink marker and color all the tip ..set the tip in the jig with a min 1 3/4 to 2" of the tip out of the front...now lay the tip on the wheel and rotate the wheel by hand toward you 1 full rotation...now u should have a scratch mark on it from top to bottom...if more top then bottom then u need to adjust the slide bar in just a little bit so more of the tip hits on the bottom then the top and repeat this until u get an even scratch mark going from top to bottom.
Now after u get this lay the tool over either left or right so the wing is touching the wheel and repeat the rotation by hand...again u should see the same thing ..even scratch from top to bottom ...if not then loosen the holddown knob and ROTATE the tool in the holder right or left until u get the even scratch mark.
After u get this done then either make a mental note where the tool has to be in the holder or make a reference mark so that u put the tool in the same spot every time.
If u get to much of a point then lower the point of the tool on the wheel just a little bit..like 1/32 at a time and this will give u a more rounded nose on the tool.
Hope that helps
Bob

[Burt Alcantara]

As to the actual grinding, how much time do you spend on the nose, if any at all? I seem to able to get a good side grind but once I get towards the nose then the distortions set in. One reason I do this is because the front flute is still not sharp (shiny).

If I ignore the nose then it wont cut.

Burt

[Paul Engle]

I dont know if this will help but I noticed with my vari grind that if i get to low on the wheel it tended to do this what you got , since i use the delta wet/dry system and the dry wheel is is only 4 or 5 inch in dia i had to adjust the height of the vari so the tip would grind at the same angle higher up on the stone, if i did it mid stone i got what you got. i moved the tool further up on the stone to where it is nearly at the top and tried again and was able to duplicate the grind of my ellsworth 1/2 bg on an older ht 3/8 super flute, I use a slightly steeper angle on the 3/8 so i can plunge the center and work my way out in small steps on smaller bowls and it works very well on wet not so much on dry material. but i use it instead of my sg to do the outside of the bowls.Have you watched the oneway video online that they have at their site? Thats how i discovered I was too far down on the wheel and moved up to about a third the way down instead of mid way down.

[Dick Strauss]

Burt,
Let me try to break it down for you into a few steps:

general shaping of the flute top
This may take a while based on the current shape of your tool. Turn the tool upside down with the flute edge pointing down towards the grinding wheel. Slowly grind the flute edges so that you have a nice arc from the top of the flute to the tip of the nose. Try to make sure that the wings look symetric. This first step is done freehand (no jigs).

Setting the right angle on the jig and jig support arm
Once you have a nice smooth arc from the tip of the tool to the top of the flutes, turn the tool over and insert into the varigrind jig. You should have 2-3" extended out past the the end of the jig as measured to the tip. Start with 2.5" extended for a good middle grind and tighten the clamp to hold the tool securely. Set the jig swing angle at about 45 degrees to start. Once this swing angle is set do not move it during any phase of the sharpening process. Set the support arm length (that holds the jig) so that the combination of the support arm and jig cause the tip of the tool to be presented to the wheel at about 45 degrees. Mark the whole cutting surface of your gouge with a black sharpie as previously suggested. Turn the grinding wheel slowly by hand and make sure that only the heel of the gouge is touching (the heel is the part opposite the tip on the nose...in other words, it is the place where the sharp tip transitions to the length of the gouge). If the black marker is worn off the cutting tip, you need to reset the length of the support arm by making it shorter.

grinding the heel/tip portion
Once you have the heel angle set correctly, turn on the grinder and slowly grind the heel away by pivoting the gouge/jig combo straight into the wheel (in the vertical plane) using very little pressure. Stop to check your progress every few seconds. Continue grinding the heel until you are almost (but not quite) starting to touch the tip with the grinding wheel. This tip edge should not be sharp at this point!

grinding the wings
Once you have most of the extra material gone from the heel to tip area, you can start on the wings (which are the side flutes). You do not want to touch the ground tip at all during this phase. Once again, gently pivot the gouge/jig combo into the wheel in the vertical plane until you make very slight contact with the wheel just off to one side of the tip. Then you will pivot the gouge combo in the horizontal and vertical planes while avoiding the tip. You continue grinding the heel slowly off the wing sides while constantly checking it until you are almost (but not quite) grinding the wing cutting edges. The wing edges should not be sharp at this point!

grinding a sharp edge around the tip and wings
At this point you have a tool that is almost the right shape but not sharp. To complete the process, all you do is bring the cutting tip into contact with the wheel using very light pressure and swing the gouge/jig from left to right. You will want to spend 4 times as much time on the wings as you do at the tip since yoiu are removing more much material. Keep checking the cutting edge every few seconds again. If it is sharp, you should see a very fine line at the edge. If it isn't sharp it will look like a pencil line of dull gray metal at the edge.

Once you have finished and you got satifactory results (I hope!!!), record all settings including the arm length, the swing angle, and how far the gouge extends from the jig.

If I've missed something please feel free to correct me!!! If someone has pics to help illustrate the process, I'm sure it would help Burt.

PM me if you have more questions,
Dick

[Steve Schlumpf]

Burt, have to agree with Paul's comments about where on the wheel you should be grinding. Your grind looks just like mine when I first started using the vari-grind and - just as Paul suggests - found that by moving up and using the top portion of the wheel I was able to get the swept-back grind I was after.
Course, make sure that:

1) The gouge is extended 1 3/4" or 2" out from the front of the vari-grind
2) The extension arm is the proper height with respect to the grinding wheel
3) You are using the correct angle on the jig - as a reference my vari-grind is set at the second notch when viewed from the bottom of the jig

Hope this helps. If not - let us know and we'll figure out what will work.

[Burt Alcantara]

I tried a few of the suggestions. Some were close, others not. If I moved up on the wheel, the nose bevel looked like a spindle gouge. My gouge was losing length. Got down to about 2.5".

Took a break and thought about things. Went back to the grinder. Don't know what I did but I got a reasonable enough edge to cut a small bowl without resorting to anything but the gouge. In the past I've used a scraper and skew to get thru a project.

Went back to the grinder and gave it a touch up. Trouble. The nose developed a hook. I could sometimes grind it off but mostly not. I realized that I was burning right thru the front 10% of the side bevel. I tried a few things to get it back to symmetry but got frustrated again. Went back to the bowl and found I could still use it.

This was the first piece I turned without a catch. Sort of... A large knot exploded and took about .5" off the rim. I was able to easily bring it to flatness. I was having so much fun that I broke thru the bottom. I still continued until a crack split the bowl bottom to top.

I hope I can figure out what I did to get the first grind and what I did to the touch up to burn thru the edge.

When I initially sharpened the gouge I got nervous about burning thru the sides. I could still see reflection off the flute. I stopped sharpening and began turning the blank. Cut OK but I could see it could be sharper.

Where do you stop grinding? If I go until there's no reflection I seem to go thru the edge.

Thanks to all for great suggestions!
Burt

[Jim Ketron]

Burt stop messing with the tip of the gouge, that is if you have your angle set to what you want.
Roll your gouge on over some more on the sides it should have a little bevel to it and not straight up and down like in your pics.
here is a few pics that I took a while back on my old grinder set up that shows how I grind mine.

I always use the same distance sticking out from my homemade wolverine jig 1 3/4", it really doesn't matter what the distance is as long as you use the same every time. from the front of my grinder to the edge of my grinder table is 1 3/4" so that gives me an easy way to set my gouge distance, also you can see in pic #2 how the side of the gouge has a bevel also, not straight up.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b201/Jim_k/1-1.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b201/Jim_k/2-1.jpg

Now after you get the angle set on your jig that you want all you need to do is make sure the bevel is rubbing on the grinder wheel correctly if you have the right (same) distance from the tip of the gouge to the base of your jig. after you have it ground the angle you want it does not matter where you check the bevel on the tip or the side of your gouge to the grinder wheel.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b201/Jim_k/3-1.jpg

Now this is the part that you need to do more of.
From looking at your pics you have a very thin ragged edge on your gouge now and it does not have any bevel to rub while making your cuts turning, and thats why you are getting those nasty catches.

Swing the butt of the handle way over to one side and go a lot further than you have been going! Then go to the other side stay off the tip of the gouge and keep working on them until you get those wings trimmed down. your jig should come very close to hitting the grinding wheel while rolling it over. look at the 2nd pic and you can see how the gouge has a bevel to rub on

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b201/Jim_k/4-1.jpg

[Wilbur Pan]

When I initially sharpened the gouge I got nervous about burning thru the sides.
You're not going to burn through the sides. There's way more metal on the sides than at the tip, especially considering the angle that the gouge lies at during the grinding process.

[Curt Fuller]

Burt, I don't use a jig, but I start at the side of the gouge and roll it towards the center. Then start from the other side and roll towards the center. I never actually sharpen the center by itself, it's just where the two grinds meet from each side.