Best way to sharpen a gutter adze?

[Andy Pratt]

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I couldn't find it in a search.

I just bought an ox-head gutter adze to start playing around making scooped chair seats. Unfortunately, the factory "edge" on it is blunt, on the order of about 1/8" wide, so I've got a major amount of material to remove before I can use it. Assuming that all sharpening has to happen from the inside, to have the correct cutting action (this is correct, right), this means that I need to remove material on an inside curve. While I'm sure I can hack my way through this with round/half-round metal files, I'm certainly not looking forward to the hours it's going to take via that method. Has anyone had any luck doing this with anything faster? ( All I can think of is carefully using the outside corner of a grinding wheel or playing around with stones on a dremel tool, but both seem risky. How do people normally do this?

Thanks,
Andy

[Doug Shepard]

What's the radius? Is it something that would fit over the roller on a stationery belt sander? Or maybe OSS?

[Dave Anderson NH]

First remove the handle, which on most gutter adzes is only pressure fit into the eye of the head. Then use a oscillating spindle sander, sanding drum on a drill press, or a coarse grit of sandpaper fit around a large diameter dowel to shape the bevel which is cannel in. When you get close to the edge switch to hand honing and sharpening with a finer grit of paper wrapped around the dowel. I'm sure there are other methods depending on what equipment you have, but htat's how I did mine many years ago. fortunately you only have to do the basic shaping once. It takes a lot of time.

[Andy Pratt]

Thanks guys, ironically I happened on the same OSS/Belt sander idea just today before I read this. I was reaching behind my ridgid sander to move the gutter adze head out of the way, so it wouldn't fall. My face was 2" from the sanding belt, my hand on the adze head and the lightbulb went on.

Would normal woodworking belts (I think mine are open coat aluminum oxide) do the trick or do I need to go find a belt geared toward metal removal? Wasting the belt isn't a big deal since it could just be my metal belt if it works, but if it's just a pain I won't bother.

Thanks for the help.

Andy

[Doug Shepard]

I dont do much powered sander sharpening but I used regular AO belts to sharpen an old axe and it worked fine. Just dont let the adze get too hot. You might need to do frequent breaks or water cooling if it starts getting so hot you cant hold the edge.

[Dave Anderson NH]

AlO belts will work fine but wear out quickly if you are removing any significant amound of metal. I prefer the blue AlZi (aluminum Zirconium) belts which last several times as long and aren't really that more expensive.

[Stephen Shepherd]

you can use a file (round or half round on the inside) and a flat file for the outside (flat like a chisel). This is providing the adze is soft enough for filing, which it should be.

Files can be fast with little chance of going wrong too fast. Also no chance of burning the edge.

Stephen

[Andy Pratt]

Gents,

My understanding is that I shouldn't be doing any metal removal on the outside curve of the adze, this is correct right?

[Dave Anderson NH]

You are correct Andy. Every gutter adze I've even seen is an in cannel tool. The only exception is that a few folks will add avery slight relief on the outsideso that they can "steer" the tip of the head back up out of the cut. It's sort of like some folks do on carving gouges and occasionally drawknives.