honing wheel MDF of plywood

[Brian Deakin]

I have a spare bench grinder and I am interested in making a honing wheel

Can anyone please advice which would be the better material MDF. or plywood

(I have some cabinet grade plywood which is 30 mm thick)

[John Keeton]

MDF. That is what I did and it works very well with green compound.

[Pete Staehling]

I have not tried plywood, but mdf works very well.

[Brian Deakin]

MDF. That is what I did and it works very well with green compound.

John and Pete thank you for your advice

I enjoy making rather than buying and since I have retired I have lots of time to play

Other if the green compound is the Veritas brand I read recently it is equivalent to 16000 grit

regards Brian

[John Keeton]

Brian, I have had my compound for years and do not know what grit it is, but I use it to hone my carving chisels and it works very well. From the surface I get I doubt mine is quite that fine.

Enjoy retirement! I highly recommend it - 5 years so far for me.

[Pete Staehling]

FWIW, it may be heresy, but I have not found that it makes a huge amount of difference which compound I use. Any way it is easy to put on and take off different compounds until you find one you like.

[Reed Gray]

Okay, as some one who is new to honing, several questions... Wouldn't a slow speed grinder be a bit fast? I always think of honing as being a slow speed thing...

I am wondering about MDF also. From my years of construction, with MDF, the surface of the sheet is a different hardness than the middle which you can see when you apply paint or glue. Does the honing/buffing compound fill that so you get an even surface? I would think leather would be preferable, like the hard thick stuff used for tooling... I did see a comment some where about the person not liking leather because it was not a hard surface and would give a bit causing a rounding of the bevel cutting edge, but think that would be hardly noticeable because the honing compounds are so fine...

I have a friend who did a lot of spoon carving and he had 4 compounds on a square stick for his carving chisels and knives. His work was all 'finish off the tool', and exceptional quality. He was complaining about a burr on one of his knives and I couldn't even feel it. Probably more than we need for most of our turning work, but I haven't yet had the time to sit down with him for a sharpening session.

I never could get a good honed edge with the diamond cards. Just didn't work for me, but the leather wheel on my Tormek does wonders...

robo hippy

[John K Jordan]

My experience in honing with MDF (which I do a lot for some lathe tools, especially skew chisels) is the hard outer surface of the MDF doesn't hold the polishing compound enough to suit me. I resaw the MDF to expose the inner material and apply the compound to it. Perhaps sanding the outer surface would also work but I didn't want to take the chance of leaving any coarse sanding grit.

I usually use a green compound. The Tormek honing paste is also great since it is easy to apply and adheres well, but expensive. Maybe someone makes a cheaper paste or perhaps I could make some from a bar with a mortar and pestle and some mineral oil.

Leather with honing/polishing compound works well and I use it for my carving knives. My favorite is thin pigskin leather glued on a smooth board. I also use some thick, hard leather on some lathe tools and haven't noticed any appreciable rounding of the edge.

The only diamond hones that suit me with lathe tools are the small Extra Fine Eze-Lap paddle hones (blue), and these since I can "feel" the edge/bevel contact with my forefinger supporting the back of the hone when touching up spindle and bowl gouges. I was never happy with the credit card and other diamond hones that some others use.

hones.gif

JKJ

Okay, as some one who is new to honing, several questions... Wouldn't a slow speed grinder be a bit fast? I always think of honing as being a slow speed thing...

I am wondering about MDF also. From my years of construction, with MDF, the surface of the sheet is a different hardness than the middle which you can see when you apply paint or glue. Does the honing/buffing compound fill that so you get an even surface? I would think leather would be preferable, like the hard thick stuff used for tooling... I did see a comment some where about the person not liking leather because it was not a hard surface and would give a bit causing a rounding of the bevel cutting edge, but think that would be hardly noticeable because the honing compounds are so fine...

I have a friend who did a lot of spoon carving and he had 4 compounds on a square stick for his carving chisels and knives. His work was all 'finish off the tool', and exceptional quality. He was complaining about a burr on one of his knives and I couldn't even feel it. Probably more than we need for most of our turning work, but I haven't yet had the time to sit down with him for a sharpening session.

I never could get a good honed edge with the diamond cards. Just didn't work for me, but the leather wheel on my Tormek does wonders...

robo hippy

[John Keeton]

My honing "wheel" is just that - a wheel I mount in my lathe chuck. When I carve, I usually am working on a piece that has a chuck recess, so I mount a chuck on a 1" post that is threaded to 1.25"x8 tpi that is then set in my banjo. I can have it at a comfortable height with good lighting.

So....I took a round disc of hardwood approx. 3" in diameter, turned a tenon on it, then glued it in the center of a disc of MDF approx 8" in diameter. Once dry, I mounted the tenon in a chuck, and turned the MDF to a round disc with a flat edge. Loaded it with green compound and called it done. It is convenient to carve on the banjo with the honing wheel right there to touch up my carving gouges. I just run the lathe in reverse at a slow speed.

I don't hone my turning gouges, but I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well for that. One could modify the design to mount the wheel on a grinder shaft.

[Bill Boehme]

.... I am wondering about MDF also. From my years of construction, with MDF, the surface of the sheet is a different hardness than the middle which you can see when you apply paint or glue. Does the honing/buffing compound fill that so you get an even surface? I would think leather would be preferable, like the hard thick stuff used for tooling... I did see a comment some where about the person not liking leather because it was not a hard surface and would give a bit causing a rounding of the bevel cutting edge, but think that would be hardly noticeable because the honing compounds are so fine...

I'm wondering if you might be thinking of particle board rather than MDF. Particle board is what you usually see in home construction and cabinet work for shelves and as the substrate for countertops. Particle board has a more noticeable difference in texture between the core and surface particles. MDF on the other hand has a much finer texture and the difference between surface and core particle size is barely noticeable. Also, MDF is more expensive than particle board.

My experience is that the quality of particle board and MDF from big box stores isn't as good as the stuff that I get from a hardwood dealer. I hate the dust when cutting either of these materials. Cutting MDF generates finer dust that hangs in the air longer. Both of these materials contain formaldehyde so respiratory protection is absolutely necessary.

[Reed Gray]

I do know the difference between particle board (sawdust chunks) and MDF (powder, like from sanding). Oh, I have some 'Dakota Burl' which is particle board made from sun flower seed shells. I know when they make sheet plywood, they press it under heat, and stack maybe 20 to 25 sheets. I think the MDF is pressed in individual sheets, not sure though. I have some pieces of pressed paper fiber from the same company that made the Dakota Burl, and like the MDF, the surface is more dense than the center.

I did a number of concrete pits for the plywood presses in my younger days. They did have particle board then, but not MDF. They didn't have the OSB (oriented strand board, not what we used to call some of the priests in high school days....) in those days either...

I may have to try an MDF wheel, but don't think I have any. For honing compound, I use the emery stick I got at a big box store, like Eric Lofstrom uses. The store called it buffing compound, not honing compound. No grit ratings on the package at all...

robo hippy

[Sid Matheny]

Bob Hamilton (RIP) made some YouTube videos on his setup and I think he used two 3/4" pieces of MDF glued together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lZbppr_xAQ

[Ron Rutter]

MDF is made similar to how the old thick building paper was made - a thick slurry of fibre that is steamy hot, dewatered & put through presses.

[Grant Wilkinson]

On Alan Lacer's skew video, he makes honing wheels from MDF, I think glued up like Bob Hamilton did to make a 1.5" wide wheel. Alan emphasizes that the rotation of the wheel should be the reverse of a grinding wheel so that there is no danger of dig in.

[Dave Keele]

Thought I would weigh in on this one... I'm a woodcarver who is finding an interest in turning to make my own bases, handles, etc.

I make a sharpener and use (like the video above) MDF for the wheels. I glue two 3/4" x 8" disks together (made with a circle jig on a band-saw) and turn on my Putnam lathe. I made a jig that mounts in the tail stock to true the wheels. I glue (rubber cement) emery paper to two wheels and glue (contact cement) leather to the third wheel. I use a 1750 motor and pulleys to reduce speed to around 400 RPM. Top of wheels move to the rear (opposite of a standard bench grinder), and unlike the video, I don't use a platform to obtain a specific grinding angle... I free-hand... but I'm talking carving tools, not lathe tools.

I prefer using leather on my power wheels and hand strop, but that's what I learned on. I've used bare MDF and that works well, also. I also have a commercially made cardboard wheel that works well. Since it's the polishing (buffing) compound that's doing the work, any hard, flat surface capable of holding the compound in place, will work for honing.... the non-printed side of a cereal box works.

FYI... a bench grinder turns too fast for the kind of wheels I make.... emery paper and leather. I would not ever consider mounting one of these on a bench grinder. I know.... many out there, but they turn too fast, in my opinion.



Sharpener 1.jpg