Work Sharp Sharpening System - Manual (Page 27)

Lathe tools are difficult for most to
sharpen since they often have
curved or compound bevel surfaces.
Sharpening is most often done on a
rotating stone (aka “grinder”) which
really can butcher the cutting edge
unless you use a very fine stone and
are quite skilled.
The curved surface of the grinding
wheel cuts a concave shape on the
bevel surface, often weakening the
cutting edge and badly scratching it
as well. It is also easy to overheat
the fragile cutting edge with a grind-
ing wheel which can draw the temper
out of the steel, ruining what can be
a very expensive cutting tool.
The ideal way to sharpen these curved or
compound angle shapes is on a flat abra-
sive like the Work Sharp glass
plates. The challenge there is that
you can’t see the interface between
the abrasive and the portion of the
bevel being cut since your line of
sight is blocked by the cutting tool
itself making it hard to establish and
maintain a common bevel angle.
The Work Sharp solution is to supply
another kind of flat plate onto which
you apply abrasive sheets. This time
the plate and abrasive are both slot-
ted so, as the wheel spins, you can
see right through it and can see
clearly exactly where the abrasive is
contacting the curved or complex
cutting bevel.
Here are two photos looking down on the
Work Sharp with the slotted wheel
mounted and spinning. In use it is much
easier to see through these slots than it is
to photograph this phenomenon. This is
a very clever solution to a very old and
previously intractable problem.
Now, let’s go back to the beginning and
take a look at how the adhesive mounts
to the slotted plate and how the plate
mounts to the Work Sharp unit.
Here are close-ups of the slotted
wheel in action. Note how you can
see the very point of contact be-
tween the curved bevel and the
abrasive.