How To Sharpen Carbide Tipped Lathe Tools

The top surface of the tool is often ignored but its as important as the faces.

How to sharpen carbide tipped lathe tools. Carbide does not lend itself well to offhand grinding although it can be ground that way. Dont Forget the Other Face of the Tool. It is a sled which rides atop the SVD-110 Tool.

Be sure to have some lapping fluid on hand to use as a lubricant. For a while now Ive wanted to have a way to sharpen my metal lathe cutting tools. Assuming youre talking about brazed carbide tools the best way is with a high speed wet diamond wheel mounted on a machine with a table that tilts to establish front and side relief.

They require a dimond stone because its the only material hard enough to properly sharpen carbide. Building your own carbide tipped lathe tools will bring much satisfaction fast and clean cuttingnot to worry about sharpening because you can just get a new carbide insert for 5 to 10 bucks. I started at a time when there were no carbide tipped tools.

As I noted in my Sharpening Handbook httpsharpeninghandbookinfo these are not easy to sharpen in a normal manner. Carbide tools can be sharpened on an ordinary bench grinder but it does not do the best job in terms of finish. Touch the tip to the wheel but do not turn on the grinder yet.

In this video I explore different aspects a slow speed grinding. How to use a slow speed grinder to sharpen carbide tooling. Heat is the enemy of sharpening metal and carbide tipped tools slower speed and water bathed systems help in this regard.

The relief angle under the cutting edge is 6 aka the end relief angle and the front edge angles away the tip at 15 aka the end cutting edge angle. They had several grinders for carbide tools some with face type wheels and one like an ordinary bench grinder with 7. Adjust the rest as needed so that you achieve the necessary grinding angle for your particular tool.