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Tool Steel or ?

Tom Albrecht

Tom Albrecht

Joined
Feb 8, 2014
Messages
1,219
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Location
Evanston, IL USA
I believe we are told not to use the CBN grinding wheels on anything other than hardened tool steel. I know that I shouldn't grind steel bolts, or brass, or copper because it will clog the CBN wheel and render it useless. I know that the turning tools I bought over the years are various HSS, except for maybe the very first set that came with a lathe package back in 1970 or so. But how can I know about the hardness of various steels that I may come across? Is there a simple way that a layman can test it to verify?
 
Quick and simple is to take the edge of a file and see if it will bite the steel you are "testing". If it bites, not hardened. If it skates across without biting, the steel has been hardened.

Not a quatitave test, but should separate hardened steel from non-hardened.
 
I believe the last time this came up, word came down (the guy who started D-Way?) that any hardened steel is fine to sharpen on CBN. High-carbon steels, high-speed steels, and crucible steels are all A-OK. Non-ferrous, low-carbon, and carbides are not to be ground on CBN.
 
I have.been sharpening some high carbon steel tools on my CBN wheels with no problems. I would not use it for soft metals like brass and copper and probably not non hardened steels. The skating file test is pretty accurate.
 
Know of several hand tool woodworkers use CBN to put a hollow gring on all their plane blades and chisels. Makes it easier to hone blades without guides. Those are all tool steels, O1, W1, A2, etc. but are not HSS.
 
Now that Tom has his answer......I'll add that I still have my first 6"/3450rpm grinder. I started out sharpening lathe tools on it, but upgraded about 20 years ago. I now do all my "garbage grinding" here. Great to have it as a back up......:D
-----odie-----
IMG_4132.JPG
 
I think I have said this before, but can't remember.... I did a test on an old D Way wheel that was pretty much worn out, which is about 5 years worth of production turning. I intentionally loaded it up with aluminum, copper, brass, and some mild steel. With a little lapping fluid and about a month more of sharpening scrapers on the wheel, all visible traces of those metals were gone. If you are sharpening a softer metal on your wheels, you can feel them loading up. There is a bumping/ticking that you get as the tool hits the build up on the wheel. A good M2 or M42, or V10 scraper will take that all off. I do know that there are 'cleaning sticks', which I believer are a very hard aluminum oxide, harder than our standard AlO wheels, that can also be used to 'clean' the wheel. They do put a lot of dust into the air...

robo hippy
 
Odie I still have my Craftsman 6" and it still has the same gray rough wheel on one side. I had a white wheel on it when I got serious about sharpening lathe tools. I've since replaced that with a green wheel for sharpening my metal lathe t
 
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