From: rhoover@watson.ibm.com (Roger Hoover)
Subject: Re: Power Wet Sharpeners
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 19:28:45 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <1992Oct6.101100@wsl.dec.com>, gringort@wsl.dec.com (Joel Gringorten) writes:
|> I've been looking at the Makita wet power sharpening unit.
|> I like the long sliding guide.  It seems stable and well
|> built.  Is there anybody that's tried one of these machines 
|> that cares to comment on it?  I'm interested in using it for 
|> sharpening 6" jointer knives and 13" planer knives, as well
|> as chisels and plane blades.

I have one of these blade sharpeners.  I have used it to sharpen
my 13" planer knives, 8" jointer knives, as well as chisels and
planes using a 3rd party attachment purchased from Trendlines.

|>  I would hope to be able to sharpen
|> blades better than factory sharp by finishing with the finer grit
|> stone.  I currently hand sharpen my hand tools to incredible 
|> sharpness with water stones, and I hope to be able to do as well
|> or better with the power unit.
The Makita stones are water stones.  The finish is about the same
|> 
|> The blade guide on the Makita is about 15" long.  It comes with
|> a 1000 grit stone and you can get optional wheels in 60 and some
|> higher grit (6000?).  What I'm most concerned about is it's accuracy
|> in grinding long planer knives square.  Can you really do a good
|> job with one of these rigs?  Can you accurately and repeatably set the 
|> bevel angle?
The Makita sharpener is used as follows:  The knife is placed in the
knife holder, which has a machined cast iron bottom.  This slides
across a mating cast iron table that is attached to the sharpener.
There are thumb screws for adjusting the height of each end of this
table and the angle.  None of the adjustments have any calibration
indicators, so you will end up using other instruments when setting
up.  Of particular use is an adjustable protractor to set the bevel
angle.  The left end of the table is adjusted to be slightly higher
than the right end.  The knife contacts the rotating stone only on
the right edge.  Thumb screws are used to adjust the position of the
knife in the knife holder so that it kisses the water stone.
Horizontal movement of the knife holder takes the blade across the
stone.  Squareness of the blade is equal to the squareness of the
machining of the table and blade holder.  There is some flex in the
plastic case, so one can introduce problems by moving the blade with
changing pressure.

I have the 60, 1000, and 6000 grit stones.  It is a bit of work to
do multiple blades at multiple grits.  That is, there is setup time
between each blade or grit change.  If I had a place down the street
that would sharpen my blades for me at a moments notice, I'd go for
it.  However, the machine probably will do a better job than a
commercial place, and it is better to spend an evening sharpening
blades than driving across the county twice (once to drop off, again
to pick up) and waiting the week or two between without the jointer
or planer.

roger
rhoover@watson.ibm.com
Newsgroups: rec.woodworking