Edge refurbishing method on YouTube. Your thoughts?

Thanks for posting Old Axeman, er Bernie. I, for one, very much value your input. There are a lot of keeners and wannabees in every hobby (that's pretty much what axes have been relegated to) with very little experience but with minds chock full of 'valuable' advice. There was a large sign in the high school woodshop (these days called construction technology) that I inherited from a previous teacher, that had retired after 35 years, that said:
"Leave home now while you still know everything". I never took the sign down and over time it grew on me!
I thoroughly agree about hand filing. The inordinate amount of time and effort required to 'deface' or with some luck 'improve or correct' an axe using only files and stones is such that most of those old axe heads will survive to see another day. With a grinder most anyone can make a thorough mess and in very short order. Nicks such as you speak don't really affect performance (unless maybe you're a carver) and it takes many years of routine file maintenance for them to gradually disappear. But at least the axe ages gracefully.
 
Square_peg said:
Yes, carriage bolts that slide in the tracks. And yes, I made them myself. I laid them out with a fine point sharpie. I drilled a series of holes with the drill press, staying within the lines needed for the carriage bolts. Then I opened a hole with a cutoff wheel and finished them to the line with a file. I don't think it took more than a half hour - maybe an hour to make them. It would have been much quicker if I had a Bridgeport here at home.
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My hat off to you for that 'simple smart' set up; offset track to account for alignment to the respective pulley, and tension of the belt. Would really take the cake if you told me you incorporated oiled ironwood bushings in there too.
 
Old Axeman said:
Sorry about my post. The wife says I am getting old and mean.
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You're fine. We're all mean and old here. Except for those who are mean and young. It's an axe forum.


Old Axeman said:
Some other thoughts. The reason I am down on power grinding is that there is a finite amout of good axe heads out there with the dedradation of good manufacturing that happens in todays world. There are too many boneheads looking at the internet info on power sharpening. You get the picture. Soon, all the remaining decent axe heads have been ruined. I have never come across a axe head that was only sharpened with a file that can not be put back in service.
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Worse is the current trend of taking perfectly good vintage axes and grinding them down into medieval looking 'Klingon' weapons of war. That's hipster garbage. It's removing the function of axe and replacing it with only show.


Old Axeman said:
As for files, you might try having a good old USA made file recut. A gunstock maker friend who only uses rasps and files told me about 5 yrs ago the he had a source that acid etched them as good as when they were new. I cant find the info he gave me, so use the computer and see what you can find on this. I have no need as I have another lifetime worth of simonds files.
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Alexander Weygers, in his book 'The Complete Modern Blacksmith', describes reconditioning files in a battery acid bath. He recommends soaking them for 12-24 hours, testing, and then if to your liking rinsing them for one hour to leach out any remaining traces of the acid. I've also read of people doing this with ordinary vinegar - though it's a much weaker acid. Battery acid is less than PH 1 and vinegar is about PH 2.4.

There is a company that reconditions files through the steam abrasive method. They do this for industry.
http://www.boggstool.com/page1.html
 
Some good advice there. One thing I worry about with becoming a collector is that I would not have a connection with a single axe. The reason I have multiple axes is that I want to find the best one for me and then use it. And I also want to have a few extras because you never know what's going to happen in the world; today you can't just go down the road and find a quality axe (apart from some of the skilled collectors here who seem able to do this).
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Not likely a good idea. I'm no electrician but I believe you usually need three-phase power in order to put adjustable speed on a motor. The advantage of a slow speed wet grinder is that the water keeps the edge cool. It's still a reasonably fast-cutting stone (much faster than hand-sharpening on bench stones) but you aren't going so fast as to have a high chance of screwing things up too badly. The low speed is for, amongst other reasons, helping to avoid flinging water everywhere. For fairly inexpensive wet grinders, check out the ones by Grizzly (I like the G1036 because it has good clearance for long blades) or for a manual option I carry an Italian hand-cranked model with a 12" wheel that's easily converted to foot pedal power.
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phidauex said:
Single phase motors don't like to be slowed down much by normal means. Harbor Freight does sell a "router speed control" that you could use to dial back a small grinder (1hp or less), but you will lose torque very quickly.

The "right" way to do it is to use a three-phase motor, and a VFD (variable frequency drive) to power it. The cool thing with VFDs is that for smaller motors you can get 120V or 240V single phase inputs (to connect to home power) and 3-phase 230V outputs. The VFD converts the power to DC internally, and then back to AC again, so you get the "free" benefit of being able to convert single phase to three phase power. Opens up a lot of old industrial tools for home shop use. They also allow you to dial in the speed directly, and because of how they work, they retain nearly full torque across the speed range. My lathe has a 3.5hp WEG induction motor on a VFD that can run 100-4000 RPM clean and quiet.

Of course, that is getting pretty technological for sharpening an axe. ;)
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FortyTwoBlades said:
The easy way to do it would be to just use a stand-alone motor with a step pulley on it going to an arbor with the grinding wheel mounted on it.
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Square_peg said:
This works well. I have a grinder like this. The nice thing about a grinder with a separated motor and arbor is that the motor doesn't get in the way of your work.


To keep the arbor pulley aligned to the various step pulleys I mounted the arbor on slotted tracks. Wing nuts allow for quick toolless adjustments.
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Awesome info...thanks very much!
 
I'll ad just a bit of info on power sharpening an axe. Ceramic belts are the best I have ever used for this purpose. Ceramic grit is long lasting, fast cutting, non dulling, and cool running. Warn belts cause friction and temper destroying heat to build up, once any belt stops cutting proficiently, change it. I don't have to change ceramic belts nearly as often as other types of abrasives.
 
Square_peg said:
Yes, carriage bolts that slide in the tracks. And yes, I made them myself. I laid them out with a fine point sharpie. I drilled a series of holes with the drill press, staying within the lines needed for the carriage bolts. Then I opened a hole with a cutoff wheel and finished them to the line with a file. I don't think it took more than a half hour - maybe an hour to make them. It would have been much quicker if I had a Bridgeport here at home.
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That's a clever setup, thanks for posting that! I'm going to steal some of that idea for my own shop, working on building a large belt sander. Sometimes I find more pleasure in building a tool than using one. It's always great to see new ideas improving things, I'm a firm believe in the old Hewlett-Packard philosophy - if it ain't broke, break it.
 
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