Chris

If you only need to do twist drills and the ends of end-mills and slot drills both are probably overkill. I believe the Vertex device you mention is a variant on the Deckel design and thus primarily laid out for engraving cutters although it does have lathe tool, drill and end-mill sharpening capability with the correct accessories. The Quorn is a do-almost-anything-that-can-be-mounted device designed to be within the construction capabilities of the skilled home worker. As with all versatile devices setting up and manipulation procedures need to be mastered before reliable results can be got. This can prove complex and, probably, regular practice is needed to keep your skills sharp. I suspect most Quorn kits are completed more as an apprentice piece to demonstrate that the builder is now a properly skilled worker than for a real need.

For more basic requirements the simple swing-across-a-wheel twist drill sharpeners, e.g. Picador et al, give very acceptable results once you have got your head around coping with the inevitable geometrical infelicities. Doesn't help that there are two distinct breeds with differing set-ups. Especially when some of the low end imports come with the wrong instructions! Things go much better using a narrow cup wheel rather than the side of a conventional wheel. The Atlas style which works off the face of the wheel is far superior, but was rather more expensive when on the market, and essentially never made it out of America. Despite being 'orribly plastic the one in the Plasplugs set works pretty well too. Martek, Drill-Doctor and the various poke-it-in-a-hole-at-an-angle-to-the-wheel types are notorious for some good / some bad results with no apparent rhyme or reason.

For sharpening end-mills devices working on the same principles as the Stevenson's ER 32 Sharpening Fixture sold by ArcEuroTrade http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Collets/ER-Collet-Fixtures should be adequate for most home users. That particular one requires a surface grinder but there have been various home user friendly designs published which use a standard grinder. The "Cannon" one published in either ME or MEW around 2000 (?) is probably the simplest and looked as if it should work.

If you fancy building a versatile device the Brooks (almost a Quorn Lite) design published way back in the early days of MEW looks to be a decent balance between function and build simplicity.

Regrettably the home worker is ill served by sharpening devices. Typically the choice is between too complex / too expensive / or too simple and needs too much practice. I feel that something combining TipLap style operation at a few fixed angles for lathe tools with Stevenson's style operation for 4 facet drill and end-mill sharpening would be more appropriate in function and cost. Interlocking finger Vee blocks are an entirely adequate alternative to collets for holding round shanks. Proper attention needs to be paid to repeatable tool positioning and projection via screws and stops. Setting to scales or card templates is not acceptable, nor is rotating the tool to the next flute, despite the prevalence of such methods in existing practice.

Clive

There I was, thinking you had found a neat way of using mellow yellow to show yourself as the originator of the thread. Now it turns out that you've got jaundice. Your message of 16:20 is part yellow, part normal grey.

The lost first sentence seems odd. Until someone comes up with a better idea, use a dummy sentence like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog", and paste it in a few times so they are deleted one by one as you amend your post. Then click into the body of the post a few times to get rid of any remaining quick brown foxes.

Andy

Doug,

I have several diamond wheels, bought from Arc Euro Trade. They are excellent for sharpening tungsten carbide – vastly better than the old green grit wheels – and are very reasonably priced. I recommend you try the cup or dish types for most tool sharpening, they have a flat face.

David

Chris,

Have you had a look at Harold Halls design for use with a D.E. grinder? If not, its relatively quick and easy to make as well able to do all you are asking.

Trevo.r

Chris,

Harold has a web page **LINK** . If you then look at his books list you will find his book Tool and Cutter Sharpening which is No 38 in the WPS grouping and has all the neccessary information. Hope you will find this info of use.

Trevor.

The Vertex tool grinder I believe is limited to 10mm dia. cutter shanks, the indexing of the cutters is not that good and from my own experience from using one found that the maintanance of the cutting lips quite hard to do. You cannot clamp and sharpen lathe tools on it and the wheel turns only in one direction. It is also an expensive machine to sharpen just 10mm shank cutters. It is basically an Engraving tool grinder, the other options are a compromise ! The size of the diamond wheel makes it expensive.

The Quorn, I have seen one in use and I did start to make one and the bits are still sitting in a box somewhere. I eventually decided it was not for me and a couple years back bought and made a Worden Tool and Cutter grinder which has a good capacity (18mm)and does the job OK. I can even do 3 flute cutters and the only drawback is the limited angle it will work at of 30deg when doing secondary clearance angles as it puts the tool high on the wheel. There is a mod. to allow the motor to rise and fall.. It will also do about 5deg Negative angle but not sure if that has an application. Also the table levelling is a bit crude. It has the option to fit a White wheel or diamond one. The motor can be switched to run in both directions and lathe tools are easy with the jig. I am, at the moment trying to make a jig to sharpen Planer blades. Slitting saws can be sharpened with a small jig, also small drills with 4 facet option.

The Worden is just one of the options available unless you want a Clarkson cutter grinder. There seems to be a few special to task cutter grinders on the market but few that will do all the cutters an engineer might need.

Clive

Thanks for your reply David, I will give a diamond wheel a try and see how it performs.

Doug