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can you sharpen a chisel with a table saw?

Enigma

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i saw a guy on you tube sharpen a table saw blade with a table saw and some kind of diamond blade i think. he used the tilting arbor to get the angle right and claimed excellent results.

have any of you guys done this. could this be done with chisels knives etc? i have a small 8" cman tilting arbor ts. with step pulleys could make it spin much slower for sharpening. do you think this would work? make a sharpening station?
 
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catalytic

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Personally, I would not do this, and I tend to be more willing to use power to sharpen than many purists.

Even with the table saw arbor cranked all the way up, the grit is running at an angle to the chisel instead of straight up and down.

Second, you'd want an awfully fine sandpaper / grit on your makeshift tablesaw sander.

Third, some of the grinding grit will end up in your nice tablesaw. I have a lot of machine tools that have been near sanders and grinders... grit gets in every bearing and takes forever to clean so I would never do this (even in small amounts) to a woodworking machine.

Third, table saws run fast compared to what you'd want for grinding a chisel. Fast means heat, which means messing up the nice temper on your chisel and ending up with annealed soft steel junk for a chisel iron.

A chisel is so easy to sharpen with a $10 whetstone... why do it the wrong way?


If you want to do a better job than freehand, then get one of these veritas jigs (or the $15 knockoffs), and either a flat surface with some wet-or-dry sandpaper or a decent norton whetstone:
https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/...3eNFoSPjFw3VYea-3Wdcs2qm2fG88HkBoC5KcQAvD_BwE

If you have a belt grinder, then that's a different story.

My guess is the reason your method works on saw blades is that, if a saw blade is a bit dull, just exposing a tiny bit of fresh metal on each point makes it cut a ton better. For a chisel, this is not good enough -- you want the right angle and you want the blade honed pretty smooth and square.
 
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Even if your saw had a closed motor, I wouldn't do it on account of the grit in the works as mentioned above, plus the heat. I wouldn't advise it. I have a vintage jig for my chisels using a stone.
 

McFarmer

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Aug 29, 2009
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Sparks and saw dust do not mix.

Well, actually they do, with nasty results.

And for sure don't sharpen a chisel with anything that has a dust collector running on it. Hoo, boy.
 

exmaxima1

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Speed is wrong.
It's a sideshow trick at best, foolishly dangerous to show the masses at worst.

So far beyond last resort that I can imagine it, I just can't imagine doing it.

If the wheel is less than 8 inches the speed should be ok with a typical arbor of 4000rpm. At 10 or 12 inches, you will quickly burn the chisel at the OD. Depends alot of the type of wheel. If it has grit on the sides, you can move towards the ID and reduce the surface speed significantly.
 

tarmy

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Why?

The tool is for cutting wood...not generating metal shavings and loading the bearings from the side...

Seems like a great way to potentially screw up the saw, the chisels and maybe even the saw table top...
 

PNWguy

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I have sharpening stones that really aren't hard to use, especially when used with a jig.

You could sharpen a chisel with a table saw, but you could also open a beer with a .357 and do surgery with a machete.
 

cgrutt

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Damn, last set of chisels I spent hours lapping the backs on a water stone before even thinking about sharpening them. Had I only known... LOL
 
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Damn, last set of chisels I spent hours lapping the backs on a water stone before even thinking about sharpening them. Had I only known... LOL

Hear ya. You look on you tube at AK 47s, and there's one I saw, if the kid is still alive, where he had taken out the trigger disconnect and had a fully automatic.... but stupid? Lots of confident stupidity on you tube!
 
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cgrutt

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Hear ya. You look on you tube at AK 47s, and there's one I saw, if the kid is still alive, where he had taken out the trigger disconnect and had a fully automatic.... but stupid? Lots of confident stupidity on you tube!

Um, yeah, I was talking about woodworking chisels here, LOL...
 

ovrrdrive

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Sep 13, 2015
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Central Florida
To answer the question "Can you do it" I would say sure. You can sharpen one on the edge of a car window too. Not ideal, but possible.
 

matt_i

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IMO a poor idea because the diamond wheel at that speed induces heat which in the presence of steel causes the diamonds to vaporize. So the presumably expensive abrasive is ruined very quickly. (although I know diamond wheels from China have gotten much cheaper now)

If you could slow the tablesaw down to about 10 rpm this would be a wonderful tool.
 

Shiftless

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East Bay SFO
Cool idea matt
Here is a quarter horse motor driving the output shaft through a 286:1 gearbox resulting in 6 rpm.
I doubt you’d stall out that set up!

And ONLY $341. !!!!! ;)
 

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matt_i

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Cool idea matt
Here is a quarter horse motor driving the output shaft through a 286:1 gearbox resulting in 6 rpm.
I doubt you’d stall out that set up!

And ONLY $341. !!!!! ;)

Better idea...

Obtain small 3 phase motor (1/4 hp is fine)

Buy 120vac 1 phase input to 240vac 3 phase output VFD

Run 6" diamond wheels at 8Hz

This is specifically built for sharpening scraper carbides for machine scraping & alignment. We are in full test & debug mode with the electrics here ;)

 

bullnerd

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Jersey
My grandmother had a small disc that replaced the blade on her 50's craftsman 8" table saw. Turned it into a small disc sander, worked great for wood....but she sharpened her chisels on a stone by hand.
 
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