Anyone in woodturning knows, a tool sharpening set up is just as important as the lathe itself. I learned quickly that I can only turn one project before having to sharpen my tools, if not halfway through one project. My mentor showed me the best way to get a precise edge, especially on a bowl gouge with an “irish” grind or “swept back” grind, is to use a sharpening jig. The product all the guys at the turning association told me to get was the Wolverine Sharpening Jig. I hopped on Amazon and to my surprise, this simple jig was over $100! I have already spent a butt load of money acquiring all the needed tools, machines and accessories and was very disappointed when I saw that I’d need to drop another $100 just to have a jig for sharpening. That meant I would have spent more money on my grinder and the sharpening jig than I did on my wood lathe and tools! Stubborn me decided to dig a bit deeper and browsed Pinterest and Google to see if there was another way. I was excited to find a myriad of options for DIY sharpening jigs that did the exact same job as the $100 Wolverine. Some of the aspects to these DIY options were a bit overly engineered in my opinion so I made my DIY plan by picking and choosing designs for certain aspects from a number of DIY options. What I created was rather simple to put together and mostly made from things I already had lying around in the garage. All I purchased were 2 eye bolts; a whopping $1.67 at Home Depot. Now that’s my kind of solution!
I hope my video gives some ideas to someone else that may be in the same predicament I found myself in.
Enjoy, and thanks for checking out my post!