Grinding wheel from scratch. Is it feasible?
Sept 21, 2009 8:38:54 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2009 8:38:54 GMT
Ok, so we have all seen in a movie somewhere the sword smith taking a blade to a huge wheel, turning the wheel and sharpening the blade.
I've been looking at different options for sharpening and the most accepted way is with sandpaper, and thats when I asked myself if it would be possible to make a modern grinding wheel that incorperated sand paper.
I looked around and found some grinding wheels for about the price we'd pay for an Atrim (about 500 bucks or so) but it was diamonds and all sorts of higher end stuff then I needed. (Edit: LoL I'm such a fool at this late hour. I just wasn't typing in the right words when searching. I did a search for just "grinding wheels" and came to quite a few sites that had nice cylyndrical grinding wheels of varying grit for around 10 bucks. I'll look at them tomorrow, so for the next little bit just consider the possibility and still tell me what you think =D)
I decided to build from the ground up. First, how to attach the paper to the wheel. My initial reaction was to get a round cut of wood, about 2 inches thick (or however thick a sand paper strip comes) and then glue it to the wood.
-Scrapped that idea as each time you needed to replace the sandpaper you'd have to clean off the wheel or make another.
Then I thought about a way to clamp on the paper like you would clamp a peice of sandpaper onto a sander. But scrapped that idea because there would be that gap where the two pieces would fall into the wheel.
So then I thought "hrm, some people use belt sanders successfully, but alot of people don't like them because of the speed at which they operate" and I thought surely there are different grits of belt sanding belts, like the million grit to make a mirror with.
So here's what I'm thinking concerning the wheel:
Find the standard length of a belt sanding belt and then obtain a cut of wood that would allow the belt to be placed around it like a tire, but leave some slack. Line the "tread" of the wheel with rubber, something thin and glue the rubber down.
Here comes the tricky part.
The sandpaper would have to be held snug against the wheel as we don't have a way to tighten the belt after it's on. I think belt sanders have a "tightening" bar which when applied to the belt will make it taunt. So how do we get our belt to be taunt around the wooden wheel?
Thermodynamics!
We'd either have to heat up the belt (perhaps 5 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees?) or cool down the wheel (submerge in ice water or toss in the freezer?
Either of these would make the belt slip onto the wheel with ease (hypothetically) and then tighten once both objects reached ambient temperature.
And that's just the thought process behind the wheel!
If I can tackle the wheel, I'll move on to how I will get it to spin. I could put a simple hand crank on the side, but then you'd need a partner to help you turn it or sharpen a blade one handed.
IF I can get the grinding wheel worked out in my head, my current option is to have it set up like a pottery wheel with a giant cement disk at your feet that you get the momentum going and then just nudge it along.
Of course with this build I would have to transfer the force 90 degrees to the wheel (making my horizontal spin become a vertical spin) which I was thinking it would be neat to set up some pegged disks and have it look like an old school wooden gear.
The other option that I just came up with while typing this out would be to gut an old bicycle, and use the peddles and gears from it to transfer the energy from my feet to the grinding wheel.
After that step is solved I was thinking about adding in an angle adjustment to be able to grind blades with varying degrees of bevel.
So IF you have made it this far, thank you for taking the time to hear out my plan.
I plan on drawing up some sketches tomorrow, but the best laid plans...
So how feasible do you think all this would be?
Would it speed up the hand sharpening method any without speeding it up to much (and overheating your blade)?
I've been looking at different options for sharpening and the most accepted way is with sandpaper, and thats when I asked myself if it would be possible to make a modern grinding wheel that incorperated sand paper.
I looked around and found some grinding wheels for about the price we'd pay for an Atrim (about 500 bucks or so) but it was diamonds and all sorts of higher end stuff then I needed. (Edit: LoL I'm such a fool at this late hour. I just wasn't typing in the right words when searching. I did a search for just "grinding wheels" and came to quite a few sites that had nice cylyndrical grinding wheels of varying grit for around 10 bucks. I'll look at them tomorrow, so for the next little bit just consider the possibility and still tell me what you think =D)
I decided to build from the ground up. First, how to attach the paper to the wheel. My initial reaction was to get a round cut of wood, about 2 inches thick (or however thick a sand paper strip comes) and then glue it to the wood.
-Scrapped that idea as each time you needed to replace the sandpaper you'd have to clean off the wheel or make another.
Then I thought about a way to clamp on the paper like you would clamp a peice of sandpaper onto a sander. But scrapped that idea because there would be that gap where the two pieces would fall into the wheel.
So then I thought "hrm, some people use belt sanders successfully, but alot of people don't like them because of the speed at which they operate" and I thought surely there are different grits of belt sanding belts, like the million grit to make a mirror with.
So here's what I'm thinking concerning the wheel:
Find the standard length of a belt sanding belt and then obtain a cut of wood that would allow the belt to be placed around it like a tire, but leave some slack. Line the "tread" of the wheel with rubber, something thin and glue the rubber down.
Here comes the tricky part.
The sandpaper would have to be held snug against the wheel as we don't have a way to tighten the belt after it's on. I think belt sanders have a "tightening" bar which when applied to the belt will make it taunt. So how do we get our belt to be taunt around the wooden wheel?
Thermodynamics!
We'd either have to heat up the belt (perhaps 5 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees?) or cool down the wheel (submerge in ice water or toss in the freezer?
Either of these would make the belt slip onto the wheel with ease (hypothetically) and then tighten once both objects reached ambient temperature.
And that's just the thought process behind the wheel!
If I can tackle the wheel, I'll move on to how I will get it to spin. I could put a simple hand crank on the side, but then you'd need a partner to help you turn it or sharpen a blade one handed.
IF I can get the grinding wheel worked out in my head, my current option is to have it set up like a pottery wheel with a giant cement disk at your feet that you get the momentum going and then just nudge it along.
Of course with this build I would have to transfer the force 90 degrees to the wheel (making my horizontal spin become a vertical spin) which I was thinking it would be neat to set up some pegged disks and have it look like an old school wooden gear.
The other option that I just came up with while typing this out would be to gut an old bicycle, and use the peddles and gears from it to transfer the energy from my feet to the grinding wheel.
After that step is solved I was thinking about adding in an angle adjustment to be able to grind blades with varying degrees of bevel.
So IF you have made it this far, thank you for taking the time to hear out my plan.
I plan on drawing up some sketches tomorrow, but the best laid plans...
So how feasible do you think all this would be?
Would it speed up the hand sharpening method any without speeding it up to much (and overheating your blade)?