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Tips from Old Millrat - James D. Thompson


A Jig For Grinding Chisels and Gouges

 

I just finished making a jig for my bench grinder. It holds chisels and gouges to make it easy to get a near perfect grind.

This jig hasn’t even been painted yet, but I wanted to get the pictures up so others might take advantage of the idea. The idea is not original. There is a company making these jigs, and they are fairly expensive. My jig was made of scraps, and cost almost nothing. The Galoot way. :>)

First is a picture of the jig just sitting empty. The angle iron can be moved in and out to accommodate any length of chisel.
 

The angle iron is retained inside a piece of box tubing. You can see the handled set screw that holds it.  I had to cobble up some iron to get the whole thing lined up with the grinding wheel.  The end of the angle has a piece of metal welded on to form a pocket for the chisel handle to fit into.

Next is a front view.

Next is a picture showing a chisel in position. Ignore the tool rest. It has no part in this, I just forgot to remove it.

Next is a picture showing how easily the chisel is positioned for grinding.  Very little metal needs to be removed, and you get a beautiful hollow grind.

Again, the tool rest looks like it is engaged, but it is not.

There is a simple attachment you can make that allows grinding a fingernail contour on the end of a bowl gouge.  As you swing it from side to side while keeping the tool in contact with the wheel you get a beautiful fingernail grind.

I just cobbled this together, and it works just as well as the one costing big bucks.

I have only used this once on this gouge so it does not yet have the beautiful continuous grind. That will come as I regrind it a few times. 

It occurred to me that I could use this to grind plane irons as well as chisels and gouges. So I found a pair of vise grips and went at it.  I can't believe I never thought of this in all my years of grinding tools.  It is a snap to get a near perfect hollow grind on a plane blade.  Already I am amazed at how well it cuts.

This is a fairly simple tool to make, and it is really a great tool. I love mine already!

James D. Thompson
January, 2008

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