power strop to go

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2012

 More work done today on my new carving stand including a way to power hone my tools for those scary sharp edges that cut wood as if it were butter.

My carving stand was built using a "hide-a-horse", lightweight (7lbs) folding saw horse. I love it, it sets up in seconds but folds up into a very small package easy to store under a bed or in a closet.

Watch the video on this link to see how it works http://hideahorsefoldingsawhorses.com/

 A proper tool stand was made to fit. It is screwed to the base plate, not to the saw horse. The screws allow me to take this carving stand apart and flat pack it. If I wanted to I could then  put the pieces of the stand (minus the saw horse) into a suitcase and fly away with it.  I put T-nuts into the back side of the plywood to hold the vise and used plastic knob screws to go into the T-nuts. That make it fast to take apart but still strong. I have put cork sheeting on the underside so the tool stand so it can be used on its own on a table or desk.

I put a layer of thin adhesive backed cork sheeting over the magnetic, stainless steel knife bar. I purchased the bar from my local Ikea store but they can also be found on Amazon or Ebay.  The length of the bar is what determined the size of my carving stand. I like the stand to be that long because it keeps the C clamps that attach the stand to the sawhorse, desk or table top from hitting my knees. Also it gives me lots of room for hanging up carving tools. The cork sheeting is shelf liner from the Contact brand. You can find it in hardware, home center stores and places such as Walmart.

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2012

Another chore today was mounting a honing disk onto a mandrel so I could use it in my battery powered drill motor. This kind of mandrel can be found in hardware stores. The honing wheel is made by gluing layers of mat board together.  Be sure to carefully cut the circles so you don't have to do a lot of sanding to true up the disk surface after the glue is dry. Use the motor turning against a sanding block. But to get that chore done even faster turn it with the drill motor against a running power sander.

Add captionphoto copyright Karin Corbin 2012

 The green color on the wheel is honing compound. The wheel does not need to be charged with compound very often, it last a good long while.

make a stropping wheel

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2012

Over the last couple of days I built a homemade stropping wheel for sharpening my carving tools. It makes them incredibly sharp, even the very tiny 1mm and .5mm gouges can be sharpened to a razor sharp edge with this wheel. There is no risk of overheating or burning the small tools. It will remove any minor nicks as well. A local carving teacher told me how to make this wheel.

The cost is low and the materials are easy to come by. The material the wheel is made from is mat board. Yes, it is the mat board you find at art supply stores and framing shops. You adhere layers of it together with a PVA glue such as Elmers. Be sure you cut accurate circles so you don't have to spend a lot of time shaping it into a true circular surface after you mount it to a motor. I did the final shaping of my wheel with a coarse grit sanding block while the motor was spinning the wheel. The sanding to a true circle creates a lot of fine dust so I used a vacuum cleaner nozzle right next to my sanding area to collect the dust. Don't forget to wear a dust mask! After the wheel is trued you can put honing compound on it.

I used 8 layers of double thick mat board in this wheel. I put weights on the stack of mat board disk while the glue set to prevent voids in the layers. Getting voids is a defect that will spoil the effectiveness of the wheel.

I have glued my new stropping wheel onto a plywood disk screwed to a faceplate so I could spin it with my lathe. It is very important to look at the photo above to see how the wheel should be turning in relationship to the tools you are sharpening. I am standing on the backside of my lathe while I am sharpening my carving tools to get the correct spin direction.

What a difference using this wheel is making in my work. I can't get my carving tools this sharp with hand stropping on leather. The tools now glide through the cuts with little effort or pressure leaving a nicely polished surface. I hear that lovely ssssstt noise as the tools cut. The noise that only happens when you have razor sharp cutting edges with polished bevels.