Thanks for sharing your uncle's impressive design work - I reckon it takes a pretty high level of mechanical design knowledge combined with an active imagination to come up with a functioning tool / machine like this. I've just started watching the build series and think it will be be hard to resist having a shot at it myself after seeing this demonstration video.
He created this after 40 years as a toolmaker/ designer, so he certainly had the background. From talking to others, the making is not difficult and once they have adjusted it, it produces consistant results. One maker even took his to his workplace and sharpened 100+ bits there...
Absolutely fabulous bit of kit. Thanks for sharing. I just watched Part 1 of your new build of this sharpener and suspect this design will be extremely popular. The best part is the mandrels for smaller bits. Could you please give it a try sharpening a few smaller bits with the supplied mandrels and let us know how well that works. 👍😎👍
@@occasionalmachinist Thank you for considering it. No worries, I’ll certainly be back when you get the time to share. 🙏 It seams that almost all commercially available hobbyist-level sharpeners ignore smaller drill sizes. And professionals will often tell you to just throw the small ones away and buy new when dull. Certainly time is money for a professional and small bits are reasonably inexpensive and very fiddly to sharpen accurately. So I’ve taken that advice for now, along with probably using smaller bits beyond their useful life. Just curious if this clever design can resharpen these smaller bits just as easily as the larger bits. 👍👍
I've only recently stumbled upon your channel and am working my way through all the previous videos. This is a fantastic little machine. I'd love to reproduce it one day as I have Kgs of bits needing sharpening (All rescued from a workshop with no-one who knew how to hand sharpen, so they were used within an inch of their life and swapped for new.) I can happily sharpen by hand with pretty good results, but I'm not keen on how many hours of full concentration all the dead ones would take.
@@occasionalmachinist Yes, I imagine the precision of the rotation and offset from the axis could be a bit tricky, trying to locate off the existing flutes when sharpening the sides. I doubt it would be as good as a professionally sharpened mill, but it might be fine for old roughing mills that get a lot of wear and tear, and for touching up the axial cutting edges and the corners.
That is a nice sharpener. I'm about to start on a evening star 3 1/2" and that would be nice to get all my drills up to a good standard before starting. Are the drawing's available to bye off you. I'm in Devonport Tasmania. Love the channel with a lot of good tips.
I'm going through the drawings at the moment and I don't think by themselves they will give you the complete picture. It's not an uncommon thing that drawing something that you are personally going to make there are minor bits missed out, and that is the situation here. Most of it is good, but... However, there does look like enough interest to warrant doing a build, so I'll step through that and a combination of drawings, making the parts and my Uncle's grinder should fill any gaps. I like that part of the world - when I lived in Burnie I used to make weekly runs to Devonport for supplies that I could not get locally. 😁
My head hurts just thinking of all the intricate pieces, but yes I would love to see a video of the making of. Also wondering what your uncle did for a career, this is no simple backyard hack job, it's seriously brilliant with a specific purpose.
He trained as a toolmaker and then worked as a draftsman for many years doing tool design. I agree there are a whole bunch of intricate pieces but the basic design is not too complicated and I think some of those can be combined - this would have been done as a retirement project, so using what he had fastened together rather than having to buy a larger bit of material
There are additional videos about the sharpener where I build a copy (others also wanted the drawings, but I had not gone through and checked them, so this was the simplest way). The drawings are scattered through the videos as needed. I did find a couple of errors and some things that I thought could have been done differently/ more efficiently, so that is in there too. A couple of people I know have made them and used them, so it seems to work.
Thanks for sharing your uncle's impressive design work - I reckon it takes a pretty high level of mechanical design knowledge combined with an active imagination to come up with a functioning tool / machine like this. I've just started watching the build series and think it will be be hard to resist having a shot at it myself after seeing this demonstration video.
He created this after 40 years as a toolmaker/ designer, so he certainly had the background. From talking to others, the making is not difficult and once they have adjusted it, it produces consistant results. One maker even took his to his workplace and sharpened 100+ bits there...
Very interesting, complicated enough to be intriguing yet simple enough for most to have an enjoyable time making.
I certainly am - I hope others enjoy making it too.
Absolutely fabulous bit of kit. Thanks for sharing. I just watched Part 1 of your new build of this sharpener and suspect this design will be extremely popular. The best part is the mandrels for smaller bits. Could you please give it a try sharpening a few smaller bits with the supplied mandrels and let us know how well that works. 👍😎👍
I'll give it a go - may be a little while before it hits the screen, but not forgotten...
@@occasionalmachinist Thank you for considering it. No worries, I’ll certainly be back when you get the time to share. 🙏
It seams that almost all commercially available hobbyist-level sharpeners ignore smaller drill sizes. And professionals will often tell you to just throw the small ones away and buy new when dull. Certainly time is money for a professional and small bits are reasonably inexpensive and very fiddly to sharpen accurately. So I’ve taken that advice for now, along with probably using smaller bits beyond their useful life. Just curious if this clever design can resharpen these smaller bits just as easily as the larger bits. 👍👍
Nice bit of equipment, please do a build video
I've only recently stumbled upon your channel and am working my way through all the previous videos. This is a fantastic little machine. I'd love to reproduce it one day as I have Kgs of bits needing sharpening (All rescued from a workshop with no-one who knew how to hand sharpen, so they were used within an inch of their life and swapped for new.)
I can happily sharpen by hand with pretty good results, but I'm not keen on how many hours of full concentration all the dead ones would take.
That is the nice thing about a device like this
That is very neat.
Fascinating! Of course we would love to see more! Thanks for this video on the greatest Modern Marvel!
Thanks for this Michael, a great bit of kit as you say, will be very interested if you do a series on the making of it.
I'm working on it...
Very nice, and a simple concept. I don't think it would be hard to adapt that to also sharpen most end mills. I may need to make one for my shop!
It's one of the attractive things about it. I did think about end mills but there are a few changes that might prove tricky.
@@occasionalmachinist Yes, I imagine the precision of the rotation and offset from the axis could be a bit tricky, trying to locate off the existing flutes when sharpening the sides. I doubt it would be as good as a professionally sharpened mill, but it might be fine for old roughing mills that get a lot of wear and tear, and for touching up the axial cutting edges and the corners.
Thanks for sharing, this is an amazing piece of engineering. I would love to see the plans.
That’s a great tool, I would be interested in seeing a build and would be happy to buy some plans if they’re available.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers
This will make a great project
Brilliant bit of design. I’d definitely be interested in a more detailed breakdown.
There is some really interesting detail there. I think my favourite bit is the primary/ secondary stop cams
That is a nice sharpener. I'm about to start on a evening star 3 1/2" and that would be nice to get all my drills up to a good standard before starting. Are the drawing's available to bye off you. I'm in Devonport Tasmania. Love the channel with a lot of good tips.
I'm going through the drawings at the moment and I don't think by themselves they will give you the complete picture. It's not an uncommon thing that drawing something that you are personally going to make there are minor bits missed out, and that is the situation here. Most of it is good, but...
However, there does look like enough interest to warrant doing a build, so I'll step through that and a combination of drawings, making the parts and my Uncle's grinder should fill any gaps.
I like that part of the world - when I lived in Burnie I used to make weekly runs to Devonport for supplies that I could not get locally. 😁
Scan the drawing and sell them! I sure would be interested.
Nice video and machine. I would like to buy the plans if possible. Thanks from Swe.
I'm stepping through the plans in subsequent videos. There are a few errors in there, so not really suitable for direct release.
I suppose if the jig was mounted on a base that could slide, it would work with a bench grinder?
Potentially. The chainsaw sharpener was relatively cheap though (around A$60 new) and makes everything self contained.
My head hurts just thinking of all the intricate pieces, but yes I would love to see a video of the making of.
Also wondering what your uncle did for a career, this is no simple backyard hack job, it's seriously brilliant with a specific purpose.
He trained as a toolmaker and then worked as a draftsman for many years doing tool design. I agree there are a whole bunch of intricate pieces but the basic design is not too complicated and I think some of those can be combined - this would have been done as a retirement project, so using what he had fastened together rather than having to buy a larger bit of material
@@occasionalmachinist Thank you, I suspected he might have had a background in design, just from how the parts fit together to form the whole.
Any plans on sharing the drawings? I'd be keen to have a copy of you ever choose to upload or email them.
There are additional videos about the sharpener where I build a copy (others also wanted the drawings, but I had not gone through and checked them, so this was the simplest way). The drawings are scattered through the videos as needed. I did find a couple of errors and some things that I thought could have been done differently/ more efficiently, so that is in there too. A couple of people I know have made them and used them, so it seems to work.
@@occasionalmachinist thanks for the reply, I'm working through the series.