Really Cheap $19.98 Tungsten Sharpener

[JohnS]

I think most of us are very familiar with Jody Collier:
http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

He has a nice write up on tungsten sharpeners here:
http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/tungsten-sharpeners.html

He mentions on his page “Are Tungsten Sharpeners really necessary? I mean seriously...” “But for the rest of us...(I include myself because even though I use a CK sharpener sometimes, I more often just sharpen on a sanding disc.) Just make sure to use a sanding disc no rougher than about 80 grit, and once you have your taper, turn the tungsten lengthwise to get the grinding marks going lengthwise. And BTW, sharpen a bunch of them so you will always have a sharp tungsten ready. An 80 to 120 grit sanding disc on a 4 1/2” electric grinder is a pretty cheap tungsten sharpener and you can use it for other stuff too.”

I trust Jody for the straight advice from a real professional so I’ll take his word for it that these tungsten sharpening methods are fine for normal everyday use. I just took it a step further using a 180 grit diamond blade that doubles as a cut off for bad tungsten ends.

The 4 1/2” angle grinder with a 180 grit diamond blade was a total of $19.98. Not only will it sharpen tungsten quickly but it can make a nice clean square cut off through a piece of tungsten without splitting or otherwise fracturing the tungsten.

I picked up a Harbor Freight 4 1/2” electric angle grinder on sale for $9.99. Item number 95578. BTW, it's on sale again January 14th ~ 17th.
http://www.harborfreight.com/4-1-2-half-inch-angle-grinder-95578.html

Harbor Freight sells replacement blades for their saw blade sharpeners for $9.99 too. I was interested in the 180 grit diamond grinding wheel part of the kit. Item 98862:
http://www.harborfreight.com/replacement-wheels-for-the-120-volt-circular-saw-blade-sharpener-98862.html

Technically the grinding wheel is rated at a maximum of 6,600 RPM but I found no problems at all running it at a much higher RPM on the 4 1/2” electric angle grinder. Use your own discretion and proper personal protection equipment.

The diamond blade arbor hole is 20 mm in diameter so has to be enlarged to fit a the standard 41/2” electric angle grinder's 7/8" diameter arbor. I simply used a Harbor Freight step drill bit (Item 9275). (Normally I use these step drills for deburring holes I had drilled with normal drill bits. These things are great for deburring.) I already had the step drills for deburring. But for those that may be interested see the following link:

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-titanium-nitride-coated-high-speed-steel-step-drills-96275.html

After enlarging the arbor hole on the 180 grit diamond blade to 7/8" with the step drill, it fit the angle grinder arbor perfectly. The taper on the step drill keeps the arbor hole perfectly centered when starting to enlarge the hole thus keeping the blade in balance when finished.

Since the total investment was only $19.98, I only use that angle grinder for sharpening my tungsten.

The diamond blade does cut the tungsten to a point fast. Normally I gently rotate the tungsten against the diamond blade by hand. Sometimes I'll chuck up the the tungsten in a battery powered drill and spin it with the drill while I am sharpening it. If I really contaminate the tungsten I use the diamond blade as a cut off wheel and cut through the tungsten leaving a straight edged uncontaminated starting point.

Attached is an extreme close up picture of a 3/32" thoriated tungsten tip sharpened on the diamond blade and by rotating by hand. It didn't come out like maybe a machine sharpener but it's fast and cheap and the tungsten tip is perfectly functional. Anyway, hope this helps someone.

Warmest Regards,
John S

[Gary]

Hey John,
tungsten sharpening has been a long running subject here on the forum for what to do and not what to do, but I alway do what works for me and the $799.00 dedicated grinder does not work for me, I would get another plasma or welder before spending that kind of money for a sharpener. I have posted on here what I use for sharpening.. I use the diamond wheels from harbor freight in my router, they are only $9.99
here is the link http://www.harborfreight.com/4-piece...set-32397.html
they work great for me , I put the tungsten in the drill motor and run really slow and gets a great finish.
I will post pictures on the finish I got a new camera that takes close ups too so I will get some pics of all of them out..
Gary

[Gary]

here are pics of the wheels..

[sschefer]

I also bought the HF diamond saw sharpening blade but switched up and went with a Bosch 4-1/2 diamond tile blade. I also use the concrete blades for back chipping. They are designed for 4-1/2" grinder and a simple arbor insert can be used to mount it on a 1/2" bench grinder shaft.

Just something I did not saying anythings wrong with your way.

[Wrenchtamer]

I bought those wheels too. they worked ok, but using the angle grinder I found to be tiny bit of a pain. I bought a 39$ bench grinder from aformentioned retailer. It has a very fine pink stone on one side and a fiber buffer on the other. it's much smaller than a standard bench grinder, and is adjustable up to 10,000 rpm. i just mounted it right on m cart and d ont use it for anything else. I had not considered mounting one of those diamond wheels to the other side in place of the buffer...

[JohnS]

This AM I was fooling around with the grinder and attached a fine grit paper to the backside of the diamond blade. The hook and loop paper sticks pretty darn good to the rougher diamond surface.

So I ground a tip this morning then polished it up a bit with the sandpaper side. I think it came out about as good as I could hope. It only took around a minute or two to go from a an uncut end to the point in the attached picture. Again, this is a piece of 3/32" 2% thoriated tungsten.

I really want to thank everyone for their suggestions and thoughts and sharing their techniques. Being retired now, I have a little more time to enjoy tinkering around with different ideas. You can bet I will be trying them. Thanks all!!!

Hmm, that small variable speed bench grinder sounds fascinating. Gotta find one of those

Warmest Regards,
John S

[ducksface]

I bought my HF stuff for this today. I got a bonus Emery wheel also. I'll do a write up on my angle jig as it gets built.