What's this for?

[Lonsdale73]

Eighteen days hence will mark my fifth anniversary as a member of this hallowed forum. It also means I have owned the attached for almost five years as it was a recommended purchase. I forgot I had it and it has - as can be seen in the photo - been gathering dust ever since! I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it.

After the saga of trying to find someone to hang the garage doors, I hate to sound ungrateful to the chap who came to my aid. However, he managed to chip every single one of my nine chisels - most of which had never been used - which I now need to (lowers voice, coughs) sharpen. Even earlier than joining this forum I bought a cheap Silverline benchtop grinder to sharpen my (even cheaper) chisels. I managed to reduce one to a 2" stub without getting anything even remotely close to a sharp edge. I freely acknowledge my 'technique' - or ignorance - probably played a significant in that spectacular fail and although I've recently learnt my current set aren't the high quality I thought them to be I don't want them suffering the same fate.

 

[marcros]

I am not hugely knowledgable, but the fact that some of your chisels had never been used may be part of the reason that they chipped. I have read several posts over the time saying that you often need to grind back a couple of mm on new chisels to get to the good steel. The quality of what you have is probably fine.

Your picture looks like a 4 sided diamond plate isn't it? The silver line grinder probably has a very coarse wheel on it. you could replace the wheel, but it is probably like putting alloy wheels on a lada. I had a similar grinder and found its best use to be putting on a pigtail and a satin wheel for polishing. It wasn't great at that to be honest, but did me for a while.

 

[Andrew1]

Hi it is a four sided diamond plate with the grade on the end in the plastic, i think they go up to 600

 

[Lonsdale73]

Hi it is a four sided diamond plate with the grade on the end in the plastic, i think they go up to 600

Great - what do I do with it?

 

[ED65]

Hi it is a four sided diamond plate with the grade on the end in the plastic, i think they go up to 600

Great - what do I do with it?

Ya rubs the steel up and down it an' it gets sharper loik.

How bad are the chips? If they're not quite minor (and I mean pretty tiny) you won't enjoy the process of removing them using one of these as the 'coarse' one is generally not coarse enough. I've done it, but it can take an age even with relatively soft chisels.

The bigger the chip the more you need (could do with) using a grinder to get stuff back into shape.

 

[Tris]

Used the same as a bench stone I think, but without oil of course. Had a couple of single plates that looked like this, OK for garden tools but not much else. Hope yours are better than that.

 

[ED65]

Even earlier than joining this forum I bought a cheap Silverline benchtop grinder to sharpen my (even cheaper) chisels. I managed to reduce one to a 2" stub without getting anything even remotely close to a sharp edge.

Yeah #1 point is you generally don't go for a sharp edge on the grinder. You generally do only roughing shaping tasks like straightening or squaring an edge and putting in the primary bevel (which doesn't reach the cutting edge) by grinding, then switch to honing for the next stage(s).

...I've recently learnt my current set aren't the high quality I thought them to be...

What are they? Even some lower-priced chisels are quite good. The Aldi ones were perhaps the best example as they were dead cheap and actually pretty decent.

 

[Lonsdale73]

What are they? Even some lower-priced chisels are quite good. The Aldi ones were perhaps the best example as they were dead cheap and actually pretty decent.

Irwin Marples. I'm sure a lot of the tools we had at school were Marples so I had always believed them to be a quality brand. But that was a long time ago and things ain't what they used to be.