How an axe is really supposed to be sharpened!

Professionals on the fire line tend to use angle grinders. :) By comparison, a slack belt is pretty darn tame. Most, with some experience with a belt grinder won't ruin an ax head. However, I cannot dispute the ZEN of hand sharpening.

When I worked fires, local teens from the nearby towns were hired by logistics to sharpen tools at night while the hand crews ate and slept. You could hear the grinders going for hours. I doubt many of those kids were sharpening pros. Always a good idea to check the edge on a used tool, especially those marked FSS.
 
When I worked fires, local teens from the nearby towns were hired by logistics to sharpen tools at night while the hand crews ate and slept. You could hear the grinders going for hours. I doubt many of those kids were sharpening pros. Always a good idea to check the edge on a used tool, especially those marked FSS.

Having been around some guys that where responsible for writing government specifications and having done research and testing myself, I always find it amusing that people will inject government specifications or studies into debates to prove a point. I have a tendency to view al such specifications and studies rather skeptically.

I have seen them grind marks on many FSS heads. They do seem to be done with a light touch, but still...
 
Hi Forty Two Blades

The idea is to never let the axe become too hot ever. I always dip when the blade feels real warn. This lowers the temperature
quickly back down to cold real quick. In over 30 years of doing this, I've never had the bad experience of a ruined heat treat on any axe, ever. However, I only use the belt grinder for the very first shaping and thinning of the cutting edge and cheek of the axe. Lately, I've been using the same sharping tools that Cody of Wrangler Star uses. They are great and I would recommend them to anyone.

Using the belt sander for the initial work on the cutting edge and cheek area of the axe head has made my life easier and I am more pleased with the results.

Also, loss of tempering does not happen until the metal has reached a temperature of 350 degrees F. This is very hot.

Have a nice day.

ripshin
 
Hi Forty Two Blades

The idea is to never let the axe become too hot ever. I always dip when the blade feels real warn. This lowers the temperature
quickly back down to cold real quick. In over 30 years of doing this, I've never had the bad experience of a ruined heat treat on any axe, ever. However, I only use the belt grinder for the very first shaping and thinning of the cutting edge and cheek of the axe. Lately, I've been using the same sharping tools that Cody of Wrangler Star uses. They are great and I would recommend them to anyone.

Using the belt sander for the initial work on the cutting edge and cheek area of the axe head has made my life easier and I am more pleased with the results.

Also, loss of tempering does not happen until the metal has reached a temperature of 350 degrees F. This is very hot.

Have a nice day.

ripshin

I don't think you understood what I was saying. :) By the way, the very edge is very easy to overheat because it's such a thin section of metal. The rest of the head can feel totally cool but you can still burn the edge itself. 350°F can be reached at the edge in a fraction of a second if you over-pressure or use worn belts. Worn belts create friction rather than abrasion, and especially if you have a plain steel platen it can cause overheating FAST. My post was correcting your use of the word "quenching" which would be indicating rapid cooling after bringing the steel to high heat rather than preventative cooling, which is what's really going on. Wranglerstar's method has a lot of nonsensical goo-gah involved that's totally unnecessary, such as his odd belief that the edge is supposed to be a perfect radius from what is really a pretty arbitrary point on the head. I'll need to do a video at some point on good use of a belt grinder for axes. Ideally you'll have access to one with a contact wheel.
 
Hi ripshin. You must be a wizard because you have had good results using common sense and modern ways for 30 years. Lol. Come on people, we don't live in 1900. So what if hand work is safer Long term? For people working I'd say most use axes are used as tools and move on. I get you might want to be very careful with a rare collector head, but most folks don't turn those into every day user heads. This axe game is almost as bad as bluegrass purists that think it's blasphemy to use electric bass.lol
 
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Come on people, we don't live in 1900. So what if hand work is safer Long term? For people working I'd say most use axes are used as tools and move on. I get you might want to be very careful with a rare collector head, but most folks don't turn those into every day user heads. This axe game is almost as bad as bluegrass purists that think it's blasphemy to use electric bass.lol

I don't think the overall tone of the thread has been "thou shalt not use high-speed dry grinders" but rather one of "they work, but be careful--it's easier to damage them than you might think."
 
I don't think you understood what I was saying. :) By the way, the very edge is very easy to overheat because it's such a thin section of metal. The rest of the head can feel totally cool but you can still burn the edge itself. 350°F can be reached at the edge in a fraction of a second if you over-pressure or use worn belts.

Several times I've drawn temper on my chisels on a 10" wet grinder with a water jet spraying on the chisel point.

An axe is designed to take impacts that a chisel will never experience. Temper is more critical.
 
Wha...??? How in the world did you manage to do that? A slow-speed wet grinder shouldn't be able to ever draw the temper out of an edged tool.
 
That'd explain it then. Any photos? I just know that something like my Grizzly G1036 goes far too slow to burn an edge. It's more like a high-torque continuous stroke on a manual stone. If it went too fast it'd fling water everywhere! :D
 
Hi everyone!

Sometime back i posted a thread about sharpening axes with a belt sander. It seems a lot of folks just didn't like this idea.
WELLLLLL----------Here is a professional, HOFFMAN BLACKSMITHING, showing us how he sharpens his axes to razor sharpness and explains how he does not have any problems with ruining the temper in his forged axes.

Please go to YouTube and watch "HOW AXES ARE REALLY SUPPOSED TO BE SHARPENED".

Please give your opinions after watching this YouTube video. I have put razor edges on my axes for over 30 years and no problems. Of course I have a bucket of water and quench often just to be safe.

Ripshin

He's not using any water and there are sparks coming off the grinder heating up the edge ALOT. it will have an affect on the heat treat. i wouldnt have him sharpen anything for me.
 
He's not using any water and there are sparks coming off the grinder heating up the edge ALOT. it will have an affect on the heat treat. i wouldnt have him sharpen anything for me.

Not problematic so long as fresh belts are used, and a light touch is used with rapid passes. There's just a lot more risk involved. Power sharpening makes things faster, not easier. :)
 
He's not using any water and there are sparks coming off the grinder heating up the edge ALOT. it will have an affect on the heat treat. i wouldnt have him sharpen anything for me.

It wasn't clear to me if he was grinding before or after heat treat. I assumed after but I'm not sure.
 
It wasn't clear to me if he was grinding before or after heat treat. I assumed after but I'm not sure.

I didn't watch after he started drawing pictures and talking about correct angles. It's just not for me and bores me to tears.

I had thought that you had acquired a treadle grinder? If so what are your thoughts on it?
 
Several times I've drawn temper on my chisels on a 10" wet grinder with a water jet spraying on the chisel point.

An axe is designed to take impacts that a chisel will never experience. Temper is more critical.

Wha...??? How in the world did you manage to do that? A slow-speed wet grinder shouldn't be able to ever draw the temper out of an edged tool.

High speed wet grinder. Industrial strength.

That'd explain it then. Any photos? I just know that something like my Grizzly G1036 goes far too slow to burn an edge. It's more like a high-torque continuous stroke on a manual stone. If it went too fast it'd fling water everywhere! :D

Here's a video.

[video=youtube;LRQG2onn7kg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRQG2onn7kg&feature=youtu.be[/video]


And here are some other toys we have at work.

Polishing station. I really like the non-woven wheel on the right.
1-Polishing%20station.jpg


Shaping station.
2-Shaping%20station.jpg


Shaper cutting wheel. We use this to cut millwork shapers for our cabinet shop.
3-Shaper%20cutting%20wheel.jpg


Another shaping station.
4-Shaping%20station.jpg


An industrial grinder in our welding/sheet metal shop.
5-Industrial%20grinder.jpg


Another of that grinder.
6-Industrial%20grinder2.jpg


Another industrial grinder in our machine shop. For scale the wheel on the left is a 14" x 3-1/2" wheel.
7-Machine%20shop%20grinder.jpg


Another polishing station.
8-Machine%20shop%20polisher.jpg


And just for fun a 450 Trenton anvil. We just moved a 250 Little Giant power hammer out to another shop.
9-450%20pound%20Trenton.jpg



We got some toys! :D
 
Sure looks like it! Makes me wonder what kind of wheels they're using in that wet grinder and if they're an appropriate grade for the task, though. That's definitely MUCH higher speed than you'd come across in a consumer wet grinder, but all the same I can't help but think that they may have a wheel on it that would be better suited to a different kind of grinding work. The whole point of a wet grinder, after all, is to avoid overheating the work! :eek:

A heck of a lot of cool toys there. Loving those 2-wheel standing belt grinders, especially.
 
Hi Forty two Blades

I have never let my axes get two hot. I use the water to cool the axes before they become too hot at above 350 degrees farenhiet
where tempering begins. When the axe is vewry warm it gets dipped until it is cool again. Never had any problems yet.

ripshin
 
Hi Forty two Blades

I have never let my axes get two hot. I use the water to cool the axes before they become too hot at above 350 degrees farenhiet
where tempering begins. When the axe is vewry warm it gets dipped until it is cool again. Never had any problems yet.

ripshin

No matter what you do or how careful you are the very edge or tip of a blade can and will become red hot within the blink of an eye when you use a grinder, especially one that is not water cooled.
 
Interesting thing about overheating edges...

If you heat them a little bit too much, they get soft because you temper them.

If you heat them a LOT bit too much - above 1450F - they harden again, to TOO hard, because the large thermal mass of the axe head (or other *heavy* blade body) conducts the heat out fast, like an oil quench. Then it can be too hard. It appears to air-harden like stainless, but really it's more like a super-fast plate-quench.

You can demonstrate this to yourself by trying to cut soft 10XX steel too slowly, like with a dull bit. It's even worse with stainless tool steel, which also air-hardens anyway and conducts heat poorly. The effect (when drilling) is most pronounced on thin pieces, where there isn't enough mass to keep the cutting region cool while the bit is applied.

I have a 1084 test piece that was plasma-cut, and the heat-affected zone must be 64Rc, I can't grind it worth a damn. A good reminder.

So... thermal mass can work for or against you, depending on your heat levels.
 
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