Carbide

[Turner52]

I turn a lot of corian segmented vases and bowls. Open and closed segmeted. Does anyone sharpen their carbide cutters. A lot of my cutters were given to me by my brother inlaw. Designed for metal. All of these are cupped. Really work excellent. Round, square. hexagon and diamond. Youtube shows 1 preson sharpening the angles with a CBN wheel.Has anyone does this or have any other ideas? Thanks in advance for any sugestions.

[FrankAtl]

A search on YouTube turned up a few:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_q...de+cutters

[Arlin Eastman]

I use a 600g diamond file card to sharpen mine with.  I am wanting to make a jig to make it easier to hold the carbide with.

[AHill]

I use a 600g diamond file card to sharpen mine with.  I am wanting to make a jig to make it easier to hold the carbide with.

Same here.  I don't notice a huge difference, but it does prolong the use of the cutter.  In most carbide turning tools, you'll need to remove the cutter prior to sharpening.  I just hone the flat side.  I don't mess with the bevel.

[Turner52]

Thanks for the links. Most of them show sharpening the flats and not the angle. With cupped cutters you cannot sharpen the flats. This will only make the cutters duller. I did get some help, but if anyone has any additional info it would be appreciated.

[Arlin Eastman]

Thanks for the links. Most of them show sharpening the flats and not the angle. With cupped cutters you cannot sharpen the flats. This will only make the cutters duller. I did get some help, but if anyone has any additional info it would be appreciated.

Yep Flats only.  Everything else is just a waste of time and energy.

[MichaelMouse]

Thanks for the links. Most of them show sharpening the flats and not the angle. With cupped cutters you cannot sharpen the flats. This will only make the cutters duller. I did get some help, but if anyone has any additional info it would be appreciated.

FWIW, I got my carbide cupped edge tooling from the machine shop up the road.  Used to be about four-six bucks a pop, now probably ten.  Given time and chance involved in sharpening, I'd buy a new one for inside work.  Flat, renewable designs work fine to hog, so the more delicate cupped is used only for finishing, though mostly I use my termite.

[Timberwolf]

I turn a lot of corian segmented vases and bowls. Open and closed segmeted. Does anyone sharpen their carbide cutters. A lot of my cutters were given to me by my brother inlaw. Designed for metal. All of these are cupped. Really work excellent. Round, square. hexagon and diamond. Youtube shows 1 preson sharpening the angles with a CBN wheel.Has anyone does this or have any other ideas? Thanks in advance for any sugestions.

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You may know this but you don't need a diamond or boride wheel to sharpen carbide...All you need is a "green" wheel on your bench grinder...The "green" wheels are SILICON carbide which is harder than tungsten carbide...They are pretty inexpensive also..I used to sharpen masonry bits all the time with a green wheel I kept on my bench grinder. Check amazon.

[Turner52]

Thanks Timberwolf. I will look into the green wheels. While HSS cutters do a very nice job on corian it really dulls the tools very quickly. Maybe not on pens being so small, but on a 10 or 12" bowl I need to spend a lot of time sharpening. It does a better job than the carbide. At least for me, which is why I usually make my last cut or 2 with HSS. Before that i use carbide almost always on the corian. Sometimes I will use carbide for removing a lot of wood on a solid wood turning. On segmented wood I almost never use the carbide because there is not as much wood to remove. Plus it is always clean with no dirt hiding anywhere on the wood

[Arlin Eastman]

Where are you getting all of this Corian free or bought?