Reply To: HSS Or Caribide

[david pierce]

When carbide chips, the damage to the tip has a distance that must be ground back to bring it to a sharp condition. I actually do have some gravers both steel and carbide I just don’t use them very often. My WALLER set came with a lapping wheel and some small tins of diamond lapping paste. This system is great for the final sharpening and polishing of the cutting edge but grinding out a damaged tip is time consuming. A diamond wheel has the diamond impregnated into a bonding resin and can cut carbide fairly quickly but a lap and paste method is a slow way to go. I have a single lip cutter grinder that can do this very quickly but it is heavy industrial machine and it was expensive. One idea that might work if you decide to go with carbide is to buy a diamond wheel and put it on a regular bench grinder. If you go this route make sure you do not sharpen steel on a rotating diamond wheel; only carbide. The heat generated by the grinding will cause a chemical reaction between the steel and diamond and the wheel will be ruined.
david