How To Sharpen A Thin Parting Tool

You can easily sharpen a parting tool on a diamond card or paddle.

How to sharpen a thin parting tool. Tool rest roughly at center. How to best sharpen your thin parting tool. Unless the cutting edge is in really bad shape you may not need anything more than a hone to do the job.

I was working on a handle for a gouge blade. I have watched several YouTube videos on how to sharpen it and every one of them gives different methods. Some use a slow speed grinder to create a hollow grind so that honing on a stone between uses is quicker.

It wobbles a bit much and tends to round the cutting edge. Instead grind the profile first by feeding the nose of the tool into a sharpening machine. I even show some very close ups of the edge.

I find a credit-card-sized hone to be hard to control on the narrow surface of a thin parting tool. Take a look at the Sorby tool. I lightly rub the bevel on the tool against the card or paddle until I can see that the surface of the bevel has been refreshed.

I found a couple of good videos that talk about sharpening your parting tool and thought it might help you get the best use of your thick or thin parting tool. On a thin parting tool I only sharpen. I then cut the end of the blade off to square it off and I cut and ground down the teeth.

Being excited I went to the wood lathe to try out the new parting tool. Took it over to the 1 belt sander cleaned up the blade a little more and fine tuned the wood edges. As time goes by the lower edge will become larger but the tool will still cut.