Sharpening Discs/Rocks

[LeeB]

For those that are still using drag type sharpeners, where are you getting your discs from? I have bought from Cooks in the past. Just wondering what other vendors are out there.

[kelLOGg]

I use the CatClaw drag sharpener but I don't know what a disk is. Cam?

[YellowHammer]

Cooks sent me some with the Norton label on them, I assume that's where they buy theirs from. 

[kelLOGg]

Oh, grind wheel. 

[LeeB]

I have searched the Norton catalog and do not find the discs (grind wheels) offered there.

[customsawyer]

Back when I had one I got the best results from a pink stone from Suffolk machinery. I think they called it Ruby Red.

[Bruno of NH]

Lots of Norton wheel on Amazon 
Rockler woodworking 

[JoshNZ]

I got sick of trying to source wheels that held their shape all the way around the band, ended up buying a CBN wheel off cutting edge and knocked a bit off the back of the cam with a flap disc. I feel like I persevered long enough with the stones to reliably say CBN is just streaks ahead. If this is an option for you I'm sure many others will nudge you in that direction.

[LeeB]

I asked him about one several years ago and he was not offering one for a drag sharpener. Has that changed recently?

[JoshNZ]

Well you change it from a drag sharpener by modifying the cam shape, so that it doesn't drag, then use a wheel shaped for the band profile as normal. Run it slowly and mark with a pen where you need to take material off the cam to get the wheel to drop in as soon as the tooth arrives then lift clear before the pusher starts moving the tooth. It still sort of ghost drags but the wheel is clear and lifting and stays clear as the tooth is advanced, so functions same as CBN.

It probably only took me ten minutes with a flap disc.

[KirkD]

In a thread on here Pineywoods said on his Woodmizer drag sharpener he had to upgrade the motor in order to use a CBN wheel.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=106151.0

[JoshNZ]

Yeah I upgraded the motor too but I was going to do that before I ever considered CBN. The little DC one on it was either spent or gummed brushes or whatever it was it wasn't cutting the mustard

[JoshNZ]

Those chainsaw grinders that come out of a factory in China somewhere, they're a dime a dozen. They have a little ~200watt motor on them and they're perfect for it.

It was cheaper for me to buy a Chinese product and pull the motor than it was to source a motor in NZ