Pro Grind Sharpening System for 8 Inch Grinders to Sharpen Lathe Turning Tools, Chisels, Skews, Bowl Spindle Gouges •Includes Setup Blocks and Quad Jig for 8 inch Grinders

I'm getting excellent repeatable grinds on my lathe chisels. This really is a comprehensive sharpening system with everything you need to grind turning chisels. I mostly sharpened my chisels by hand and eye which worked fine as long as I had good grind to follow. Fixing the grind on old chisels was difficult by hand. I looked at and used some other systems, which seemed to work, but everal required addition jigs and set up gauges. This is a comprehensive package which includes everything I've needed so far, as well as additional jigs and setup gauges I have not yet needed.I am using this on a Rikon slow speed 8 inch grinder and it works fine. Both the description, the video, and the instructions tell you that you MAY need to raise the grinder up for sufficient clearance. The excellent video and descriptions tell you to refer to the mounting instructions for more information about raising the grinder. I could not find any specific dimensions listed. A 3/4 inch riser was not enough but 1 1/2 inch - using two 3/4 risers - works fine.Again, I am very pleased with the system versitility and very comprehensive set of jigs and gauges. Watching the video a couple times made using the system easy.I am very pleased with this. It is truly a comprehensive system that works very well. The price is very reasonable for everything that is included and the quality. The setup and use video is useful. It is all good tutorial information and not marketing / sales fluff.

I purchased this to sharpen my wood lathe tools.I am a retired machinist so I am very familiar with what it takes to fabricate things.The entire unit is extremely well constructed, and the workmanship was way above average especially for custom made items these days. It was packaged perfectly, even though it was not in an exterior box it arrived in perfect condition.There is quite a bit of assembly required, and it does require measuring and drilling holes to mount the components, but I am sure that anyone who is going to purchase such an item will have no problems at all.The feature that sold me on this unit versus others on the market was the fact that this can be set up to sharpen any of the tools that I have, gouges, skew, scraper, parting tool, etc. There is no additional components needed to sharpen any of these, and additionally my wood chisels as well.If I had to find any sort of feature that could use improvement it would be the angles that the Pro Grind is set up to achieve. The documentation does not specify the angle, just a type of tool. I would like to see something for example "set to position #1 for 55 degrees, Position #2 for 40 degrees" etc. This way I could grind the tool to what I chose.Other than that, I can not find fault with anything in this system.I mounted mine on a 14"x18"x3/4" piece of plywood, and had to attach a smaller piece of plywood for the grinder to sit on to raise it to the proper height.The base is large enough for me to drill holes to store the various setup gages and places for the various fixture pieces, as well as a small dish of water in case I need to do some aggressive grinding and need to keep the tool cool.All in all, I am very pleased with this addition to my shop equipment. Based on other systems I looked at, the Pro Grind is not only very cost effective, but will sharpen a wider variety of tools.Recommend highly.

Depending on your grinder and setup, installation of this system can be either straight forward or, as in my case, a bit of a headache. To be fair, though, that is largely out of the hands of the manufacturer. For their part, there could be a better fit between the brackets that mount to the bench and the arms used for the tools, as I often find myself wrestling to get them to slide into place.When it comes to using the system, the gouge adapter is fairly easy to use and my only issue with it is that it becomes difficult to use on gouges with a shorter shank or those with a round shank as it uses the top of the cut portion to clamp against. This is usually fine, but I have a few gouges that don't have that long cut section and even with only 2" extended, I'm already trying to clamp to a round shank. It would be nice if the clamp was recessed in the center to make it easier to use this way (I know they're probably assuming you'll just throw out that tool and go buy another, but with the cost of these tools, I'm not the only one using short tools that are still perfectly good).The flat rest is a great tool for many of the other tools, but it is also a huge missed opportunity. The rest has a guide channel and fittings for it that I'm sure are useful to some, but what I find myself wishing for most of all is a simple guide that fits into it with set angles for chisels. The setup for sharpening the roughing gouge is okay, but it's such a pain to put in place and set up that I find myself just using the flat rest and would kill to have a 90-degree guide to keep it straight as I rotate the edge on the grinding wheel. The contraption they've included for clamping your skew chisels for sharpening is also prohibitively time consuming, and if I had a solid guide to rest it against on the flat rest so it meets the wheel at the right angle, that would be so much quicker and easier. In all this time, I've only used it once, and quickly decided it was easier to just hold the chisel at the right angle and slide it across the wheel.Over all, this system could use a few improvements, but just for the sake of having a sold adjustable flat rest (that is much, much, much better than the bad joke the grinder came with) and having the gouge sharpening jig, it is worth the cost and effort it took to install it. I installed mine and the grinder to a platform to avoid attaching it directly to the workbench, but after two days of fighting with it, I screwed it to the bench because it is just too much leverage for it to sit on its own and I didn't have a good way to clamp it, so if you are hoping to make a somewhat portable mount, be prepared to clamp it in place.I asked myself if I really thought having this system would be worth it or not. If you are asking yourself the same question, the answer is YES! There are some who can use a flat rest and sharpen their bowl gouges and all with it, but I can't. At least not without taking a lot of time to slowly and carefully move it on the wheel. Being able to make a couple quick movements to set it in the jig and then pass it over the wheel is a huge time saver. Plus there's the added benefit of consistent angles. Even the best of us drift on the angles over time just using the existing edge to set the rest angle, the jigs in this kit make it fast and easy to set them and keep the edge geometry the same over time for predictable cuts. You use a solid tool rest on your lathe, think of this as your solid tool rest for the grinder.

Must have kit for every beginner

I liked that all the gadgets are packaged together in one package. I haven't turned in a long time but used to sharpen gouges by eye without a jig. This is a good tool for consistent sharpening. I sharpened all my turning tools and it works very well. The package itself is very good and well constructed. It was easy to install, just have to take your time squaring everything up before hand. I'm glad I made this choice.