Resharpening cutting tools issomething most machine shopscan perform in-house, whether

they are aware of it or not. Larger man-ufacturers might prefer to discard toolsrather than resharpen them, especiallycommodity-type tools. Or, they mightsend them out to a tool resharpeningservice. But many shops may findvalue in buying a quality machineand resharpening tools themselvesto save time and money.

Depending on what type of sharp-ening is needed, a variety of preci-sion machines and attachments areavailable to do the job. The more-sophisticated equipment ranges inprice from around $1,000 to almost$22,000.

Gundrilling and MoreThe Accu-Finish Series II is a

benchtop, manual machine fromGlendo Corp., Emporia, Kan. The Se-ries II is designed around a diamond-plated grinding wheel. A variety of fix-tures are available for sharpening gun-drills, endmills and inserts.

To hold endmills precisely, colletblocks are available that use any 5Ccollet, along with an alignment fixture.

The machine is not intended for stan-dard drills, though. “The problem

with sharpening regular drills is thereare so many products on the marketdedicated just to that,” said J.B. Taylor,technical services for Glendo. “You canget a drill sharpener for $150. We tendto stay in the specialty markets that arenot served by other products using low-speed diamond-wheel technologies.”

The Series II sharpens HSS, PCD andcarbide tools. As for endmill sizes, theshank diameter has to fit into a 5C collet.“In most applications, a 3/4"- or 1"-dia.shank is about the biggest you can go,”said Taylor. Gundrills can be up to 1" indiameter.

The diamond-plated wheel rotates atabout 300 to 400 rpm. “It is a low-speed grinding system because dia-

mond does not need to turn very fast tobe effective. Tool heating is never aproblem,” said Taylor.

A fixture is also available for the SeriesII to sharpen inserts. While most shopsdon’t want to pay a machinist to stand andsharpen inserts, if it is a type that is notcommon, sharpening might be worth it.

“Cutoff inserts are quick and easy totouch up,” said Taylor. “That fixture isbig with the screw machine folks.”

Customers for the Series II are biggershops. “We have a lot of tool and diemakers, folks that use special tooling fordeep-pocket machining,” said Taylor.“We also have established ourselves inindustries that use a lot of gundrills.”

The ‘Master’Another option is the manual,

benchtop CutterMaster from ConquestIndustries Inc., Santa Fe Springs, Calif.The machine is mostly used to sharpenendmills. It can also be outfitted forother processes and types of tools, suchas reamers, countersinks, router bitsand taps when outfitted with the properaccessories.

Accessories include the universalgrinding fixture, which allows for“gashing” of endmills, which meansrebuilding the end, and the Z-axis at-tachment for “refluting,” which means

B Y S U S A N W O O D S , F E AT U R E S E D I T O R

A split-point drill before and after being sharpened on the XT3000 Xpandable drill sharpener.

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Fixtures are available so the Accu-FinishSeries II can sharpen gundrills, endmillsand inserts.

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-A variety of machinesare available for resharpening cuttingtools in-house.

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AUGUST 2005 / VOLUME 57 / NUMBER 8

sharpening the inside of the flutes oncechip clearance has been lost. The pneu-matic finger provides the ability tosharpen router bits. It also allows anoperator to switch from sharpening theprimary angle to the secondary angleon an endmill with the flip of a switch,thus eliminating an additional setup.This ensures repeatability and keepsthe total sharpening time short—approximately 11/2 minutes per tool.

Tools with shank diameters up to 2"and flute lengths up to 101/2" can besharpened. Depending on the wheel,tools can be HSS or carbide.

Users of the CutterMaster are“mostly companies that don’t want totake the time to send tools out and arelooking to control quality, delivery andpricing, along with companies thatsharpen tooling as a business,” saidBret Benson, product manager at Con-quest Industries. “We also have hadpretty big companies buy them [for]specific tooling or [to] supplementwhat they farm out.”

What is important to look for whenpurchasing this type of machine? “Itshould be well built and precise and beable to do the processes that are neededso you are not getting a one-dimen-sional machine,” said Benson. “Manybuyers start with a basic machine to doendmills, but then get the accessoriesthat open them up to do other pro-cesses and tooling.”

Something for EveryoneWhen it comes to manual, benchtop

equipment, Darex Corp., Ashland, Ore.,offers two drill sharpeners and one end-mill sharpener. Its newest product is aCNC drill sharpener.

The low-end manual model, theV390, is for common drill sizes: diam-eters from 1/8" to 3/4" and point anglesfrom 118° to 140°. The next model isthe XT3000 Xpandable, which sharp-ens drills from 1/8" to 13/16" in diameterwith point angles from 118° to 150°. Itaccepts drills 2" long and longer. Thereare two wheels—one for standard drillsand another for split-point drills. Op-tional attachments include ones forsharpening drill sizes 3/16" to 1", counter-

sinks, step drills and 90° point angles.The E90 sharpener is for endmills

from 3/16" to 1" in diameter that have upto a 6" flute length.

The machines come with CBNwheels for HSS tools, but diamondwheels are available for carbide.

Customers for these machines arejob shops, technical schools and re-sharpening businesses.

The Darex XPS-16 CNC drill sharp-ener allows users to sharpen prepro-grammed points or to program custompoints. The machine automatically de-tects drill length, diameter and webthickness, and then sharpens and splitsthe drill in one continuous processwithout operator involvement. For car-bide, there’s an automatic cycle to honethe cutting edge. The machine can do1/8"- to 5/8"-dia., 2-flute drills with pointangles from 118° to 150°. Customersfor this machine are larger shops andresharpening businesses—companiesthat sharpen lots of drills.

“With a broad range of choices,making sure the sharpener fits the cus-tomer’s application is the key,” said JimWiltrout, engineer. “Also, all drillssharpened on a Darex machine meet orexceed ANSI standards for accuracy.”

Fix It UpRush Machinery Inc., Rushville,

N.Y., makes sharpening machines,both benchtop and floor-mountedstyles, and grinding fixtures for sharp-ening tools. The fixtures mount onRush Machinery’s grinding machinesand most other tool and cutter grinders.

The company’s air-bearing fixture al-lows for sharpening of endmills, ream-ers, shell mills and other cutters. Tools,with up to 2"-dia. shanks, are held by a5C or 5ST collet or extension bushing.The radius-grinding attachment is forgrinding the ballnose, corner radius andconcave radius shapes on shank-typecutters. The attachment is a tilting com-pound slide for setting tools to the cor-rect position. The spiral-flute grindingfixture allows for sharpening or modify-ing the flute, OD and end of a tool. Allthree can be ground in one setup.

The sharpening machines are forstep drills, taps, reamers, countersinksand endmills. They accept tool-shank

diameters ranging from 0.080" to 31/8".Wheels are available for HSS and car-bide tools. Manual and semi-automaticversions are offered.

“With the automatic, you can set theamount you want to grind off, but thereis no guarantee you’re going to take itall off in one setting,” said Bill Freese,sales manager for Rush Machinery.“Generally when you are regrinding anend tool, you are just grinding it backand making the tool shorter. So if the

bring it on home

While the CutterMaster is mostly usedto sharpen endmills, it can be outfittedfor other processes and types of tools.

Con

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Accu-Finish/Glendo Corp.(800) 835-3519www.accu-finish.comInformation Services #320

Conquest Industries Inc.(562) 906-1111www.cuttermaster.comInformation Services #321

Darex Corp.(541) 488-2224www.darex.comInformation Services #322

Famco Machine Div.(262) 654-3516www.famcomachine.comInformation Services #323

Rush Machinery Inc.(800) 929-3070www.rushmachinery.comInformation Services #324

Spangler’s Superior Tool & Manufacturing Inc.(419) 737-2377www.spanglersuperiortool.comInformation Services #325

The following companiescontributed to this report:

tool is dull orchipped, you have togrind it back untilyou clean up thedamage. So it is notalways the sameamount.”

The grinding fixtures fitRush Machinery machines or a univer-sal-type grinder. “Most of our grindingfixtures are sold to go on somebodyelse’s machine,” said Freese.

Customers tend to be shops with 50or more people. Rush Machinery alsosells a lot to companies that specializein tool regrinding.

Freese believes accuracy and versa-tility are important in these machines.The machine has to be versatile enoughto accommodate a variety of applica-tions—different geometries, point an-gles and relief angles.

It is also important that the customeractually wants to do the sharpening in-

house. “Sometimes,management forcesit on people whowere used to sendingthem out or throw-ing them away,”Freese said. “Theyhave to become ac-customed to doing itin-house.”

Standing AloneSpangler’s Superior Tool

& Manufacturing Inc., Pioneer, Ohio,offers two manual, stand-alone drillsharpeners for 2-, 3- and 4-flute, spiralor straight drills. A semi-automatic ver-sion is also available.

The 302 drill sharpener is for drills1/8" to 11/4" in diameter with a pointangle from 90° to 140° and a maximumdrill length of 131/2".

The 308 subland/step-angle sharp-ener and drill pointer is a dual-purposemachine for sharpening points and stepangles. It can change from pointing tostep sharpening without adding attach-ments. Diameters can be from 1/8" to 11/2", point angles from 90° to 140°,

step angles from 30° to 90° per sideand lengths up to 15".

The machines are used mostly forHSS drills. “We can convert the wheelfor carbide, but we don’t recommendit,” said Jim Spangler, president. “Itgets too expensive.”

Customers for the machines are“everyone from drill manufacturers tomanufacturers that need to sharpentheir own drills to mom-and-pop re-sharpening houses,” Spangler said.

The 302 model comes complete andready to operate. “It is an economy ma-chine,” said Spangler. “It is not as eco-nomical as a benchtop machine, but itis more rigid. For what it costs($6,995), it is a real workhorse.”

Create and CutFamco Machine Div., Kenosha,

Wis., offers three machines that grindtools from blanks and sharpen them.These are manual machines: Models265 and 500 are benchtop types and theModel 375 is a pedestal type.

Depending on the model, they cangrind and sharpen single- and multiple-

The V390 is for drill diameters from 1/8" to 3/4" and point angles from 118° to 140°.

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Company Model Power Measurements Weight Cost

Accu-Finish/GlendoAccu-Finish Series II 115v, 220/240v, 100v 18"x11"x17" 60 lbs. $1,699

Conquest IndustriesCutterMaster 110v, 220v 30"x28"x29" 180 lbs. $3,200 to

$7,900

DarexV390 115v 12"x11"x9" 24 lbs. $998XT3000 115v 19"x19"x16" 60 lbs. $2,998E90 115v 19"x19"x16" 72 lbs. $2,998XPS-16 115v 22"x26"x12" 115 lbs. $16,600

Rush MachineryModel 132C 115v/230v 27"x28"x18" 240 lbs. $6,000Model 380 208-230v/460v 50"x48"x54" 720 lbs. $22,000

(Grinding fixtures areless than $2,000)

Spangler’s SuperiorModel 302 220v/440v 151/2"x24"x44" 500 lbs. $6,995

(110v special order)

Famco MachineModel 265 115v 181/2"x233/4"x16" 150 lbs. $8,815Model 500 115v 181/2"x233/4"x16" 150 lbs. $10,670Model 375 115v 25"x31"x44" 550 lbs. $17,740

(including pedestal)

Specifications and costs of tool resharpeners

flute tools (straight-flute style) andmultiflute helical tools, and grindsquare, ballnose, conical and corner ra-dius shapes.

The shanks can be from 1/10" to 5/8" indiameter. Conventional wheels areavailable for HSS tools and diamondwheels are available for carbide tools.

They are not for sharpening drills,however. “They are not designed forthe clearances you need for drills,” saidLance Pauley, Famco sales. “You can’tcreate the lands. We tried to develop ityears ago, but it just didn’t work. Thendrill sharpeners came out for $150, andthey can do it twice as fast.”

Famco machines are suitable for anysize shop, said Pauley.

Pauley noted repeatability and con-centricity are critical when sharpeninga tool. “It needs to stay true and round,so when you are cutting with a 4-fluteendmill, you are cutting with all fourflutes and not just two,” he said.

Short setup times are also important.“It shouldn’t take 6 hours to sharpen anendmill that you could buy for thesame price.”

Many optional accessories are avail-able for all of the machines mentioned.Cabinets are available to turn thebenchtop models into stand-aloneunits. These cabinets can be used forstorage as well. Other accessories in-clude extensions for larger size tools,taper attachments for tools with tapers,

work lamps and diamond dressers fordiamond wheels.

Anyone looking to buy one of thesemachines should know that the bestthing about them is they are all easy touse. The required training is minimal.All the machines come with a manual,and some with a video. There is typi-cally no on-site training because noneis required. “Anybody with a mechani-cal or machining background that un-derstands the principles of tools canfigure them out with use of the man-ual,” said Pauley.

Additional information for this articleis available at www.ctemag.com. q

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