Tabletop tool sharpeners

Just how big is the change that has come to tool-sharpening equipment? To get an idea, consider the increasingly small size of up-to-date sharpening operations.

“Today, companies don’t have whole tool-grinding departments,” said Jeff Toycen, president of Cuttermasters, an Ottawa, Ontario, maker of drill and endmill grinders. “In a toolroom we just set up, we replaced a room half the size of my house full of old tool grinders with some machines on a benchtop that do the same work.”

Tool-grinding options cover a wide range of sharpening needs. “We have sharpeners for shops that need to handle 20 drills a week all the way up to thousands of drills a week,” said Jim Wiltrout, operations and engineering manager for drill grinder manufacturer Darex LLC, Ashland, Ore.

Designed to sharpen drills and endmills, the CS320 from Cuttermasters features a small footprint and heavy-duty construction. Image courtesy of Cuttermasters.

To reduce the cost of its light- and intermittent-duty sharpeners, Darex installs some nylon parts in the units’ drill-holding chucks. Sharpeners with these nylon parts offer good value to small machine shops that need to sharpen five to 50 drills a week, according to Matthew Prell, Darex’s industrial sales lead.

However, heat generated by continuous sharpening may eventually deform nylon parts, adversely affecting the results of the process. So for shops that are constantly sharpening tools, Prell recommends a continuous-duty sharpener with all stainless parts.