OnewayWolverine Grinding Jig

Woodturning is an expensive hobby, and at first glance purchasing the Wolverine jig seems to be an expense that could be avoided. For several years I made do with a homemade version of this jig -- after all its not too complicated. Finally I got frustrated and ordered this because of its reputation as the very best of the grinder-based sharpening jigs. Wow! It has a simple, but very well thought out design. All the cams lock solidly and easily without changing the distances and angles while tightening. While I could (eventually) set everything with my homemade jig, it would often take me several minutes to make even a very small change, and tightening down everything would shift the settings and make me try again. With the wolverine system I can adjust things in a few seconds that would have taken 30 minutes or so to get right on my homemade one. As a result, I am not tempted to "make do" with settings that are "sorta close". So it saves both time and tool steel that would get ground away by imprecise settings on my old system. Now that I am more experienced, I would recommend starting off right by buying this. A good sharpening system is probably second only to a good lathe for both ease of working and quality of work. In expensive chisels, sharpened well, out-perform much more expensive chisels sharpened poorly. I would therefore buy this before spending big bucks on lathe chisels, a top-end grinder, or even a top-end lathe!Note: Even an inexpensive grinder works well with these. With CBN wheels (mine were from Woodturners Wonders) it is even better, and sharpening has gone from a hit and miss frustrating affair to a joy!

The OneWay Wolverine grinding jig is not a cheap tool in the slightest, especially when you use the whole Wolverine System.The components are well made, and operate EXACTLY as they manufacturer says they do.While I had heard on many forums, and from more than a few woodturners that I wanted a slow speed grinder, OneWay recommends the 3650 rpm 8" grinder for this setup. So I have my sharpening station set up using a Ryobi 8" grinder, Norton white wheels, and fitted with the OneWay wolverine jig, skew platform, and varigrind.The system set up and used correctly allows me to very quickly, and easily touch up my turning tools, and keep them good and sharp and keep turning without screwing up my gouges and skews.The large platform features a great deal of adjustability, which allows me to grind the proper bevel in to my hand chisels, and plane irons.Overall this has been a priceless addition to my shop. With the build quality this thing has, even though there are less expensive versions out there, I whole heartedly recommend the Wolverine. You won't be sorry you paid the premium for this tool!

I have been grinding freehand for long time. I finally broke down and bought this system of jigs. I love it. I get consistent results every time, and once you set it up for one tool that you're turning with, just leave the setup in position and it's quick and easy to touch up the tool as you progress with your work. My only complaint is that I do think I will need to buy the OneWay Vari-Grind jig to get a good side grind on my bowl gouges - without it, the profile you're left with is more suited to gouges to work the bottom of bowls. BTW, if you can look at a picture and read a ruler, you will find the setup instructions more than adequate. Just elevate your bench grinder with a piece of wood dimensioned thick enough to get the center of the grinder wheel 6 1/4" to 6 1/2" above where you mount the jig brackets, align the centerline of the brackets with the centerline of the grinding wheels, and position the front edge of the brackets with the leading edge of the grinding wheels.

This is a great jig, and in comparison to trying to repeatably free-hand grind or some other jigs I have used in the past it's a 5 star product. I'm giving it 4 because, being so good, it has a small feature which could be improved on that on a lesser quality jig wouldn't be mentioned because it would be lost in the general noise.The good:Solid and substantial constructionThe basic grinder work platform is a huge upgrade in and of itself relative to the tiny things that come with most bench grindersGreat designEasy to useThe less good:To use this jig you need to mount it in alignment with the grinder wheels. This typically requires making a plywood mounting base for the jig and grinder, mounting the grinder, then aligning and mounting the jig. The problem is that the jig mounts to the board with screws through 3 holes. With my 8" Ryobi grinder in place, it blocked direct access to the jig mounting holes. This led to trying to drive in the screws using a flex-drive shaft, and I must have side-loaded one and slid the jig as it ended up being mounted a couple of degrees off relative to the wheel. Not a huge issue to work around, but annoying nonetheless. The jig itself does not have any capability to adjust out this type of error, and being mounted with screws means that to correct this small amount of misalignment I'd need to make a new mounting base as a new screw in the old base would find itself going into the old hole. It would be a relatively easy design fix to widen the mounting base of the jig half an inch or so and provide clearance for installing the mounting screws - as well as having room to add extra holes in case of an initial misalignment.