sharpening

[Fred]

Although I design structures out of various types of steels, you'd be shocked to find out how little I know about the material aside from it's yield strength and rigidity. Which leaves me to my question. How does one sharpen ice tools without affecting the temper of the steel. I know how to sharpen with a file but I own a bench grinder that I'd love to put to use. But I've been told that the heat would affect the temper thus leaving the tip as soft as butter. Apparently if you use a fine grit stone with water it works. Anyone have any ideas or knowledge of metalurgy?

[Scott]

Fred, as you know I have a lathe for wood turning, The tools are generally made of high speed steel and loosing the temper on tools would obviously by undesireable. I'm not exactly sure what most people use for sharpening but most pictures I've seen (woodturning magazines) appear to have sharpening stones on simple bench grinders. I have also seen wet grinders sold at places like canadian tire specificaly for sharpening, for around $60. The difference between the two as I understand it is that the wet grinder obviously uses water as a coolant / lubricant and it also rotates at a slower RPM. Anyway I'm sure the magazines or internet would have lots of info on what grit / speed etc. is generaly accepted for sharpening tools. I hope this proves somewhat usefull. I can always bring my wetstone to the gym if you'd rather use a little elbow greese

[The Teth]

Well, from a theoretical standpoint, friction creates heat, but too much heat will mess up the temper of the steel. You need to either reduce the friction, or reduce the application of friction to the point where the heat has time to desicate, or find a way to disparate the heat faster.

When sharpening by hand it would be difficult to generate enough heat to damage the temper because your arm would get tired first. A grinding wheel goes much faster, so it generates more heat. Using a smother stone will reduce the friction and thus reduce the heat generated, but with less friction it will take longer to sharpen the picks. Applying water (or oil) would reduce the friction more and also help disparate the heat.

When cutting stone they run a constant stream of water over the blade to disparate the heat so the temper on the saw blade is not compromised. So, if you setup with a sink or garden hose to run cold water over you ice tool while grinding it, then you should be able to use your grinder as it is. Try not to electrocute yourself.

Teth

PS. I was sort of working it out as I was writing this. So the first part is just me stalling for time while I tried to figure it out. A common tactic among academics.

[The Teth]

And if I typed faster I would not be repeating stuff someone has already said. I should do a refresh before submitting a post like this.

Teth

[PaulB]

I've beat up my picks pretty good over the years, but never so bad that it took more than five minutes with a hand file to get them back into shape and sharp again. Other than the innate male need to use power tools whenever possible, I've never understood why so many people want to use a grinder for a job that is so easy to do by hand.

If you really want to use a grinder, very short periods of grinding accompanied by some form of continuous cooling should minimize the chances of runing the temper.

Sharpening screws, on the other hand, is a lot tricker and can take a fair amount of time. Amazingly, Grivel has built a machine to do it for you:


Actually, there was one time that a hand file wasn't enough to fix the problem:

I was about 20 feet into seconding a full pitch of WI4 when I noticed that one tool felt weird. Luckily the ice was quite soft. Unluckily, my spare pick was 800 feet below in my truck, and we still had another pitch to go.

[Scott]

Lee valley sells woodworking tools and they have sharpening wheels as I'm sure canadian tire has for somewhere in the order of $30. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... 43080&ap=1

[Stef]

There is a good article on NEice right now about sharpening screws with a dremel tool. I haven't tried it yet, I will give it a go on my old crappy omega screws, they are hopeless anyway.

Cheers,

Stef.

[Mountain_Marc]

To sharpen your ice screws, just get this:

http://www.grivel.com/Products/affilatrice.asp

[Fred]

To sharpen your ice screws, just get this:

http://www.grivel.com/Products/affilatrice.asp

yeah that's what he just said

[Fred]

Lee valley sells woodworking tools and they have sharpening wheels as I'm sure canadian tire has for somewhere in the order of $30. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... 43080&ap=1

well if it's good enough to sharpen wood working knives I trust it on my ice tools. I think I'm going to look into this. It doesn't look like you need a water bucket grinder either.

and yes! more POWER always!!!! Actualy, my tools are very easy to sharpen but it's my crappy DMM Terminator crampons that take the energy. Have you ever seen the metal on these things? It's this weird soft steel alloy. And it's thick!

Stef, carefull with what bit you use on your Dremel. Some of them are just as coarse as the wheels on bench grinders and the revs are high too.

[Mountain_Marc]

To sharpen your ice screws, just get this:

[url]Removed because of stupidity[/url]

yeah that's what he just said

Oops my bad. Didn't scroll up to see what was happening.

[Richard Eh!]

I imagine it's a fairly pricey item. Maybe we can get a bunch of ice climbers to go in on it...!

[Fred]

I imagine it's a fairly pricey item. Maybe we can get a bunch of ice climbers to go in on it...!

or better yet... get the UNB gym to buy one and keep it there just like the rope burner

[Shawn B]

I must reiterate what Paul said. If it ain't broke, why fix it? A few minutes with a file et voila...a finely tuned weapon. I find it helpful to put the pick in a vice if you want to do a real good job. And file against the "grain" and make equal passes on both sides. I wouldn't want to take a chance at adjusting the temper and end up half way up some hard brittle climb 20 feet off your last screw with a snapped pick just to use a power tool. I have a few picks like that as well Paul. Exact same spot. Aparently it is usually not broken the way one would think...by hitting rock or hard brittle ice...but done during tool removal. The forces on a pick during cleaning are way higher...esp if the tools are overdriven (and who doesn't do that?). Keeping the top of the tool sharp as well can help with cleaning.

[mike]

Too much(?) heat followed by cooling and you aneal the metal- make it flexible. You can use a grinder to sharpen you tools- but then you've got to heat up the whole blade, then submerse in cutting oil- this will retemper your blades.
There are lots of fun engineering questions involved with this process- like should the blades be anealed before sharpening? To what temperature should the blades be heated? What is the best temperature for the cutting oil? What hardness is best for an ice axe blade? How does one measure hardness?

The most important question, however, is... Where's my file? Get a small bastard file- put it in your pack.

Mike

[mike]

automoderated- it's not a bad guy file... the proper terminology is b a s t a r d file.

[szymiec]

Hi,

from what i understand about temper, if you cool the metal from a red hot state very quickly, it will lose its temper. Ha.

If it is cooled very slowly, ie: room temp or higher, the steel should retain, or regain its temper.

I learned this long ago when i took a knife making course. (dont ask!) I actually managed to make a 8" dagger out of one of my fathers files.

When we started, we softened the things by heating it up red hot and dunking it in water. Then we grinded, filed and sanded. When finished, we tempered the blades and sharpened them.

Never got the chance to test out the things temper though.

Ice tools only take 5 minutes and crampons maybe a bit more( they shouldnt be too sharp or they break). I would just use a nice flat file, not sure wich number. It is fun and meditative as well.

Chris

[mike]

I Know that to soften copper into a maleable state you heat it to red hot and then let it cool slowly.

Also, when you dip red hot carbon steel in cutting oil it increases it's hardness.

The cooling that you mention is with water- perhaps that makes a difference???

Mike

[szymiec]

Shoot, maybe i have it backwards.

Chris

[Matt Peck]

Ok, so for those tertiary teeth (the little teeth right after the first tooth) on the vipers, the consensus is that they need to be sharpened to a point? That's the way I have my old Pulsars rigged and they work really well, but I was just curious. The rumor mill goes (and I've experience this on a pair I tried out last year) that the vipers stick really bad with the factory bevel on these teeth. I want my new tools up and running right the first time, and Im just curious if I should sharpen them slightly, (so there is still a flat portion on th bottom of these teeth) or to file them to a point?
M@

[mike]

Sounds like you need to speak with Sean Drohan. You might need to rent Jeff Lowe's ice climbing video as well.

Other that the aforementioned suggestions- I would recommend that you project yourself into life as a crampon and visualize how you would like to be.

I'm not bashing you (maybe Sean a little though- an Ice climbing conversation wouldn't be the same without him) but your crampons are your own. Feel em, live em, let them be an extension of yourself. Mould them to your desire. Understand that the manufacturer did exactally that. And they aint you.

Mike

[Matt Peck]

Dude, vipers are axes, not crampons.

[Shawn B]

Matt...I have never altered the teeth at all on mine. I find they stick great out of the box. I only sharpen the front if it gets dull from rock hits and the top. If you plan on dancing up some ice where you can only get the first tooth in, I might consider doing some shaping to sharpen the angle of the first tooth. The Jeff Lowe vid talks about tuning picks for hooking on real thin ice.

[Shawn B]

And oh...if you want to be real certain...check out on Will Gadd's site and see what he says if there is an article on it or email him. gravsports.com
I'm sure he will have tried every different option. Funny how you don't mind wrecking something just to try it out when you don't have to pay for another one.

[Richard Eh!]

On that note, M@,remember what you did to my vipers on Grand Manan...about half that much filing

[Matt Peck]

It was the quarks I took a piece out of, I didn't touch the vipers!
That was a weird sharpening job eh? the guy who owned them before you did some wierd things to them. They were filed at a right angle to the top edge!

[Richard Eh!]

Yeah, you're right! I'm the one who filed the vipers that same night. I bevelled the first 4-5 teeth to stop them from sticking so bad.....that was a great weekend eh

[Shawn B]

Ahhh....I get you now. They stick badly when trying to get them out. I thought you meant they stick badly as in "not able to get a good stick". I think I know what you mean. If your Vipers are new, they should have the Laser pick which is thinner and the teeth are beveled. The Titan pick is the pick that came with the Viper up until 2 years ago and it was thicker and the teeth were more square cut. If you are not certain which pick it is, the Laser will have a B rating on it and the Titan a T rating. I find the Laser to work very well.

[Richard Eh!]

Yeah Shawn, they are the "B" rated pick(thinner for waterfall ice) but they were sticking so good that I was struggling to release them. I found that bevelling the first four or five teeth ever so slightly along the bottom made an amazing difference in performance. They still stuck really well initially and were easier to remove when I wanted to. I do have a set of "T" picks as well but like you, prefer the "B" for most of what we're on.
...or will be on once my back mends

[martha]

Every pair of Vipers I have ever tried stuck like a mutha when I was trying to remove them for my next swing.


Could be how I place them...dunno... But the QUarks and even the DMM's i've always used never stick like that.