Toolplate for my Diamond Lapping Machine

Quick description of the sliding tool plate design I use for bench grinder and the new diamond lapping machine I made for sharpening carbide tooling. Carbide inserts are also easily sharpened with this machine.

I've used the idea I had for a sliding toolrest adapter which I made many years ago for my bench grinder. It has proved useful in that application so I wanted to make something similar for the diamond lapping machine. As noted in the vid, there is no play in the brass sliding plates on the grinder, the plate fits the channels in the toolrest plate closely and the sliding plate only moves laterally. In practice you actually need to pull the workpiece away from the grind wheel slightly then move it back into position to take a cut. Otherwise you are forced to push the workpiece into the wheel each time and maintaining a smooth contact is not very easy to do.

For the diamond lapping plate then I made the sliding plate with slots that allow a few thou (about 0.01") movement before the workpiece contacts the face of the lapping plate. The sliding plate then stops in a precise position relative to that but can still slide laterally. This way the workpiece can be held in position on the sliding plate and a cut made simply by pushing the plate closer to take up the 10 thou clearance. Sounds more complicated that it is and it's actually intuitive to use.

You may notice the slots in the toolrest plate do not go all the way up to the end nearest the face of the diamond plate. That is a design feature and allows me enough plain face to grind carbide inserts directly without the use of the sliding plate. I've sharpened quite a few now of all shapes and sizes, and manipulating them is quite easy in order to sharpen edges and radii, and even the top face - provided the gap between the edge of the toolrest plate and the diamond plate is minimal.