9
9. My
diamond
sharpener
is 8" long by
2½" wide.
The Tool Shed - 5
absolutely flat resin body covered by an industrial diamond
sharpening surface with an “interrupted” polka-dot pattern
to collect the fines removed during use. While designed for
sharpening tools, they are wonderful tools for filing down
long surfaces such as the floor or underbody casting for a
resin freight car [10], filing the running board supports on
resin house cars so that they are all level [11], and sanding
the back of thin resin castings to remove flash. Rather than
holding a file to do these tasks, the sharpener is positioned
on the workbench and the part moved over it. One of the
advantages of a diamond sharpener is that, unlike a file, it
cuts when moving the part in any direction.
I bought my 8″ DMT diamond sharpener from Woodcraft
. They are available in different combinations
of grit. Mine has a Coarse grit on one side and Extra Coarse
on the opposite side. While these might seem too coarse for
model work, they are equivalent to 220 and 325 grit sandpa-
per respectively. These are made in the USA, and are high-
quality tools. They come with a non-skid mat, but mine works
without it on my self-healing cutting mat. Mine cost $103.00.
They are expensive tools, but really worthwhile if you build a
lot of resin kits.
Disclaimer – I love good tools and don’t hesitate to invest in them.
10
10. Sanding
a resin kit
floor using
a diamond
sharpener.
A diamond
sharpener
makes it
easy to
reduce the
width of
the kit floor
evenly over
the length of the resin casting.
11
11. Making
sure all the
running
board
supports
on a resin
house car
are even
can be
difficult with
a standard
file, since it is hard to keep the car level and also at a right-
angle to the file. Using the diamond sharpener, I slide the car
back-and-forth and know that all of the running board supports
are even when there is resin dust next to each support.
MRH-Nov 2014
