If you are using the Oneway Wolverine sharpening system to grind your detail, spindle, roughing gouges, and skews, the V-arm setup can be a bit of a fussy process of trial, eyeballing, retrying, and readjusting multiple times to reproduce a given bevel angle. When I finally had wasted enough time adjusting the V-arm to a different length for each and every turning tool, I came up with some simple, accurate story sticks. They let me position the arm quickly to exactly the right setting.

Make a series of thin sticks mitered at one end. After adjusting the V-arm for a given tool, place a stick in the pocket and, without altering the V-arm’s length, cut the other end to length so that it just touches the closest point on the wheel. Finally, label each stick to its companion tool and store it close to the grinder. Once in a while I have to shorten the end of the story stick as the tool is worn away over time.

Jim Richey

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