Tormek

Bill, I've been at the addiction for 5 years. I started out sharpening with a jig on a grinder. A fellow in our club showed me how he sharpened with a Tormek. I have been using mine six months and am amazed at how sharp the edge is honed or not and the tool lasts a lot longer too. I tend to overpressure the gouge when sharpening so I am wearing a groove in the stone. If you make lighter sweeps with a more patient hand you might not get the rut that I made. Roger Dunn

Well, I like mine :-)

I find the most common uses for it are:

• kitchen knives (carving, mostly)

• scissors (for my wife's hairdresser)

• turning tools (duh)

I found that setting up a wolverine-like jig works well with the Tormek; it's as fast as anything else but really takes off only a tiny amount and at 1000 grit it leaves a REALLY sharp tool in almost no time.

For all the other tools, the trick is to build a few spacing and sizing jigs so you can get rid of most of the setup time.

Are there _any_ pros or semipros out there who use a Tormek or similar?

Bjarte

Real question is whether it's really necessary to have the kind of edge the Tormek puts out on a turning tool. For what they cost, they should brew coffee and wash the cup, too.

I ran a few personal tests on honed and stropped gouges, and concluded that it certainly wasn't worth it for roughing, where the odd piece of sand ruined an edge no matter how well it was honed, and didn't save me a grit finishing. My conclusion was to stick with the stone, and maybe a hone for a final touch.

Of course, I also have a Makita wet stone to do my planer/jointer/handplane/chisel edges.

The Tormek may really do the job...........but it will do it very, very slowly.

Barry

I wear a rut in the stone I use with my Oneway VG system as well, however, I believe it is more the softness of the stone rather than my technique that is the cause. I was told that a 'soft' stone ground cooler so that' s what I bought. It's pretty frangible. You'd have to work pretty hard to put a groove in the stone that came with my grinder! At any rate, a good dressing every so often puts everything right.

tormek sells a diamond tipped dresser that will take care of the grove you wear in the stone, and improved technique in sharpening - e.g. mmove around a bit - can help

Bill

to contact me, do not reply to this message, instead correct this address and use it

will iam_ b_ No ble at msn daught com

I have a Tormdk, and find it way too soft for production work. I would spend more time grading the wheel than sharpening. I have CBN (cubic boric nitride wheels. They are custom made (3/16 inch bond of material on an aluminum wheel) in whatever grit you want and are for grinding steel. They cost about $300 for an 8 by 1 inch wheel. I have a 320 grit wheel for my gouges. After 2 years, it has worn over half way out. In the same amount of time, I would have used up 3 or more of the white wheels, and worn out a couple of gouges. Any place that sells grinding supplies can make of get them for you. Now if I had a 320 or better wheel for the Tormek, I would consider using it. robo hippy

Bill,

I live off what I make as a woodworker, although some might not call it making a living.

I have a Tormek, and I love it for sharpening chisels, plane irons, and knives, but I don't bother using it to sharpen turning tools. I go straight from a 100grit wheel on a grinder to the wood. There is so many feet per minute of wood passing by a turning tool that the razor sharp edge you get from honing degrades in a moment to about the same sharpness as an edge straight from a grinder. I do hone a skew. My opinion is that the composition of the grinder wheel isn't as important for sharpening turning tools as the wheel being clean. A diamond wheel dresser is a more important purchase than a pink colored wheel. If it's important to you to have a pretty colored wheel, it's cheaper to buy a can of spray paint.

Clay Foster

Replies much appreciated, you have saved me a pot of money.

Just bought mine yesterday at the Detroit Woodworking Show from Jeff Farris and his wife - they gave a good deal, plus they double the warranty to 6 years. I have been agonizing over this decision for 3 years, trying to justify the expense. Finally I sat down and looked at the total cost for the alternative (for me, that was going to be the full Oneway system, two new wheels, the Oneway wheel balancing system), and realized that it would be a very small move upward financially to the Tormek, which should be paid for in the increased lifetime of my turning tools (you in effect pay for the Tormek by saving steel). The final consideration came when my wife realized that this could be the answer to her dull knives and scissors. Christmas came early, and I am setting it up today -woo-hoo!

Regards, Fred Bearman Port Huron, Michigan

We had a sharpening meeting late last year, and compared the various techniques. I could touch up my gouge with the tormek in about as much time as the other techniques. You just have to have the jigs made up once. If you use a wolverine-style setup it's as fast as anything else, and the system is so accurate you don't *need* to remove a lot of metal so you spend the same amount of grinding time anyway.

Bill, I bought the $600 "woodturners package" several years ago and mainly use it for bowl gouges and scrapers. It takes forever to grind a new shape on a tool or even getting the final shape after the high speed grinder. Once you have the final shape, it is fine for restoring an edge, and is very repeatable. I do not change grits on the wheel and seldom hone edges for turning, except when I occasionally sharpen my chisels or pocket knife. There are systems out there that will work just as well for a lot less money. I tried to move mine about a year ago for $400 with no interest, so I continue to use it. There are several of the exhibition turners in my club. None of them recommend the Tormek. They use the Oneway/Wolverine or Woodcraft type systems with a slow speed bench grinder. That is what I'm going to do one of these days if I can unload the Tormek. This is only my opinion. Many fold swear by the Tormek and wouldn't consider anything else.

Dave

There have been a lot of replys concerning the Tormek. Some positive and some negative. I guess I have to put my two cents worth into this discussion. I've had a Tormek for five years now. I also have a Woodcraft slow speed grinder with a Wolverine jig on it and a Baldor 6 inch high speed grinder with a Woodcut Tru-Grind on it. I use them all from time to time, but I find that the tools sharpened on the Tormek are sharper and hold an edge longer that tools sharpened on the other systems. The initial shaping of the tool on a Tormek is extremely time consuming, but once you have it shaped and the settings recorded for that tool the resharpening takes about the same time as using any of the other methods that I own. The tool will always cut better and I believe for a longer time when it is sharpened on the Tormek. I do not use the honing wheel to hone my turning tools only the wet grinding portion of the Tormek. For carving tools or kitchen knives the honing wheel will bring them to a razor edge, which you never need for any turning tool except the skew chisel.

I say if you can afford the best, then a Tormek will work very well for you, but I still feel a dry grinder is needed to handle the rough shaping of the tools to get them close to shape, once there the Tormek takes no longer to use than a normal dry grinder with a jig.

One final point, Geoff Brown of Brimarc in the UK, the Tormek representative for the US and UK, told me that one professional turner he knows uses the Tormek and notes that he spends less time sharpening his tools with the Tormek than he did with dry grinders and he felt that his tools always cut better now. I don't remember the turner's name, but I trust Geoff to be honest and straight forward with me and believe his story.

I hope this helps any of you people setting on the fence. I don't sell Tormek, but I do use one regularly and with very good results.

Fred Holder

I agree with Chuck and just to follow up with mileage that varies from many here, aka some will strongly disagree. :)

I think cutting consists of an edge entering a surface then it's a wedging action by the bevel behind the edge. The wedging may be micro, but all cutting, including slicing, shearing and scraping, is a wedging action after an edge parts a surface to enter.

I suppose that an experiment can be set up to eliminate all variables except how edges are produced, but in the real world of our shops you can't do this. A turner's use of sharpening and turning technical skills will vary even during a single session and technique can affect edge performance and edge life... I think.

Most all input to rcw is opinion and opinion is subjective. "I find" or "I prefer" or "I think" or even "I know" are in reality _" I believe"_. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is a good thing to sample several beliefs before spending money or risking injury. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Fred,

I won't argue the point of "sharper" or not on this wheel or that wheel, because that's truly a matter for an electron microscope or skewed (if you will) perceptions; but given an _equal_ capability to cut wood with a tool, (equal bevel and equal thinness of the edge) how can the means that it was sharpened possibly have any effect on how long the edge will last? (Already agreeing beforehand, for all you pedants out there, that it _is_ possible to remove the temper from an edge if it is sharpened too aggressively...we're talking about _equal_ edges here)

That said, and simply for the sake of argument, it stands to reason that, the sharper an edge, the thinner the steel at the business end. Once applied to the abrasive "stuff" (wood, for our purposes) that you are cutting, the thinner edge _is_ going to abrade and wear away to a dull edge quicker than one that is already closer to that dull edge...however you want to quantify "dull."

It is for exactly this reason that working knives, (your pocket knife) for instance, are left with a fairly steep bevel on the edge. Once it has reached its optimum sharpness for that bevel, it isn't going to get any sharper, but it will maintain its cutting capability longer than a much thinner, but initially sharper edge. The steeper the bevel, the longer the edge is going to last. It's simply a matter of mechanics.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX.

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:24:53 -0700, "Andy" wrote: I also bought one at a ww show a few years ago, along with most of the accessories. It definitely does wonders for chisels, plane blades knives etc. Now as sure about use with turning tools. But if you like razor sharp tools, it will fit the bill.

BTW there is a soewhat cheaper knockoff on the market, though I don't remember where I saw it.