What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels? *LINK*

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

Dean J in MN

>How do setups like this perform for chisels, carving tools and plane blades? Or should I stick with my archaic methods?

Are your tools sharp? If so, why change?

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

Steve Kubien

>I'm with Dean on this. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Steve Kubien

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

mikew

>While I in general agree with Dean and Steve, I do grind chisels and blades occassionaly on my wife's Tormek. Mainly to establish a new bevel angle [a lower one], fix up an eBay edge tool, or fix damage.

Most of the time when I need to do the above tasks, I use a stationary belt sander. Blunt/square the edge, grind the bevel nearly all the way to the back and then go to the stones.

The Tormek stone will not leave a very good edge. The leather strop charged with .5 micron paste from LV will do a great job to honing as long as one doesn't dub the edge.

Sharpening by hand is something I enjoy and for me it's a lot faster.

Take care, Mike

Save your money

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>Slow speed grinders are "safe" in the sense that they won't "burn" the edge. But with a bench grinder and a friable wheel you'll be able to do all the shaping that you want. Then on to the stones.

If you're doing all this freehand, over time it will be much faster, and results will be as good.

DC

BTW, the main reason why people burn edges on a grinder (apart from grinding for too long at a time) is the use of "clogged" wheels, not the speed of the grinder. Keep your wheel dressed and clean, use a light touch, and everything will be fine. My grinder runs at 3600 RPM and I don't burn edges.

It's a grinder

woodburnbob

>Here's my take, Thomas. I've had a Tormek for 6 or 8 years. I use it all the time. Probably the most practical buy I've ever made, all things considered. I brought it home, plugged it in, filled it with water and re-ground nearly perfect hollow-grind bevels on just about everything. It vastly improved my success with free-hand honing and polishing. But it is a grinder. I doubt it will replace your stones and strops. It will keep you from coloring your steel on a high-speed, dry grinder when shaping bevels...but it's pretty slow with big blades, harder steels, so on and so forth, if you have much steel to move.

My first thought seeing a JET-(chinese)-made Tormek knock-off was "Gee, wonder how long that motor will last?" Chinese machines are not known for detail, fit and finish, alignment or good motors. I haven't had any service issues with the TORMEK, but maybe others have. It does seem a likely issue with JET.

$300 for a JET or $400 for a Tormek. One with no reputation, the other with a pretty good one, I think. If I was going to buy a JET I might wait a year or two and keep an eye on user reviews. I suppose the JET price could go up or down in time. I'd guess the Tormek prices will move toward the JET price. Who knows. There are a number of other wet grinders out there, too.

My biggest issue with this design, based on my Tormek, is that the tool arms are not rigid enough (they flex a little depending on how hard you press on the blade carrier), the arms are just bar stock without lathe or grinder work, the holes in the various attachments are not a tight push fit, and the diamond fixture to true the wheels is unstable because of these shortcoming and it's one design problems . You want the truing-shaping-dressing diamond to move in the same exact line that the tool edge will move and not move up and down or take random detours. As a consequence of all this stuff, you will not get turn-key straight edges that are perpendicular to the long axis of your irons -- if that matters to you. On the plus side, these "features" allow you to customize the shape of the edge, as in camber or hollow, and various wave forms.

Oh, I don't find the strop wheel useful. All the attachments are overpriced and really help define the word "gouge".

Still, I'm really glad I bought the Tormek when I did. Hope your buy, whatever it is, turns out as well. At this point, I'd like to use my dry-high-speed grinder more, but I avoid it because I don't like putting all that abrasive in the air when dressing the wheels -- I think the secret to trouble free use may be religious dressing behavior (hope the clerics out there forgive me). I do look forward to trying out one of the new 3M cooler wheels one of these days -- I found the white wheels kind of disappointing.

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

Norman (Ottawa, Ont.)

>Hi Thomas,

Interesting... in that this is where I am headed.

Honing freehand..

If I need to re-create a primary bevel I use a slower speed

1 in. Viel belt sander with table and guide. This system is not quick, but does an effective job of forming the primary bevel at any angle. It is a flat bevel as opposed to a hollow grind. I then move

to the waterstones.

If you have an effective means to create or re-create the primary bevel, then stick to what you are doing...is what I say. You will still need to manually finish hone the blades on waterstones regardless of how you create the primary bevel..

Norman

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

thomd

>I think part of it has to do with the respect you have for the tools you are using. Like at one extreme I make my own O1 tools and I do turning. Though I like my O1 tools a lot, I can make new ones whenever I want. And I like to be able to sharpen them agressively. On the other extreme I have some art elvel Japanese tools, I'm not going to burn them if I did sharpen them on a wheel, but it seems a bit like owning a Ferarri and then going cheap on the octane of gas. Where the tormek kind of thing comes in is that it sharpens faster than hand with zero risk of burning, if you get the kind of water sharpener that presents the side of the wheel you can even preserve flat bevels.

My favorite for sharpening are belt systems. There is a huge variety of grits available easily changes in seconds, and the belts are cheap and long lasting. I consider the water systems pretty oudated and messy. However, that's just a problem because of space considerations and the fact I don't have a sink in the shop. If I had a little more space I would leave my Lee Valley water wheel sharpener installed. Why not? Sharpeners are always useful to have. And the more variation the better.

the advantage is speed

bill tindall

>The slow step in renewing an edge is being rid of the dead edge, which will be rounded, which means a fair amount of metal needs to be gound back to get to where it is not rounded. Especially on the more abrasion resistant steels this first step in edge restoration can be way slow. Hence, any high speed grinder (that is high speed relative to hand rubbing back and forth, will save most of the time needed for edge restoration. Honeing from the wheel with diamond only takes seconds.This first step can be done successfully at 3600 rpm given a proper wheel (see my wheel discussion in Articles. Wheel color is not the only important consideration, rather it is bond hardness). The advantage of the bench grinder is that it can be a more versatile machine and they don't cost much. If space and money were no object I would be using a Tormek with a Oneway Wolverine tool rest for sharpening. But space and $$ are a condiseration so in my situation I bought a 3 phase grinder and vary the speed with a VFD. Indeed this arrangement has the best versatility for plane irons, lathe tools and lawn mower blades. If cost was the main issue I would rig a fine wheel on a LV arbor and run it at 500 rpm off a washing machine motor. The tool rest remains a critical issue for success, so either one needs to be made or buy the Wolverine.

Re: What's Your Grind about Grinding Wheels?

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Hi Tom

Regardless of how you grind a primary bevel, machine or hand, you will need to hone the the final edge by hand: sandpaper, waterstones, or oil stones. I omit diamond stones as they are not (as yet) fine enough. I have no experience of the Lapsharp or Veritas Mk II machines, both of which are reputed to "take you all the way".

I think that it is the grinding of the primary bevel that is best done mechanically.

For preparing blades, chisel or plane, prior to honing on waterstones, I divide all into those that require a flat grind with a microbevel, and those that will receive a hollow grind.

The flat grinds are for BU plane blades, mortice and Japanese chisels. The hollow grinds are for BD plane blades and all other chisels).

For a flat grind I go to a belt sander and for the hollow grind it is a bench grinder.

I have tried (and just sold) a slow speed wet grinder. I can use a high speed bench grinder faster and just as safely. Just keep the wheel clean and use a light touch. It takes very little time to learn this. I use a white Nortons wheel of 60 grit on the grinder. The other side has a hard felt wheel that I am still learning to use. The Veritas grinder tool rest completes the setup. My secret weapon is to use the Tormek Proangle Master to set the tool rest so that I can go directly from it to my waterstones, usually freehand.

The belt sander uses grits from 80 -1300, but I mainly grind at 80 (lots of metal to remove) or 120 (a smoother finish), then onto a microbevel using the LV Honing Guide Mk II.

I am experimenting with several strops at present, both motorized and hand. I will report on this at a later date in more detail, but so far I do a better job handing a blade over a piece of leather.

Hope this helps.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Nice yes, necessary no

Dave Mount

>I have a Tormek that I was given by the widow of a woodworker friend. I probably wouldn't have one if I'd had to spring for it new, and I almost certainly wouldn't have the planer/jointer knife jig that I do.

I go it pretty early in my learning about sharpening chisels and plane irons. I think it is a really good tool for getting you way up on the sharpening curve quickly. That's a good starting point for learning the finer points. I think this is one of the real positive points for it. If you already get good edges with what you're doing, this isn't as big a deal.

I really like having hollow ground bevels for a lot of things. Others are right that the edge needs additional work after initial grinding, but you're close enough to go straight to pretty fine stones, and with the hollow grind, you don't need any jigs or other fuss to finish the job; you can really feel the proper orientation of the bevel to the stone because of the hollow grind giving you two distinct lines of contact. Just a couple pulls and work off the wire edge and you're there lickety split.

The Tormek is a relatively fine wheel and removes metal slowly. This is fine if you're just touching up and/or restoring a hollow grind. If you really need to remove metal, you'll probably want a dry grinder/coarser wheel for greater speed.

The leather wheel is not to my liking. I don't generally use it anymore, I finish with an 8000 Norton stone. I got away from it because it seem too easy to round over the cutting edge. I've meant to try some diamond paste on it, but haven't.

Wet grinders don't make sparks. I like that, not that I've ever started a fire with the dry grinder. I don't have a clean shop. . .

I also use the Tormek for knives on my "other than hand powered" tools. Someone commented previously about the flex in the fixtures and that's all true. I do 4-5 touch ups on (power) jointer/planer knives using the Tormek, and then send them to the shop to reset things straight in case they've lost that. Works well, is convenient.

The flex can be used to advantage for putting a light camber on plane irons. Where you don't want camber, you just have to be conscious of how you apply the tool to the wheel (even pressure).

I also do the kitchen knives on it and it works well for that. I don't even bother to touch them up, just grind and go; for many kitchen jobs, a slightly rough edge is OK.

Overall, I like it. I certainly wouldn't call it essential. I do think you'd like the Tormek if you got one (don't know anything about the Jet). Whether it's worth the money is something you have to decide for yourself.

Best,

Dave

The issue is skill

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>Thomas, you don't say anything about your motivation for wanting the new system, but from my perspective you may be going from something rather refined to something brutal and barbaric.

I think that the grinding wheels and jigs and appliances are good for those who, unlike you, do not have a steady enough hand to maintain a flat bevel on a bench stone. If you have the skill to do this I can't think of a reason you would want to change.

Many mention the time spent on the coarse stone as a reason for using a grinding wheel. I thought that this time on the first stone (800) was rather tedious until last summer when I timed myself every time for a week. The most I spent was 40 seconds. The steady hand and a flat bevel will allow you to dispense with the paraphenalia.

Yet another reply...

Dave Thompson

>There's alot of good answers here...

If you buy old tools, planes and chisels, you'll likely need to regrind the bevel. A wet grinder is great for that. Doing this by hand is an enormous undervalueing of one's personal time. Though with all those holidays and relatives buying you LN's, LV's, Bridge City's, etc. I imagine the last thing you need now is to regrind a bevel. If you were to free hand often, you'll probably need to eventually regrind the bevel. Even if you were to only maintain the same bevel with the wet grinder, you'll want to hone it further with finer abrasive.

I would suggest a honing jig and stepping up your abrasives if you don't already have it, prior to picking up a wet grinder. The LV MkII honing jig is about as good as they get. It'll even do a wide #8 blade and I think a #112 blade too. Regarding abrasives, everyone has their preference...sand paper, wet stones, oil stones, diamond plate, charged leather. Sand paper on glass is a low cost starter and works well. It's cheap to get a wide range of abrasive, and you don't have to worry about maintaining flatness. 2000 grit is available at most auto parts store intended for polishing metal.

I like my Tormek, and use it often, though it's primary use is

• regrinding bevels
• removing chips out of blades
• doing initial back flattening of blades (e-bay purchases)
• quick sharpening of jack plane blades

Initially, I thought I would use it also for turning tools. I found the same unit doesn't work well for both hand tools and turning tools. Gouges put ruts in the wheel, so the wheel must be trued each time one switches over to plane blades or chisels. This is time consuming and wastes alot of wheel. I since have a oneway/wolverine on a slow dry grinder for turning gouges, and just keep my Tormek for flat blades.

My most recent purchase was an LV 1"x42" belt sander. I can't imagine a better tool for putting a bevel on a broad axe. ;-) I picked up the 1x42 leather strop belt, but haven't tried it yet. I've been using the leather wheel on the Tormek and/or leather plate up till now.

I don't have any opnion on the Jet. fwiw, Scheppach also makes one, which if I remember correctly Hartville distributes. Not well known in North America, but I think it's a big name in UK/Europe. I only know about the Tormek.

enjoy,

Dave

Excellent Answers

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

>Thanks everyone for the great answers. Sometimes a fella just has to be talked down from "new tool jones'n". I paid enough for my Shaptons I might as well get my money's worth.

As usual...you guys rock. Thanks

Tom

Re: grinder

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>Last night while I was making a couple irons for a scrub plane out of a blank of 01 tool steel I was very glad to have my regular old Delta electric grinder which I think runs around $30. I also use this for initial grinding of flea market chisels, just making sure I don't overheat the edge. I use a hand cranked grinder with an 80 grit wheel when I need to re-grind an edge before honing. It is cheap, fun, and works well. I am pretty sure I would not gain anything in my sharpening process by spending the money for a Tormek or similar piece of equipment. The hand cranked grinder removes metal faster than the Tormek, and is easily controlled.