My experience regrinding bevels with a Tormek

your experienced the most favorable case

Bill Tindall, E.TN

>In my hands Stanley steel grinds substantially more easily than any of the modern irons made from O1. Then adding the additional thickness of say a LV iron or a Hock wood plane iron and your times will increase, probably a lot. That said, how often does one ever need to change a bevel? For most, how fast bevels are reshaped would not be an important factor.

But I am curious as to why you chose this machine for your grinding rather than a bench grinder?

Less favorable case

wilbur

>Hi Bill,

Another point of comparison: I also had some used Japanese planes whose blades were rusty, dull, and nicked up that I hadn't gotten around to dealing with yet. The laminated hard steel at the cutting edge of these blades are much harder than the Stanley blades I was talking about, probably even harder than A2 steel, and these blades are much thicker than a Hock or LV plane blade. My main goal with these blades was not to regrind the bevel, but to get rid of the nicks before sharpening them with regular waterstones.

These took me about 10 minutes per blade on average to take out a 1/16" nick. I imagine that to regrind a bevel on a Hock blade I would be removing a similar amount of metal.

I didn't post this before because I wasn't sure how many would relate to dealing with a Japanese plane blade.

As far as why I went with a Tormek: I had taken a few classes on turning, and part of what I learned was how to use a slow speed bench grinder to sharpen the turning tools. For sharpening turning tools in my own shop, I decided that I would rather not be breathing metal dust, so I went with the Tormek. I also feel I have much more control over the sharpening process with a Tormek than on a bench grinder. In my hands it seems that I do remove less metal sharpening with a Tormek than with a bench grinder, which makes the turning tools last longer.

I agree that reshaping bevels are usually not a factor most of the time. I was posting my experience as a "worst case" scenario to address the thought that Tormeks are too "slow", although as you point out, there are even worse case scenarios out there.

clarification of a point

Bill Tindall, E.TN

>I don't disagree with your reasoning on all points but I would like to clarify the difference between hardness and abrasion resistance. Two steels of equivalent hardness can differ markedly in abrasion resistance. In the tool steels the abrasion resistance is most determined by the alloying carbides- vanadium, tungsten, etc, presuming they are all hardened to their optimum values of around Rc60. So the fact that a Japanese iron is hardened to Rc 6? whatever does not necessarily make this steel more abrasion resistant than A2, for example, and it likely in fact is not. Even on a high speed grinder I see marked differences in abrasion resistance(speed of material removal) between Stanley irons, modern O1, A2 and 3V irons all of which are about Rc60 (I presume the Stanley is Rc60 as I have never measured one)

I have watched the typical turner have at their lathe tools on a grinding wheel and indeed many of them experience short tool as a result of their aggressive efforts.

8 minutes seems like a long time

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>that's similar to my experience with my Delta wet wheel grinder - a similar, though cheaper, tool than the Tormek. When I get to tuning up my various project tools (some time this winter, I hope - post-kitchen remodel), I plan to have both the high speed bench grinder and the wet wheel grinder on the bench. A high speed grinder is great for establishing a bevel, right up to the time the edge is approaching edge-ness, as opposed to flatness, at which time I invariably burn it. Doing the bulk of the material removal with the high speed grinder, and finish up on the wet wheel grinder.

Another thing I like about the wet wheel grinder is that the bevel is almost mirror bright fresh off the grinder.

you have the wrong wheel

Bill Tindall, E.TN

>If you are burning tools you need a softer, more friable wheel. I grind even thin Stanley irons right to the edge at 3600 rpm. I can't do it on my old 80 grit white K hardness wheel but I can on the friable H hardness wheels I use now. I must admit that a Stanley iron requires a light touch near the end. They are not very abrasion resistant.

For all practical purposes you can not alter the temper(hardness) of a tool steel lathe tool by grinding. these metals are tempered at 1000 degrees, higher than all but the ham handed will ever get an edge.