Diamond Wheel for Tormek *LINK*

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

JL work

>Which grit though - the Tormek has the stone grader for coarse and fine. At $149 a pop, and $400 for all three - that's a bit pricy.

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Darryl Hansen

>Pricy maybe but have you priced a replacement Tormek wheel. They don't give those away either...

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Mark Kauder, Phenix City, AL

>John,

According to the Highland Hardware site, the stock 220 grit Tormek replacement stone is $139, and Japanese waterstones for it go from $109-$169.

From what I hear, the stock stone wears pretty fast. Seems to me that a diamond wheel that would last much longer (if not forever) would be a good deal.

But then again, I do not have a dog in the fight.

Mark

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Mike Schwing from Md.

>I'm not so sure Mark, but I appreciate the info. You can learn pretty quickly how to use your Tormek so the stone doesn't wear unevenly, and how to care for it so even if it does, you can correct it in a flash. The stupid truing device they sell takes about 100 times as long as it should. Instead I buy the cheap diamond sharpening stones / credit cards in various grits. They make quick work of flattening a stone, and the Tormek wheel can be surface treated to work as a rough cutting stone or a very fine polisher simply by using different grit truing stones on it.

Used improperly the Tormek wheels leave a lot to be desired, and the diamond wheel replacement sounds very attractive, but I've worn out diamond stones, I think I'd be able to wear out a diamond wheel, too, and might not be able to use it as different grit wheels.

Still, I will keep this link, it is definitely interesting.

Yep, I parked mine...

TD

>rather than buy a replacement stone. What a rip-off!

TD

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Joel Hunnicutt

>I've used mine for 4 years, mostly sharpening turning tools and I'm down to about 210 mm from the original 250. I think when I get to 190 it will be time for a replacement. I'm with Mike, if you are careful how you use the wheel it will last allot longer. Yes the wheel is expensive, but so is my glaser bowl gouge. I guess you have to decide which one you wnat to grind away.

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Mark Kauder, Phenix City, AL

>I agree, Mike, Knowledge is the best tool in the shop.

I just heard from so many people complain about the fast wearing for the OEM Tormek stone, that I though I would pass the info on.

I actually owned a Tormek for about a week. I got it along with a bunch of other tools in a tool deal (someone getting out to woodworking) - all for $300. I used it for a week, sharpening every knife, pr of scissors, and other cutting tool in the shop. Then I decided that with a small shop, it was just too messy, slow for what I wanted. Puts a good edge on things though.

I sold it for $300 to a turner in Atlanta.

Mark

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Hello Mike,

I have only used the Tormek-supplied grader and truing device on my Tormek. Which diamond device(s) do you recommend as an improvement?

Thanks,

Don

me too?

Tony - Memphis

>I get frustrated trying to true up my stone. I try to be careful, but you still gotta do it once in a while. I've wondered about coming up with something easier.

Tony

Re: Truing and Flattening

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>It is important to distinguish between truing and flattening of the wheel.

Truing is to make the surface to be of equal distance form the center, thus making the circumference "perfectly" round. On a high speed grinder, this is desirable, as the blade can't follow the ecentricity, which leads to bounce. It also can result in vibration. On an extremely low speed grinder like the Tormek, even moderate ecentricity is unimportant as the tool can easily track the variation and their is not enough centrifugal force developed to cause vibration. So, Truing is nice, but neither critical nor necessary except for a few jigs like the planer/jointer blade jigs (and not even essential there).

Flattening the surface of the stone means that it presents an even surface along a line drawn across the face. The opposite of this is grooving. For most jigs, and free hand work, its not even important that the suface along that line is exactly orthogonal to the sides of the stone (of coplanar with the shaft). You just want the suface to be flat across that line. Even with flat blades like plane blade, you can simply adjust the tool in the jig to have it's edge run parallel to the surface of the stone.

The Tormek diamon jig is one of the best methods for truing, and it will do a reasonable job flattening at the same time.

The most convenient way to flatten is to use a T-handle/block faced diamond dresser. Woodcraft and others (Woodcut for example) sell these things for well less than twenty dollars. They will make quick work of flattening the face, and if held rigidly in a jig, can even to a moderately effective job of truing.

A side advantage of the T handle is the most comon variety cuts a surface the equivalent of 36 grit. This is a way to temporarily (very temporarily) coarsen the cutting action of the Tormek wheel and can make it a bit more agressive when you have more steel you need to remove. If you don't want this "feature", just follow up the diamond t-handle dresser with the Tormek stone grader or one of those silicon carbide sticks.

These days, I use the Tormek diamond for truing the wheel less than once a year. All the rest of the time I use the T handle when I want a flat surface (which is very often). Most of the time I'm rather unconcerned about the hollowing that develops as I almost exclusively use the Tormek for gouges.

Re: Diamond Wheel for Tormek

vicmarc.fan

>Just placed an order for the 220 grit. I have to replace my wheel anyway. I have worn out two wheels besides the origonal one. I am willing to give it a try. I have my doubts though. I have worn out credit card diamonds before.

Ron

Re: Truing and Flattening

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Oh, good. I have one of those t-shaped Woodcraft diamond dressers. And, yes, it is un-grooving that I am concerned with, now that some gouges are eyeballing my flat tormek wheel.

So, Lyn, when are you going to test those new diamond wheels for the sake of science? ;-)

Re: CBN not diamond

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>I'd sure report on one if it came my way, but if I had the opportunity to put my money down on an exotic wheel upgrade for my Tormek, my preference would be to try a CBN ( Borazon) wheel, which seems to be a perfect match for the exotic alloys of turning tools. CBN is cubic boron nitride, which comes in right behind diamond in terms of hardness. The problem with diamond is that it gives up carbon to materials that like carbon--steel being one. I think this gets worse as the heat goes up, so this should be so much of a problem with the Tormek as it might be on say the Veritas power sharpener (would love to try a CBN platter for the QPSS too). Since CBN is relatively inert with respect to cutting steel, it should have greater life when grinding the harder and more exotic steels. Certainly, it would be longer than the aluminum oxide used in the Tormek and most White/Pink/Blue dry grinding wheels. The downside is that it is very expensive, sometimes even more than diamond depending on the thickness of the coating.

I'd really like to explore both the diamond and some CBN wheels, against each other and compared to the standard Tormek wheel and QPSS platters (would love the chance to try a Shapton wheel too). Alas both availability and expense makes it unlikely I'll ever be able to conduct the comparison.

Wheels

TD

>Lynn, I think the best thing would be for Tormek to find a reasonably priced wheel for their unit and give us a better way to dress the wheel and they should warn us that going from a gouge to a flat tool will cause a lot of the wheel to have to be ground away each time we do this. The Tormek will sharpen a lot of different tools and this is fine for someone who doesn't use it a lot but for those of us that sharpen several times every day the tool is just not worth it. Once you learn to lightly touch a gouge to an 80 grit wheel you do not waste any more of the tool than you do with the Tormek, ( Iknow Mac, you told me so). For those considering a Tormek, you might want to post some specific questions before shelling out all those bucks.

TD

Re: Wheels

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>We usually agree on most things, but I realize we diverge in this area.

I'm a flat woodworker as well, known for my handplane studies. The best approach I've found for preparing the backs of plane blades and chisels is a series of Shapton ceramic "waterstones" of sizes 100, 320, 1000, 2000, 5000, 8000 and 12000. That's over $400 dollars in waterstones. Waterstones have lots of advantages, though wear is not one of them. When I consider that those 7 waterstones don't have much more material in them than one Tormek wheel, I find the Tormek wheel is quite reasonably priced compared to the better waterstones.

Now this raises the issue of whether an aluminum oxide waterstone should be the prefered media for the Tormek grinding wheel. Well, if you value the ability to "grade" the wheel between 220 and 1000 (I do, though some may not), you are essentiall getting two wheels for the price of one. That in my opinion raises the value of the Tormek wheels. Another thing that raises the value for me is that I'm talking about a stone that is twice as wide as the typcial dry grinding wheel. This gives me more space to work a complex grind, and alows one to spread the wear over more of the surface.

I've had my Tormek for around a half dozen years now. I'm still on the original wheel. Now I most certainly not a production turner and so my wheel doesn't see anywhere near as much use as yours might, but I suspect that my use is pretty close to the serious recreational turner. If I can get 5-7 years out of a wheel, or even only only 4 years out of a wheel, that would mean the wheel would cost me at or something less than $30 a year, a price that is quite acceptable to me. Gee, when I compare that to what I spend in a year on bandsaw blades, it is an absolute bargain. And when I add in the matter of extended tool life, I consider the Tormek to be a cost savings device, not a high cost item.

Now I must admit, I don't go back and forth between gouges and flat blades regularly. Indeed, my Tormek is almost exclusively relegated to gouge maintainance these days. For that purpose, a little grooving is not big deal, and dressing is infrequent. For that matter, a little grooving isn't any big deal for most flat blades either if you are moving the blade from side to side over the face of the stone. I suppose if extreme reduction in wear was an issue for someone who was frequently switching back and forth between plane blades and bowl gouges, for instance, then it might be best to just get a second wheel and change between them (its an easy thing to remove and remount a wheel, much quicker on a Tormek than the typical dry grinder). The higher up front cost would be returned in exceptional long term life.

But mostly, if you are willing to settle for dry grinding performance, why not just use save you Tormek for one use (flat or curved) and skip the other (I know, now you feel you need a new wheel, but you could have done this earlier).

You have asserted that once you learn to lightly touch a gouge to an 80 grit wheel you do not waste any more of the tool than you do with the Tormek. I don't think this captured the whole picture. One, tool life will depend heavily on five things, the edge retention properties of the tool steel (which will be fixed between the grinding systems), the material being cut (again fixed between systems), the geometry of the tool edge (again fixed), the ability to repeat the original geometry when grinding (the Tormek has an excellent means to repeat this, it will vary on a dry grinder depending on the jigging system, if any, that is used), and the refinement of the edge that is largely a function of the grit size used to form it (the Tormek wins hand down in this regard). The only objective experiments comparing wet Tormek grinding to a quality dry grinders have found the Tormek results in greater edge retention, thus tool life. So just how fine a touch you use on a dry grinder is not the whole issue, and will not provide the same benefits.

You know, I have two of the dry grinders of model we both like, four different wheels, and I have three different jigging systems to use with them. I can still say that my Glaser tools have never seen a dry grinder and never will. Given the cost of that Glaser style, I'm way ahead using the Tormek on them.

I agree with you that it is desirable, almost essential, to have some dry grinder in addition to a Tormek (mostly just to acheive major geometry changes--something I've never felt a desire to do with a Glaser tool), and I agree with you that having a Tormek is not essential. But I don't agree with you about the inherent value of the Tormek as a package, or even with respect to its wheel.

I keep hearing folks say how expensive a Tormek is, but I simply don't find a Tormek with a well selected assortment of jigs to be more expensive than a dry grinder of comparable quality. If we take the 8 inch Delta model we both like, add a high quality jigging system to it like the Kelton or Wolverine or TruGrind, upgrade the wheels, possibily add balancers, etc, one gets in the same ball park as a Tormek with a Universal Gouge Jig, a stone grader, and a t-handle diamond dresser.

Then there are the things about the Tormek that are so often overlooked. There are no wheel you have to worry about exploding, no dust particles that are damaging to the lungs, and no need for eye protection (which makes it easier to examine that edge). I just find the Tormek to be a much more user friendly and safer way to grind--something that goes a long way against the few seconds longer it might take to achieve an edge.

I'm truly not trying to convince you to do things any differently, afterall, our usage and needs are dramatically different with you being a true woodturning pro and me being just a recreational turner. But I think your condemnation of the Tormek and particularly its wheel are too broad and not that applicable to a lot of us other turners.

Sharpening Straight-edged Lathe Tools

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Lyn,

What method do you prefer to use to sharpen straight-edged lathe tools?

Re: Sharpening Straight-edged Lathe Tools

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>For skews, If I need to make major changes in geometry or repairs I do it on a vertical belt sander, or for the radiused edge ones, I do it on the Tormek.

I hone and maintain them almost exclusively with a diamond "stone" used freehand.

For scrapers I again use the verticle belt sander, honed and maintained with a diamond "stone," paddle or slipstone, usually using a slipstone if I want a fine burr and the Veritas scraper burnisher if I want a heavier burr.