OK, I gotta ask, JD............on the side of the high speed grinding wheel?? Having seen one blow apart from such usage, I discourage anyone I care about (and some I don't) from grinding anything on the side of a standard grinding wheel. It may never happen but if it does......... And, David.........Interesting. I find that chisel sharpening does more damage to my stones than plane irons. What kind of stones do you use? I've a set of Norton Waterstones, 1000, 4000, 8000, and an extra coarse, large Diamond stone for heavier work, and of course a bench grinder if things get ugly. Do you sharpen your irons with both a primary and secondary bevel, or just one bevel? I don't want to presume either way, but for the edification of all, by sharpening a primary bevel at say 25 degrees, and a secondary bevel at 30 degrees, you save oodles of time when you need to re-hone. All you have to do is hone the secondary bevel which is right at the very edge of the blade. Eventually it works its way up the primary face, and then you re-establish the primary bevel, but honing only the secondary bevel takes just a few passes on the stone. Lock it into the holder, zip, zip, zip, zip, unlock it, back to work. And Terry, as I mentioned, I'm a reformed Tormek user. I too, suffered from nary a sharp edge and thus got the Tormek and was equally pleased with it's results (and still am really). But once I learned (was taught - competently) to sharpen by hand and was introduced to the jig I posted a photo of, the picture went from fuzzy to HD. I just find hand sharpening more cathartic and quicker in all ways for me. Essentially I'm just echoing your thoughts which are that there are many paths twixt A and B and when you find the path that suits you, it's a happy day. Happy sharpening all, William R. Monroe On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 3:29 PM, John Delacour <JD at pianomaker.co.uk> wrote: > At 14:34 -0400 13/10/2010, Terry Farrell wrote: > > You kinda got me thinking about some things with the Tormek and I've done >> a bit of reading - pretty much reinforcing some things that I've had an idea >> of. Reading in many of the forums on woodworking and sharpening I get the >> clear impression that many hard-core woodworker and/or those with good >> sharpening skills would not be caught dead using a power sharpener like the >> Tormek. And I have absolutely no doubt if a skilled sharpener has good >> equipment and the right skills they get excellent results, perhaps as easy >> and fast as I. For the experienced woodworker with very good hand/stone >> sharpening skills, I don't know that the Tormek has huge advantage. I even >> read that a lot of folks use the Tormek for grinding, but all fine work is >> on stones. >> > > This thread has had me looking at all the info on Tormek and watching the > videos and thinking, like David Love, that it might be nice to have one if > there were not several dozen other things I need more. I also spent a > couple of hours attending to a few chisels and plane blades that have got > out of condition. > > If I need to remove a lot of metal, change the angle, remove chips caused > by nails etc. I do it on the flat side of an ordinary high speed dry > grinder. To use even the most vicious of water-cooled stones would take far > too long. Someone mentioned that you can tell things are getting too hot > when the sparks begin to fly. Well the sparks begin to fly the moment the > steel touches the stone, just like a lighter, so that's not a very good > rule! The steel is getting too hot when it changes to the colour that > indicates the temperature at which the steel loses its temper, and if you > stop when any part of it goes dark blue, you'll be safe. I keep a bowl of > water next to the grinder and dip the blade regularly in this. You can, to > be extra safe, wind the grinder up to top speed, switch it off and frind the > steel till it freewheels to a stop. > > Once I have the angle of the bevel and the end square I move to the > agricultural wheel, which is 2 feet in diameter and 4 inches wide running in > a bath of water. This can be turned as fast as you like. David mentioned > the advantage of having the bevel slightly concave to facilitate the > subsequent sharpening of the edge. Well, yes and no, I say. Since I am too > lazy to build a jig onto the big wheel to hold the blade at a fixed position > (as with the Tormek- easy enough) I end up with a straight bevel because the > slight concavity that would result from the curved perimeter of the stone is > negated by the slight inexactitude of my positioning of the blade. But > that's fine for me. The trouble with doing this stage of the work on a flat > stone is that there is always a tendency to end up with a more or less > convex bevel -- much less if you are experienced but never quite flat. The > Tormek, by the look of it, will produce more concavity than is needed. It > will also be much slower than my beast. > > I next move to a fairly coarse water stone that I bought in China 35 years > ago for about 10¢. This would be almost good enough but I finish off, > getting almost a mirror finish either with the Belgian stone I bought for > razors when I was 16 and which is now unobtainable because the mine is used > up, or with another 10¢ Chinese treasure that does a pretty good job. > > If you have learned how to use a plane you have most of the basic skills to > sharpen by hand because it's all a question of keeping the angles and the > pressure right, and it's just a question of practice. I, and obviously some > others, love to acquire and perfect skills that do not require machines to > supply the know-how. I don't remove wrestpins with a T-hammer because any > idiot can do that and I don't see that as a skill but an unnecessary chore, > but there are many jobs in our trade that give us the opportunity to acquire > skills that are real treasures. > > I mentioned in a previous posting that I finish off (either knives or > chisels, and even razors) on a 10 inch buffing wheel using white soap. This > must also be a lot quicker than using the Tormek slow-running leather wheel > with the paste. > > In short, I'd rather they recalled at my funeral that I was able to sharpen > a chisel by hand than that I grew so rich that I was able to leave a Tormek > T7 to my children. > > JD > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101013/ab1f6b8c/attachment.htm>
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