a1/a2 never again

[shim20]

i have one tool my veritas low angle block plane with this steel, today im having a grinding/sharping day and it just took me 20-25mins to regrind on my tormek. first i thought it was the wheel but as soon as i put my no4 blade on it was done in 5 mins. i know the edge is sopost to last longer etc but tbo id rather have the highcarbon.....rant over lol.

 

[Anonymous]

Shim

Almost all of my blades are A2 and I grind them in seconds on a normal grinder.

I sold my wetstone grinder because it is too slow!

Try a 3M blue stone on a standard bench grinder and you can remove A2 quickly and without burning

 

[shim20]

ahh that would be why, dont have a bench grinder, oh well hopefully i will be sometime before it needs doing again.
cheers

 

[Philly]

Shim
Not sure if you did this but using the grading stone to "unclog" the tormek wheel makes a huge difference to cutting speed. A2 isn't that much harder than O1.
Hope this helps
Philly

 

[shim20]

tried that plus i squared it up with the diamond thing so that made it like a new stone, but i think the metal was clogging it up ever so quick, as a used the stone it made it better for like 30secs then was back to normal.

 

[Martin Brown]

You may like to check out the very new Tormek faster grinding wheel. When I have a link I will PM you.

Martin

 

[shim20]

yer cool thanks

 

[custard]

I use lots of A2 steel blades and I do find grinding on the Tomek to be slow. I do agree with the previous post that dressing the wheel is important, but I'd add that you can apply more or less pressure while grinding on a Tomek, and A2 definitely requires more!

 

[custard]

Another thing with the Tormek, it grinds faster when the wheel revolves INTO the tool rather than AWAY from the tool.

 

[bugbear]

i have one tool my veritas low angle block plane with this steel, today im having a grinding/sharping day and it just took me 20-25mins to regrind on my tormek. first i thought it was the wheel but as soon as i put my no4 blade on it was done in 5 mins. i know the edge is sopost to last longer etc but tbo id rather have the highcarbon.....rant over lol.

Sounds like it's the Tormek that's the problem, not A2. I have A2, O1, and W1 blades, and use a mixture of SiC, norton stones, natural stones with no trouble.

BugBear

 

[Martin Brown]

I am not sure that is the case. We grind A2 Veritas and Lie Nielsen planes all the time, quite happily and swiftly.

Are you pressing hard enough?

I will PM with a link to the new stone however it is not up yet.

Martin

 

[gidon]

Try using the diamond truing tool on the stone first - run it quickly across the stone and grinding will be much quicker. The grader can only do so much.
Martin - is the new stone available yet? How much?
Cheers
Gidon

 

[shim20]

Try using the diamond truing tool on the stone first - run it quickly across the stone and grinding will be much quicker. The grader can only do so much.
Martin - is the new stone available yet? How much?
Cheers
Gidon

done this stone was like new, but made no diffrence, prehaps the stone has had it????

 

[Hatherton_wood]

Interestingly a friend of mine who planes hardwood floorboards for a living does not like A2 at all - apparently he says it chips almost microscopically with very hard woods and you can feel this on the surface. He prefers the Japanese laminated irons for this purpose (and the old prewar Record and Stanley irons). I've not had a problem with A2 but I am convinced you can get O1 sharper and more quickly too.

 

[bugbear]

Interestingly a friend of mine who planes hardwood floorboards for a living does not like A2 at all - apparently he says it chips almost microscopically with very hard woods and you can feel this on the surface. He prefers the Japanese laminated irons for this purpose (and the old prewar Record and Stanley irons). I've not had a problem with A2 but I am convinced you can get O1 sharper and more quickly too.

Has he tried old wooden plane blades? These are thick and laminated, but the cutting edge is (AFAIK) W1 steel, which is not (also AFAIK) the same as the Japanese edges.

Sounds like an interesting and cheap experiment.

Oh - is he using japanese planes, or (something like) a Samurai Bailey iron?

BugBear

 

[oddsocks]

out of curiosity I did a search on tormek stone and came across the Peter Child product that seems targetted at this harder steel. Not sure if it's the same one as martin is referring to, but at least the link is up and product available at a reasonable price. Peter Child is 20mins from me so I may pay a visit soon as I too am frustrated with the original tormek stone.
http://www.peterchild.co.uk/grind/tormek.htm

 

[ivan]

If the blade chips in hard wood why not increase the sharpening angle 3 or 4 degrees till it doesn't?
I takes a while to completely reshape the bevel on an A1 blade, but routine grinding only takes a couple of minutes on the wet wheel.

 

[Martin Brown]

The new Tormek stone is as below This innovation will help this type of heavier steel removal. It sell for £116.95 incl.

Tormek Blackstone Silicon SB-250
This is available only for the T-7 model (SB-250). It has been developed for hard materials and fast shaping. Its faster steel removal is an advantage especially when grinding tools with a large bevel surface, where the grinding pressure is limited, e.g. planer blades and woodturning skews. The SB-250 stone can also touch up tungsten carbide, which has an established shape. The grit is the same 220 as the original Tormek SG-250 stone. Its very sharp grains remove steel efficiently in spite of their relatively small size. Like the SG-250 stone, the SB-250 can be graded with the Stone Grader SP-650. It is available in about 2 weeks.

We grind A2 all the time with no issue so we need to speak. Please PM me and I will talk through a solution.

Martin