Spindle
Established Member
Hi
I’ve owned a Tormek wet stone grinder for a good ten years now and whilst I think it’s superb for sharpening my woodturning tools I’m afraid it’s a ‘labour of love’ to do any re-profiling – even with repeated re-grades of the wheel it seems to take a lifetime.
A while ago I bought an 8” white wheel grinder with the aim of using it for tool re-profiling and duly jury rigged the Tormek support bar to enable me to use it's jigs on the grinder. It worked, but I was never satisfied with the design and functionality so I decided to try and design a support which was integral to the grinder and allowed a degree of fine adjustment.
I had all of the materials to hand, (left over from other projects), most of which were bought at the local ‘shed’
I decided to ‘reverse’ the direction of the grinder, which I thought would be a quick job to effectively spin the base through 180°. Spinning the base was fairly easy, however it turned out that the wheel spindles are different lengths requiring the wheels to remain in their original positions and as the wheel guards are dedicated to the wheels by virtue of their width I couldn’t, as planned, swap the guards end for end. Instead I had to grind off the spot welds holding the guard inner cover and shield together, swap the shields and re-weld. Not a big task but one I hadn’t planned on having to do.
Here’s the whole thing assembled to the grinder.
Photo removed whilst modification in progress
The rest is adjustable vertically(ish) via the two threaded supports and can be locked in position with grub screws in the collars. The wooden knob adjusts the distance of the support from the wheel and allows me to match the existing bevel on the tool to the wheel quickly and easily.
Regards Mick
I’ve owned a Tormek wet stone grinder for a good ten years now and whilst I think it’s superb for sharpening my woodturning tools I’m afraid it’s a ‘labour of love’ to do any re-profiling – even with repeated re-grades of the wheel it seems to take a lifetime.
A while ago I bought an 8” white wheel grinder with the aim of using it for tool re-profiling and duly jury rigged the Tormek support bar to enable me to use it's jigs on the grinder. It worked, but I was never satisfied with the design and functionality so I decided to try and design a support which was integral to the grinder and allowed a degree of fine adjustment.
I had all of the materials to hand, (left over from other projects), most of which were bought at the local ‘shed’
I decided to ‘reverse’ the direction of the grinder, which I thought would be a quick job to effectively spin the base through 180°. Spinning the base was fairly easy, however it turned out that the wheel spindles are different lengths requiring the wheels to remain in their original positions and as the wheel guards are dedicated to the wheels by virtue of their width I couldn’t, as planned, swap the guards end for end. Instead I had to grind off the spot welds holding the guard inner cover and shield together, swap the shields and re-weld. Not a big task but one I hadn’t planned on having to do.
Here’s the whole thing assembled to the grinder.
Photo removed whilst modification in progress
The rest is adjustable vertically(ish) via the two threaded supports and can be locked in position with grub screws in the collars. The wooden knob adjusts the distance of the support from the wheel and allows me to match the existing bevel on the tool to the wheel quickly and easily.
Regards Mick
