Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Beautiful work Ian. Presumably the shakiness of the camera is due to playing the piano with the other hand while filming the video
Plane blade edge from a Tormek?
- Thread starter transatlantic
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Blackswanwood
Still Learning
Adam W.
A Major Clanger
@Cabinetman That's lovely work.
It's a shame that a certain member of this forum feels the need to question your ability and insult the work of other members. Maybe he is one of the unfortunates that feel that they need to pretend that they are so much better than anyone else.
He should show more respect and better manners.
It's a shame that a certain member of this forum feels the need to question your ability and insult the work of other members. Maybe he is one of the unfortunates that feel that they need to pretend that they are so much better than anyone else.
He should show more respect and better manners.
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Cabinetman
Established Member
Well thank you, so if you think the work is fine you must agree that it’s unnecessary to do anymore than a bit of a rub on a cheap combination oilstone when needed.
I still think that proponents (of which you are one) of using exotic sharpening systems and methods are scaring people away from woodwork. Furthermore I can see no benefit in using your methods at all, they must be more expensive and must take longer.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
D_W on form I presume! Glad I've got him on ignore.
Ask him for examples of his own fine furniture.
He's a good example of the would-be-guru. First essential is to persuade people that things are difficult and mysterious, then to persuade them that he has special insights and occult knowledge which will make them easier.
At least he isn't trying to sell anything and no doubt he genuinely does find sharpening difficult, which is why he has put so much time and effort into it
Ask him for examples of his own fine furniture.
He's a good example of the would-be-guru. First essential is to persuade people that things are difficult and mysterious, then to persuade them that he has special insights and occult knowledge which will make them easier.
At least he isn't trying to sell anything and no doubt he genuinely does find sharpening difficult, which is why he has put so much time and effort into it
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Cabinetman
Established Member
Lol, but in his defence, he did post some nice pictures of his kitchen that he made, and his chisel handles are beautiful. Ian
I see people on Reddit and other platforms with an incredible array of tools, expensive sharpening kit and yet their work’s basic and in most cases poor.
People spending so much time reaching this level of sharpness going up through umpteen grits and various bevels, and yet, their work’s basic and in most cases poor.
I’ve had a Tormek Supergrind for over twenty years, I’ve also got one at work and once set up it takes minutes to resharpen and polish an edge on my plane or chisel, then I’m back using it. That’s a real world situation, nobody doing this for a living goes to the extremes seen by hobbyists, it’s just not needed.
Please don’t think of this as a dig at people who do this for a hobby, it’s merely pointing out that going to such extremes isn’t necessary to get the same results.
People spending so much time reaching this level of sharpness going up through umpteen grits and various bevels, and yet, their work’s basic and in most cases poor.
I’ve had a Tormek Supergrind for over twenty years, I’ve also got one at work and once set up it takes minutes to resharpen and polish an edge on my plane or chisel, then I’m back using it. That’s a real world situation, nobody doing this for a living goes to the extremes seen by hobbyists, it’s just not needed.
Please don’t think of this as a dig at people who do this for a hobby, it’s merely pointing out that going to such extremes isn’t necessary to get the same results.
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shed9
establiSHED member
In response to the original post, something that often can get missed in discussing the Tormek is how much time it sucks from your life. I've had a T7 for some time now and whilst I have no intention of kicking it out the door anytime soon I can't say it's a pleasurable use of my time. It is literally like watching paint dry as you watch the same plane edge take ages to get where you want it. There is some pleasure to be extracted from using stones in my opinion and can be very therapeutic in some cases.
I personally think the Tormek is more suited for complex blade shapes where the tool bar offers consistency and less effort to refine a shaped edge as opposed to doing it by hand (although experience may trump that over time).
I personally think the Tormek is more suited for complex blade shapes where the tool bar offers consistency and less effort to refine a shaped edge as opposed to doing it by hand (although experience may trump that over time).
The sharpening is always secondary to the making, hence the quick repeatable results so you can get back the job in hand.
transatlantic
Boom!
Appreciate the comments guys! Shame about the completely irrelevant ones though. But I guess thats always going to be the case with a sharpening thread.
The feedback I am getting is that very few people actually use it as a onestop tool for grinding and then honing and then back to work. Which is what I thought it was kind of designed to do. It seems to be more a case of people using it to establish an intial grind and then using stones for between sharpenings.
Which if I am honest. I still don't really understand. Assuming you have a Tormek, I would have thought using the leather wheel to maintain your edges would be much quicker and more convenient than stones. I appreciate that the edge might not be as flat, but I would have thought it would take a while to get to that point, and that every now and then you could go back to the main wheel to flatten the bevel again.
The feedback I am getting is that very few people actually use it as a onestop tool for grinding and then honing and then back to work. Which is what I thought it was kind of designed to do. It seems to be more a case of people using it to establish an intial grind and then using stones for between sharpenings.
Which if I am honest. I still don't really understand. Assuming you have a Tormek, I would have thought using the leather wheel to maintain your edges would be much quicker and more convenient than stones. I appreciate that the edge might not be as flat, but I would have thought it would take a while to get to that point, and that every now and then you could go back to the main wheel to flatten the bevel again.
I use an oilstone and autosol, by the way. Im not surr what's exotic about. Replace stropping the wire edge with honing it off with a compound and the time is the same, but the edge much longer lasting. Autosol is well beyond 8k.
shed9
establiSHED member
I agree but that's not always the case for everyone though, some people enjoy the entire process of using hand tools from sharpening to making. Sometimes the making can be more monotonous than the sharpening itself.
Maybe so, but in the real world you might need to resharpen your plane two, three or even four times a day dependent on material used, that’s a lot of accumulated time to lose.
shed9
establiSHED member
To be fair, I must admit the strop on the Tormek earns its keep.
If I was at the start of all this again and knowing what little I know, I'd probably advise myself to grab a large diameter CBN wheel, some stones and a strop. I'd also probably tell the past me to avoid sharpening jigs for use with stones as well, they work but doing by sight and hand is quicker and more satisfying.
shed9
establiSHED member
Again I agree but my point was that for some people that is not always true, the sliding scale of doing this for enjoyment and doing it to pay the bills puts a different spin on it across that spectrum.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
What I've ended up with is 'little and often' touchings up on an oil stone, about as difficult and as frequent as sharpening a pencil. Just one fine stone.
The plane or chisel never needs more than that until you've left it too long between sharpenings, in which case I might want to speed it up by going down to a medium grit first.
I don't need to "grind" unless I've damaged something, or rescuing an old banger; grinding as remedial metal work prelude to sharpening. Hence not very often and not worth buying a Tormek for. Not difficult to reshape even an old woody blade or an axe, on a coarse oil stone, as long as I don't have to do it too often
Except turning gouges which I do on a sanding disc on the lathe. Can be done on an oil stone freehand but a bit tedious.
PS and the 12" disc is brill for fast grinding all other blades if I need too. It runs quite cool if you don't press too hard. Velco discs easily changed. If I wanted a free standing machine I'd go for a 12" disc sander without a doubt - also really useful for woodwork itself.
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Appreciate the comments guys! Shame about the completely irrelevant ones though. But I guess thats always going to be the case with a sharpening thread.
The feedback I am getting is that very few people actually use it as a onestop tool for grinding and then honing and then back to work. Which is what I thought it was kind of designed to do. It seems to be more a case of people using it to establish an intial grind and then using stones for between sharpenings.
Which if I am honest. I still don't really understand. Assuming you have a Tormek, I would have thought using the leather wheel to maintain your edges would be much quicker and more convenient than stones. I appreciate that the edge might not be as flat, but I would have thought it would take a while to get to that point, and that every now and then you could go back to the main wheel to flatten the bevel again.
so, here's the deal - as it's fair to say that I've tried and done all kinds of "exotic" things (others' words) sharpening, but I don't generally use them. And I don't contend to be a great maker of anything - the chisels that I make are probably as good as anything, but that doesn't make me a great user, because I could teach anyone on here to make them without much trouble - it's the search that I like, and then to make things that the search culminates in.
Someone like cabinetman is cut from a different cloth - a pro who will do what the market wants and do it well instead of floating through the air like pepe-le-pew following a scent.
One of my fascinations is sharpening as fast and finely as possible so that working only with hand tools is aided - I wouldn't have a clue what to do in an organized power tool shop - yet another thing that separates me from pros.
The tormek can do a good job if it's used as advertised, and I had a discussion with the US distributor here long ago because he had never followed what I'd suggest - hone on the stone, use the tormek to grind. He'd traveled far demonstrating the tormek as described (grind, grade stone, 1k, then leather with compound). He'd gotten so settled into his lane in getting good with the machine that he was not aware that there was a faster way to get the same or better edge by using the machine's strengths (accurate grinding, no dust, etc) and doing the hand honing elsewhere. The fact that he hadn't looked around much helped his selling because he honestly believed what he was doing was faster and creating a better edge. It just wasn't.
So, here's what the tormek would need to do to be efficient at the process - it'd need to have two wheels or a composite wide wheel to do the grind and hone steps without grading the wheel, and then to follow that for honing, the leather wheel would need to turn about 5-10 times as fast. But it doesn't. A buffer turns faster, as would any powered strop that you could make, and a stone will establish an initial bevel off of the grinding wheel in a matter of seconds (and then you don't have to grade).
But the machine is a very accurate grinder for routine bevel maintenance, and it *can* do the other things, just slower and not quite as well as other cheap options.
Sgian Dubh
Established Member
In truth Jacob, I expected not to post again in this thread after I'd posted the link to my long ago written lesson in sharpening thing. In general I almost always ignore these threads because I find they tend to become unpleasant, to put it mildly.
I'm aware that David's put a lot of time and effort into research on sharpening and tool steel, and he's discussed his findings in detail, not so much here I think, but elsewhere where he's disseminated his findings. Personally, I've found his research informative and useful. What he did and discussed is far more involved than anything I could ever be curious or motivated enough to do. I've always just used the tools (planes, chisels, and so on) as provided by the manufacturer.
So, for me, it's generally been hone and regrind as necessary and don't make too much of a meal of it because such tasks have always been no more than a means to an end. So, principally it's been a case of using a high speed grindstone for the grinding angle followed by a combination oil stone or, latterly, a couple of ceramic stones (coarse'ish and superfine [no real idea of grit size]), a bit of flipping the blade on the palm of the hand after the stones, and back to work. I've used a couple of examples of those Tormek type grinders over the years, and they're much too slow for my liking, but others seem to like them which is fine with me.
It's taken a little while to get there in this post, but one particular part of David's research that has caused me to somewhat change my routine of late was his presentation of results incorporating what ended up being called the unicorning of cutting edges: I dislike the name, but it seems to have stuck. Essentially this amounts to adding a bit of extra sharpening of a honed edge through buffing, ideally using a buffing mop and buffing compound with the mop attached to a bench grinder (or similar) or in a drill chuck. There's long been buffing of cutting edges around using strops and fine abrasives but in my limited experience so far with this power buffing David advocates it does seem to improve edge sharpness plus longevity in use. The technique adds maybe fifteen seconds or so to my normal sharpening routine. And if very good to excellent sharpness along with longevity are the result leading to longer intervals between honing it seems to me that the time needed to do this buffing might be time well spent. Slainte.
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transatlantic
Boom!
I have several old variable speed motors. I think I might buy something like Axminster Craft Leather Honing Wheel 200mm and just have a play.
A cheap enough experiment
A cheap enough experiment
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I might give it a go one day! I do occasionally strop on leather with autosol - my theory is that the polish near the edge is low friction where it's needed, as the shavings are prised up. Does seem to add an extra touch of sharpness, longevity too I imagine.
