Tormek question

[p111dom]

I acquired an old model Tormek 1200 some time ago but for various reasons have only started using it recently. I've seen the tutorials on this site for the sharpening process and all that is fine. However after the grind I'm having trouble removing the bur on the back side with the leather honing wheel. It seems that even the lightest touch is enough to produce a bevel on the back side ruining the angle and the edge. What am I doing wrong? That said when you feel the edge it feels pretty blunt but when I try it on wood it's perfectly sharp enough.

 

[woodshavings]

I just "kiss" the back of the chisel on the flat side of the stone before honing. That seems to do the trick for me.
John

 

[dirtydeeds]

IF you are old enough to remember cut throat razers (or seen it in an old black and white film)

or youve seen a chef sharpen a knife (opposite to a razor)

you will understand the how to remove a burr

 

[whoops!]

I had the same problem with my Tormec, Now I remove the burr on a piece of very fine wet and dry stuck on to a piece of glass. I also tend to give the back a couple of passes on the wet and dry before honing the angle. It makes a considerable difference to the achieving of a fine edge.

Decklan

 

[p111dom]

I also tend to give the back a couple of passes on the wet and dry before honing the angle.
Decklan

I too have been flattening the back after the bevel grind on my old oil stone and then using the palm of my hand as a strop but it kind of defeats the purpose. The only thing I can think of is that the leather is too old and too hard. Don't know how much a new leather wheel is but it won't be cheap knowing Tormek and I still fail to see how I remove the bur on the back of a chisel which is flat with a curved wheel?

or youve seen a chef sharpen a knife (opposite to a razor) you will understand the how to remove a burr

Not sure this makes any sense. I worked in hotels and kitchens for years and chefs always used a steel. Thats fine on a knife as it has a bevel on both sides but not sure how that helps me with a chisel.

 

[woodshavings]

and I still fail to see how I remove the bur on the back of a chisel which is flat with a curved wheel?

You use the side of the wheel for the flattening, not the curved perimeter

John

 

[p111dom]

That's fine but this was a question about the leather wheel. That wheel, well the leather bit at least is only 3mm deep so can't use the side of that.

 

[dirtydeeds]

the explanations are clearly not working

so its down to real basics, includinf stuff that may OR may not be obvious

as i understand it you are trying to remove the burr from your chisel but are instead ending up with a back bevel on your chisel

you are confusing two operations

burr removal and honing are two separate operations on the same tool (the leather stropping wheel)

a burr on a chisel belongs to neither face or to the cutting edge, you must remove it BEFORE honing


you can remove a burr with your thumb (if you know what you are doing) but this is not the time to learn with your thumb



first ensure you have honing paste on the leather wheel and it is turnng away from you

to ensure this my sheppach is turned so the stop start buttons are the opposite (far side) of the machine from where i stand



to remove the burr

lay the back of the blade on the stropping wheel about mid way, raise the chisel handle and creep up on the burr.

YOU DO NOT PUT ANY PREASURE ON THE CHISEL

the VERY moment the burr starts to move

turn the chisel over and creep up on the burr again


repeat these steps until the burr is removed




ONLY after you have removed the burr do you put any preasure on the honing wheel

 

[woodbloke]

Dom - the other way to remove the burr prior to honing is to run the edge across the corner of an oddment of scrap softwood, then you can use your normal honing routine...the palm of your hand or indeed your thumb, is not recommended for a mutlitude of fairly obvious (I hope :wink: ) reasons even tho' it seemed to be the preferred method in the past - Rob

 

[p111dom]

This is getting confusing with regards to the terminology. apologies if I have it wrong but I refer to grinding when I use the grinding wheel and honing when using the leather wheel. If is see this link
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/content/view/41/45/
Basically I'm following this to the letter however when I get to 4th and 3rd off bottom pictures, when I do this with honing paste while applying no more pressure than the weight of the chisel, I'm finding it impossible not to get a bevel on the back side. What seems to be happening is that the honing wheel is too coarse/rough especially with the paste and is actually creating a slight grind rather than a hone. There isn't sufficient depth in the leather wheel to hone the back side of the blade on the side of the wheel. I thought (perhaps mistakenly that I should be removing the burr on the honing wheel and have been trying to just rest the blade on the top of the leather so it makes as parallel contact as I can but it's just not working for me.

 

[Slim]

I knock the burr off on a flat oilstone prior to honing.

 

[woodbloke]

Dom - I recommend that you don't use the leather wheel to use hone the edge and 'specially to remove the burr on the flat or back side of the blade...there is a danger that a small bevel will develop on the flat side of the blade which is not what is needed in a chisel. The secondary bevel ought to be produced on a separate sharpening system, with or without a honing guide :wink:. I use a green extra fine DMT diamond stone, honing guide and leather strop/jewellers rouge for the secondary bevel and the back of the chisel should always be used dead flat on the stone to remove any burr, the strop can be used to refine the edge on the honed bevel...plenty of other info on the forum as to different ways and methods to achieve that all important razor edge...apologies if straying into the eggsucking area - Rob

 

[johnjin]

Hi Dom
According to the manual you should put oil on the leather wheel until it is soft. After this then you do your honing using the paste. It sounds to me as if your leather wheel is to hard so get a lot of oil on there. I use 3 in 1 oil but any light machine oil should do the trick.
Hope this helps

John

 

[David C]

I prefer to use my Tormek for grinding not sharpening which I choose to do on waterstones.

Sharpening can be done but it is not so precise and I think the (hard won) flat side of blades will be compromised.

David

 

[p111dom]

Many thanks to you all for the replies. I find it interesting how many do not consider the Tormek to be a complete sharpening solution. I'm fortunate in that I got the machine for free but did have to buy the TT50 truing jig and the grading stone. If I'd had to buy everything it would have been well in excess of £200. Had I paid that and still had to use a flat stone or anything other than the machine for the final sharpen then I would have been desperately disappointed. Years ago at school we had a large horizontal wheel. It must have been 14 inches plus. You could set several chisels on the the wheel at the same time, leave them for 5 mins or so and remove the bur on the flat stone straight away. The results were not razor sharp but were very very sharp which was sharp enough for us. Much the same as the Rexon but a giant version of it.

My conclusion of the Tormek so far is that it's over priced and fiddly to set up. I think it's pretty much impossible to grind a chisel to say 25 degrees with the stone set at one grade, remove it from the jig and reset later to grind at a finer grade. Basically you have to grade the stone at 200, grind then re-dress the stone to 1000 without removing the chisel from the jig. This is fine if you are doing one chisel but a real pain if like me you have say a sharpening session and sharpen everything you have in one go. It's so time consuming and presumably prematurely wears down your stone. All the jigs are massively expensive for a rough piece of cast aluminium with all the flash lines still present. IMHO poor show, poor design and most of all poor value for money!

 

[dirtydeeds]

p111dom

if you think its worthless send it to me ill gladly pay the postage packing and insurance (in advance)

i do a lot of fix and repair work so i could do with a second machine for when im on site

 

[p111dom]

Didn't say it was worthless just think it's too expensive for what it is and is very over hyped. I've seen several posts from people debating the Tormek, Jet and Scheppach choice and the advice of the posts always seems to be to go with the Tormek. I was in this situation myself and was going to take the plunge when I was offered this machine. The guy who owned it was a turner and only used it to sharpen gouges etc and consequently the stone had a concave surface hence the purchase of the TT-50. Since it was an old machine the angle setter was non adjustable for stone wear and the bar didn't have a threaded column so height adjustment was tricky. Basically I bought the TT-50, the grading stone, a new bar with height adjustment and a new angle setting gauge. There might have been another bit as well but the total was £94. obviously you get all this baring the TT-50 which is around £40 with a new machine so essentially the machine cost me £54 and to be honest I think its worth about that but not alot more. :wink:

 

[andy king]

Hi P111dom,

Having looked at a couple of Tormeks over the years, and also given advice at shows, I still believe that the benefits of the system are more for woodturners and carvers chisels rather than flat backed tools.
The fact that putting a flat back on the round leather wheel is likely to 'dub the back over, even if only minutely, is something I've commented on before.
While a plane may not suffer as such, and can actually introduce David's 'rulertrick' onto the blade, a chisel is more of a concern as the cutting edge sits higher than the back, even if only by a fraction, making it very dificult to pare accurately to a line, and it's the reason I don't use the leather wheel on flat backs.
A further problem arises when you go to use a stone and try to back the wire edge off as any rounding of the back needs to be honed away before the stone will work the wire edge away.
For these reasons, I've always seen the Tormek more as a dressing tool for chisels and plane irons, then moving on to a bench stone of some description to give it its honed edge, whereas I would have no worries sharpening gouges and the like on the Tormek, and using the leather wheel to do the final honing.
You can polish the bevel side of a chisel or plane on it if you wish, but i'm not really an advocate of high polish equalling sharp, I much prefer to see if it actually cuts!
Also, I usually keep the stone at one grade, (fine) as its usually only for re-introducing a grinding bevel on a chisel or plane, which it does with no problem. I will regrade to coarse if I have a bashed up tool in need of more work though.

Andy

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Andy

The T-7 kit includes the new SE-76 square edge jig, what can I say? WOW, if you already have a Tormek go out and order one now, you won’t be sorry. So what is so special? With the old square edge jig there was a certain amount of trial and error if you wanted to get the edge perfectly square. With the new jig it squares the blade perfectly every time. Even my awkward Japanese chisels were ground perfectly square without any need for adjustment.

I thought that this might answer your question.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[andy king]

Hi Neil,

I've looked at the new T7, complete with this tool holder, and yes, it is a good as Keith says, but it won't make any diference to backing the wire edge or trying to polish the back of a flat backed tool like a chisel or plane iron . This new jig addresses the problem of grinding square edges on the stone wheel.
The point I was making is that on the leather wheel you are trying to take the back off, but the only time this will happen is at minimal point of contact, when the wire edge touches the leather, and no more.
Pull it back too far and the rounding or dubbing will happen, too far forwards and the leather doesn't touch the wire edge. Trying to control a minimal point of contact can be a tricky business, and with the leather having slight 'give' pushing a little too hard will amke it all the more likely the edge will roll over.
It is, in effect, like using a worn bench honing stone, then using a flat one.
Oh yes, as Johnjin says, it can hopefully be rejuvinated with some ordinary thin oil, but I've used paraffin oil sold at chemists quite successfully.

Andy