Thread: Improvements on my current sharpening regime

Originally Posted by Jeff Leslie

I think there are some operator error issues happening here. I use an 8 inch bench grinder with the Tormek bar attachment and a 240g Vicmarc CBN wheel for shaping. A once-off for each tool.

After that, it's either sharpening on either of my two Tormeks, one with a grey wheel, the other black.

Once you true the stone, it should stay that way for quite some time (unless you are sharpening say bowl gouges). The best way to check whether the wheel and bar on the Tormek are in sinc is to simply drop the bar onto the wheel and check for unevenness.

I rarely hone any more - I can get a plane blade or bench chisel sharp enough to shave my arm (that's always my test) on the grey wheel re-graded to 1000 grit with the stone provided. I only use the black stone for the higher quality/harder turning chisels (Vicmarc bowl gouges, Hamlet 2060, Henry Taylor Kryo etc).

I can understand why some use a secondary bevel if they do the sharpening by hand. But why bother when you can get just about any chisel etc razor sharp time after time quickly on the Tormek? For example, a bowl gouge (once you have the bar set on the A setting correctly) takes maybe 30 seconds to get razor sharp. Plane blades a little longer - say 1-2 minutes but I always use the permanent marker approach - others probably can do it quicker.

Tormek apparently have put out a new jig for sharpening plane blades that is probably worth a look if you want to knock the corners off the plane blades on the machine.

I hope the above makes sense.

Jeff

Probably operator error. But I'm getting better at it.
I get better results by not pressing down so hard, and use a rare earth magnet wrapped inside a plastic bag and to clean off the iron filings.
However, the wheel still go out of true slightly reasonably often. I know that when the blade edge starts to become slightly skewed. I used the bar to check but it is not telling me small differences. I only notice the blades are skewed when I line it up against the backing iron. May be it's just me being too pedantic?
I still true up the stone every 5 or so grinds. I lost 10mm in diameter since I bought the machine at the end of June.
Is it the square edge jig you're referring to?
By the way, feel free to discuss grinding vs honing. I am happy enough

If you are using 10mm in stone diameter since June, you are either using the Tormek (as intended) all day long or are doing something maybe wrong. Or are learning, which is what all of us do each and every day.

The new jig I mentioned is the one you referred us to - probably must get one! Geez, I have dozens of Tormek jigs!

If you use the truing jig correctly - and use all of the stone when sharpening flat blades (planes, bench chisels etc) - you shouldn't need to true the wheel too often. My old and original Tormek was reserved solely for flat blades as the original truing jig was CRAP. Not so any more. And I did manage to buy my second Tormek on the "wheels for life" deal ie 3 spare grey wheels. I've used only around 15mm on the grey wheel, mostly sharpening turning chisels. Which I might add need to be sharpened more frequently than others - unless, of course, you do not use machines to joint and thickness wood!

Derek and I coincidentally have sort of a "challenge" going. Watch this space. I am certain that Derek from Perth will do something special with the figured redgum I am about to send over.

As for honing, I admit not so much a failure to get the best finish off the tools but I do rely on paper to do the finishing. (Not so with turning. There, you cannot sand out poor tool work!)

When you turn mulga, gidgee or any of the outback timbers full of silicone/sand or are simply hard, a honed edge lasts perhaps a few seconds. What you need is a compromise - a finish on the steel that will last for say a minute or more. Which the honed edge does as well but is it worth the effort? At least for woodturning, secondary bevels are superfluous.

The most obvious response is to use the best class of steel you can afford, whatever your woodworking bent. Better grade steel will out-perform a lower class lump of steel, irrespective of whether it is honed or not.

I do also find it interesting that a few woodworkers use sandpaper to make their tools "scary sharp" but they do not use the same grit of paper to their wood!

regards Jeff

Quality carving gouges such as Pfeil respond very well to sharpening with 800 and finer (up to 2k) grit sandpapers. I use water stones as well but the papers always present a fresh, flat surface.
Carving tools with curved blades, bevel on top, can't be sharpened on a flat surface. The papers can be wrapped around mandrels of assorted sizes (chainsaw files to carving mallets) for crooked knives and adzes. For honing, I use a green bar of CrOx with some AlOx mixed in. The strop is an office filing card with green scribbled all over. Once again, flat or wrapped around a mandrel as required. I was taught freehand sharpening. That has worked so well over the years that I've never considered a power system.

justonething -- I'm going to add one other item to consider in your use of your Tormek. I'll assume that you are sharpening chisels and plane irons and are frustrated because these tool edges are not square. First, I'm a big believer in using the diamond truing tool for bringing the wheel back to square but I think using it every four or five sessions seems excessive. I generally keep a small machinists' square handy and test the wheel for squareness frequently but I would seldom have to use the Truing tool as often as you say. Second, there can be some pitfalls to setting the the Square Edge Jig (SE-76). Overtightening the left hand knob can cause a misalignment of the blade with the wheel, most common on narrow blades like chisels. Tormek came out with a new Square Edge Jig (SE-77) which has solved that problem for me. In this model the left-hand knob now slides over to the left edge of the blade which for me is the key. You can now tighten that knob normally without fear of canting the blade in the jig. I know, more money to spend but I consider the new jig a major improvement. The SE-77 also has a nice feature that allows you to establish a camber on plane blades by adjusting a couple of knobs. Here it is:
Sharpening Plane Irons the Tormek Way
I hope this helps

It's has been a little while. I think I am making some improvement to how long it takes without sacrificing the consistency of having a sharp edge.
Part of my problem has been unable to get a square edge on the blade to the degree that I'm happy about and another part of the problem being the long time it took to stand next my Tormek pushing down against the blade, waiting for a razer sharp edge to appear and finally, I'm wearing out the stone by dressing it excessively in order to get a fresh and fast cutting surface that is also square for alignment purposes.

1. The new square edge jig SE-77 is an important ingredient to a lot of my improvement. The sliding and clamping mechanism makes the blade remarkably secure to the jig even for short iron like those from spokeshaves. The micro adjuster allows precise alignment so that the edge lines up exactly with the horizontal tangential line marked on the stone.
2. Before inserting the blade onto the jig and before removing the backing iron from the blade, I move the backing iron back a bit to expose a bit of the back surface of the blade, and after carefully aligning the backing iron, I mark a line with a texta along the edge of the back iron. This line will show me if the blade is square or not. If if it a chisel, I use a small combination square to provide me the same square edge reference.
3. I also mark the bevel with a texta and after placing the blade securely in the jig. I use the micro adjuster to firstly align to square and secondly within the range of acceptable alignment angle, I use the adjuster to ensure that the texta mark on the bevel are rub off to the same extent on either the left or the right side of the blade as far as possible.
4. By changing the distance between the support bar and the surface of the stone, I fine tune the bevel angle so the the texta mark are rubbed off evenly near the cutting edge as well as near the back end of the bevel.
5. All this setting up is to ensure that I remove as little material as possible to reduce the time hone to the edge.
6. The honing doesn't take long anymore, 5 to 10 mins or there about. I routinely use a rare earth wrapped in plastic to hover above the surface of the stone to remove the steel filings to reduce the clogging up of the pores when I slide out the jig along the bar for inspection of the cutting edge.
7. Very occasionally, I apply the truing tool to expose a true and fresh surface. Once every few grinds.
8. I also got myself a second micro adjustment support bar that I use for final honing on the leather wheel, already set at a 5 deg micro bevel. By passing the need to hone on a flat stone or fine sandpaper after grinding to a wire.

I don't think its taking that long to get a really sharp edge anymore.

Originally Posted by justonething

It's has been a little while. I think I am making some improvement to how long it takes without sacrificing the consistency of having a sharp edge.
Part of my problem has been unable to get a square edge on the blade to the degree that I'm happy about and another part of the problem being the long time it took to stand next my Tormek pushing down against the blade, waiting for a razer sharp edge to appear and finally, I'm wearing out the stone by dressing it excessively in order to get a fresh and fast cutting surface that is also square for alignment purposes.

1. The new square edge jig SE-77 is an important ingredient to a lot of my improvement. The sliding and clamping mechanism makes the blade remarkably secure to the jig even for short iron like those from spokeshaves. The micro adjuster allows precise alignment so that the edge lines up exactly with the horizontal tangential line marked on the stone

I finally finished setting up my half speed grinder tonight with the SE-77 jig on a CBN wheel and had one of those thought moments that made the squaring impossible to get wrong. If the wheel face is square to the side of the wheel (a CBN wheel always is) and a Tormek wheel can be dressed square I believe put the blade or chisel in the jig and just tighten so that the blade can be moved for adjustment. Now move the blade and jig so the blade long edge is against the side face of the wheel and flush to the side and tighten the jig. It now has to be square to the sharpening face of the wheel. Of course very small blades like spokeshaves can't use this method but bench chisels a plane blades are a breeze to set up square to the wheel.

Chris,

I too have a half-speed grinder (Carbatec), and was just about to order all the bits to go down this road before Xmas (from CWS). I'll be using the Tormek BG-100 setup with the SE-77 holder. For some reason I favour the Vicmarc CBN wheels over the Woodcut, and that was before noticing that CWS never seem to have the Woodcut in stock...??

Just curious as to which CBN grit would be best for bevel refreshing? I'm planning on an 200mm dia. x 40mm wide wheel, but these are available in 80g, 180g, or 240g. The plan is to go straight from the CBN wheel to a Veritas honing guide, then brief microbevel forming on 1000, 5000, 12000 stones. Which CBN wheel grit would be best for the job? I have no idea how fast these things cut, or what kind of edge they leave in preparation for honing.

Cheers

The 180 grit is the best alrounder for plane blades and bench chisels. That's what I use. Higher grits would take longer and create more heat, and smoother than 180 is wasted when you plan to go onto water stones. Coarser - 80 grit - is an alternative, but the edge will need a little more work. Often I can go from 180 directly to a 6000 waterstone.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Mr Brush, I only got my grinder set up last night so my experience is somewhat limited.

I bought from Jim C. a 180 grit 200mm wheel and the Tormek jigs and unashamedly it is set up exactly the same as Derek Cohen's grinder

http://inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTec...ningSetUp.html

because his works and why re-invent the wheel. I am using a 180 grit wheel and the only difference to Derek's is the spherical washer set to true the wheel. See here....

CBN - too much runout on my bench grinder? Better grinders?

Straight off the wheel with a new hollow ground bevel I was astounded at how sharp the chisel was but of course the edge is very rough and needs to be dressed on a stone. You have to keep in mind that this process is different to a flat bevel where the whole bevel is dressed on the stone, all that is required and can be done is a mini bevel on a hollow grind and the heel of the bevel is not honed so the angle can be somewhat a bit give and take.

What I did last night was put the ground hollow bevel on the stone, lift the heel a little bit enough to put a different angle on it and start honing which requires about half a dozen strokes on the first stone and the same on the final stone (in my case 8000). The result is I can hardly see the bevel with the naked eye but it certainly is sharp and the whole process from setting up on the grinder to being able to use the chisel was less than five minutes. At first I questioned the accuracy of the SE-76 to square the chisel but when I used the side if the wheel the SE-76 only becomes the holder and in no way sets up the blade. The alignment shoulder on the SE-76 is only on one end of the jig and looks like it was done with a hand file so I am happy not to use it.

In essence you don't need a jig to set the micro bevel it is so small, perhaps when it gets bigger you may do but by then you should have developed an idea of how far to lift the heel of the chisel. I have the Veritas grinder rest and a complete MK2 sharpening system but now I am thinking I will sell it as I can see I won't use it at all. To answer your direct question, I found the 180 grit CBN wheel to be perfect for grinding the initial bevel, if you do wood turning I would definitely get a 240 to finish on but for flat work tools 180 seems to be the go in my five minutes of experience, well 10 actually because I sharpened two chisels. My only regret in all this is my father never saw how easy it is to sharpen properly, I saw the hours and hours he spent sharpening and he would have loved this system.

If you live anywhere near me you are welcome to have a play before laying down a not inconsiderable amount of money. I rate this system at 110% and I am completely sold. A big thanks to Derek for setting up the initial idea.

Edited to remove references to SE-77.

Thanks Chris (and Derek!).

I'll go ahead and get the 180g Vicmarc CBN wheel (with the appropriate insert for 5/8" shaft), and the Tormek parts, and see how we go. I removed one of the white wheels from my grinder a few days ago to check runout on the shaft, and it looks OK. I'll wait and see if I need the spherical washer, but good to know that a solution exists !

I'm looking forward to using the SE-77 holder to produce a small but controlled camber on my smoothing plane blades; it remains to be seen how well this will work, but Tormek do advertise the feature.

I use my Veritas Mk2 to put microbevels on just about everything (including skews and fishtail chisels), so I'll hang onto it for now. I have a fair bit invested in all the extra holders and attachments for it. Like you, I'm hoping to spend more time woodworking and less time buggering about sharpening things !!

From what Derek has said, I may be able to ditch my 1000 grit Shapton stage and just go 5000, 12000 straight off the CBN wheel.

Thanks again for the detailed response - much appreciated. Believe it or not I came THAT close to buying a Tormek T-8, but came across some of the CBN wheel threads on here just in time....

From what Derek has said, I may be able to ditch my 1000 grit Shapton stage and just go 5000, 12000 straight off the CBN wheel.

The 1000 is always going to be needed.

The only time the 1000 is skipped is when the bevel is first ground, and only if the grind is taken to the edge of the blade. As the bevel wears (rats, I hoped for an everlasting edge), the microbevel widens and the 1000 comes into play. Still, it is possible to forgo the 1000 and go straight to the 6000 (in my case) straight off the grinder.

I'm looking forward to using the SE-77 holder to produce a small but controlled camber on my smoothing plane blades;

I am tempted to get one as well. However, what you must realise is that this holder may grind the initial camber, but subsequent sharpenings may exaggerate this camber - do not rely on the new holder to do the thinking for you. That is the danger of jigs, especially the good ones.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

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...one of those thought moments that made the squaring impossible to get wrong. If the wheel face is square to the side of the wheel (a CBN wheel always is) and a Tormek wheel can be dressed square I believe put the blade or chisel in the jig and just tighten so that the blade can be moved for adjustment. Now move the blade and jig so the blade long edge is against the side face of the wheel and flush to the side and tighten the jig. It now has to be square to the sharpening face of the wheel. Of course very small blades like spokeshaves can't use this method but bench chisels a plane blades are a breeze to set up square to the wheel.

Excellent idea Chris. I use the adjuster knobs on the SE-77 so that the straight edge of my iron is hard up against the inside of my SG-250. Works a treat.