Thread: Heads up - New Tormek Jig

Wow. Complicated looking piece of kit.

Pick a number and double it.

Originally Posted by Grumpy John

Just received this in an email. Looks interesting, but no mention of price.

i have known about this jig coming into the market for about 3 months
as i work in a hardware store and had a rep from promac the importer tell me about it back then but told me that because it wasnt going to be released for a few months (was told september ) not to say anything the only thing he did mention that it would be approx $300 or there abouts as he had no costings at that stage just that it was coming

John, If you lived closer I could teach to sharpen drills by hand in about 15mins. Save your money and do it by hand.
Tormek will charge you a second mortgage for this one

Originally Posted by hughie

John, If you lived closer I could teach to sharpen drills by hand in about 15mins. Save your money and do it by hand.
Tormek will charge you a second mortgage for this one

Thanks Hughie, but I don't need one. I was a fitter & turner for 40 years so I'm quite capable of sharpening a drill freehand. My ageing eyesight makes it a bit difficult to sharpen anything smaller than 4mm though .

Originally Posted by Grumpy John

Thanks Hughie, but I don't need one. I was a fitter & turner for 40 years so I'm quite capable of sharpening a drill freehand. My ageing eyesight makes it a bit difficult to sharpen anything smaller than 4mm though .

its range is 3mm to 22 mm from a quick browse

Originally Posted by hughie

John, If you lived closer I could teach to sharpen drills by hand in about 15mins. Save your money and do it by hand.
Tormek will charge you a second mortgage for this one

Knowing what Grumpy John does for a living or did do, I'd be willing to bet that Grumpy John already knows how to and probably does or can in fact freehand sharpen drill bits already.

I can also freehand sharpen bits myself and whilst it is handy when on site, I still find that those that I sharpened by machine will out last those done by hand for a hell of a lot longer and in most cases will do a cleaner hole as well.

All I'm saying here, is that whilst it may cost a few dollars to buy said jig, it would probably pay for itself over the lifetime of you owning it, as for some and I speak from experience here as well, some will never be able to grasp free hand sharpening bits.

Well said DJ. The use of jigs in sharpening is all about consistency and minimising metal removal. There are many turners out there that are capable of freehand sharpening their chisels and gouges but use a jig to maintain the angles they prefer with minimum waste of material..

Gidday

Im a metal fabricator n yeah i can sharpen bits and yeah they without fail only go to the grinding wheel once their blunt as a ^&%(&*&)-0 in the workshop.................

As with all these kind of skills to get great consistent results requires constant practice and application and truely in reality even the gun bit sharpeners in our workshop use a rough enough is good enough approach that will produce a bit thats just shaped n sharp enough to get the job done @ hand afterwhich it invariably ends up blunt again............

Personally I think freehand bit sharpening is a great skill to have under the belt in the field where it can get you outta trouble in a pinch but other than that give me a drill doctor........ jig ............or whatever any other day of the week you'll get sharper bits that last longer and give better results!

Regards Lou......................

Neat attachment for the Tormek...if you have one and, like someone mentioned you have a spare 300 bucks laying around doing nothing

For a $129 bucks a Drill Doctor can be had and it does a terrific job of grinding the correct geometry required to sharpen a drill bit to spec. I love my unit...wouldn't do without it.

Check it out at
Drill Doctor

Drill Doctors are pricey out here Ed I'm afraid.

I've used one of those cheap jigs that present to the grindwheel side (yeah, I know) and they're not too bad on larger bits. Wouldn't cope with small ones.

Before you get over-confident about hand sharpening, have a squint here: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f13/dr...-guides-53073/

The link in my post #4 doesn't work anymore. Here's the revised connection: Choose The Best Drill Point Geometry : Modern Machine Shop

Cheers,
Joe

You've got to be drilling a hell lot of holes to need to sharpen your drill bits. I bought a set of HSS bits 6-7 years ago and they are still sharp as.

On the other end of the spectrum ive blunted Sutton HSS bits in 1/2 an hour...................