Thread: Deep flute gouges - how to Tormek T-7 sharpen

Sounds more like they are the P&N bowl gouges to me.

Roughing gouges have the same wall thickness all round - imagine them as being a section of pipe.

Sometimes it is good to be able to take your problem ones to a demo & get the demonstrator to show you how.

You may have spent too much time on sharpening the bottom of the tool and not enough on the sides or ran from one side to the other in effect grinding the centre twice and the sides once each.

To fix this you will need to grind the sides to get them slightly back about 5 degrees from the front edge.

OK, thanks.
I'll get some photos and try to show the problem.
Picture is worth a thousand.....
Lyle.

Sharpened a skew today and it is great. Even left some of my DNA (blood) on the T-7 when I accidently bumped the edge on my knuckle.
At least I can prove to CSI that it is my machine

Originally Posted by Lyle

Sharpened a skew today and it is great. Even left some of my DNA (blood) on the T-7 when I accidently bumped the edge on my knuckle.
At least I can prove to CSI that it is my machine

Do they still give away the band aides with the Tormek? (Although I think its usually from cutting on the actual shark things. )

What Jim said - you only need to grind the bits/sections that needs it to get the desired shape - then give 1 or 2 passes from side to side to get a continuous grind/bevel.

Yep i know clear as mud.

simple version - grind the high bits then from one side to the other side and thats it.

Cheers

David

Just as an aside I think the P&N is one of the few roughing gouges that are milled not forged, and their milling can be rough so the wall thickness may not be even.

Doesn't change Jim's advice but you may have to finesse it.

Another tip with the Tormek if you're doing a lot of HSS turning tool bevel reshaping then aggressively clean the wheel with the rough edge of the grading stone. Try every two minutes.

I have a Tormek and I use it a lot, but never for lathe chisels. Am I not understanding something important? Really, I want to know.

In my book HSS lathe chisels have a specific advantage in that they can withstand a great deal of heat and not affect the temper. The advantage of the Tormek lies in keeping the steel cool, which is not needed if your chisels are HSS.

Sharpening a lathe chisel on a high grit stone is better than sharpening it on a low grit stone - Sharpening on a 1000 grit Tormek will create a better edge than a 100 or 120 grit high speed grinder. But the Tormek is slow, painfully slow! And a grinder is coarse, horribly coarse!

I prefer to freehand grind/hone my HSS lathe chisels on a disk sander (belt/disk sander combo). I can use a 240 grit disk which, at 1400 rpm, will create an edge smoother than the 1000 off a Tormek. I could add a leather strop to the disk sander and achieve edges that you could shave with .... all in seconds!

Keep in mind, however, I only do spindle work on a Jet mini, so mainly use gouges and skews and a few other chisels with simple profiles. I also work with salvaged dry, hard woods like Jarrah.



Opinions?

Regards from Perth

Derek

A 1000 grit finish, if that's what the fine grading actually or approximately gives, is clearly an advantage Derek as you'd know. And then a quick lick on the leather honing wheel to remove the burr flakes.

But the Tormek is really 2 systems isn't it? A jigging and a sharpening one. So a lot of turners go for the fingernail grind jig, and some of us use the BGM with it first for bevel shaping and serious repair, and then go to the 220 wet wheel. Advantage is less metal lost since a lick or two at 220 takes less off than an 80g alox wheel obviously.

And in fact some argue that dry grinding does compromise the metal though I'm not convinced myself.

Of course there are alternatives like yours but they're not well known in the turning world. Power honing is even less well known (I've been researching it; try finding out what's actually in all those coloured crayons by way of particle size and composition!).

Got onto Sutton Tools, they are apparently the P&N makers now. Anyway a nice bloke, Guy, sent me the info for the angles for my chisels.

I have a spindle gouge the grinding angle is to be = 53 degrees +- 1.5, deep fluted bowl gouges = 45 degrees +-1.5, and a supa gouge = 45 degrees +- 2.

I'll have a go tomorrow with the T-7 and see how they cut.
The Sutton website was pretty good to identify the chisels.

I got the T-7 so I could get repeatability in the grinding/sharpening of my chisels. Something I could never achieve by hand and many different home made jigs.

I am very happy with it so far and it is better than I could ever imagine.

You'd be much better off consulting the manual and guide card on bevel angles that come with the Tormek Lyle.

53* on a std spindle gouge makes no sense (angle included between bevel and flute). 45* on the others will work but if you've got one each of those and do some deepish bowl work I'd set one of them at around 60*

Thanks Ern. I'm going to have a cuppa and re-read the manual.
These are the deep flute gouges, a deep steep 'U'. So does that make any difference?

Figured out another mistake. On the SVD-185 I had the jig setting wrong. What a difference that makes. The grooves for the numbers are 7 (starting from 0), so I was basically 1/2 a division out.
My manual (pg 68) shows the divisions as 0 - 5, as does the TTS-100 booklet. My SVD-185 has divisions as 0-6.
A small thing but enough to trip up the unknowing.

Have you seen this video on youtube?
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC1w8kLvo14]YouTube - Tormek Gouge Jig SVD-185[/ame]

Re the deep U, depends a bit on the size and how you like 'em. I think the small ones work quite well with the barest of fingernail grind (which I do just on a dry grinder platform just rotating the shaft; no bevel climbing up the wheel or shaft swing).

Though lately I've been putting a more swept-back grind just to see how they perform.

Yes, the 185 jig is not quite a precision instrument. IIRC they added mark 6 to allow an Ellsworth grind, and early versions of these had the arrow in the wrong place.

Course at one level it doesn't really matter: find the bevel geometry you like, read the marks for it consistently, note them on a label and fix it on the tool.

The reference card for the 185 gives a range of settings for skews and gouges with distinctions like 'for experienced turners' or an all round setting. I go for 30* mostly for spindle gouges, 45* for deep fluted gouges and 60* for the Ellsworth.

There's a good Tormek forum at Tool Sharpening the Tormek Way - Tormek Grinding Machines by the way. Jeff Farris is the expert and he answers questions promptly.