Thread: Tormek not cutting straight

do you have the stone dressing tool?
I think the theory is you use the dressing tool to keep the wheel parallel with the support bar.

Thanks ian, but that is not the problem. As you sit in front of the grinder wheel, with the chisel in the jig and sitting on the suport bar, and with the bevel on the wheel, a line along the length of the chisel is angled away from the motor side of the wheel.

have tired two different jigs, but the problem persists

I could think of a few scenarios why your edge is not square when using a tormek:

1. The sides of the chisels are not parallel. They might look parallel, but actually not. Use a caliper to measure it.
2. The stone is not square or perpendicular. Use a combination square to check squareness and lower the universal bar until it touches the stone, and look through to see if there is any light through it.
3. grinding in the wrong direction. Tormek has two locations for housing the universal support bar - one with the grind wheel rotating towards the edge (universal bar sitting on top) and one with the wheel rotating away from the edge (bar sitting at the front). If you are grinding in the wrong direction, it may not be square.
4. The universal support bar might be bent. use a square to check.

Check through each one of the scenario and post a picture.

One thing that you may wish to check is that the chisel itself is seated correctly in the chisel holder. When firming up the clamp in the holder it is absolutely essential that the two holding bolts are tightened at the same time so that the chisel sits flat on the base of the holder, if one nut is tightened before the other the chisel will twist and result in a crooked grind.
If it were me i would look at how the chisel is sitting in the holder.

Patience and keep trying.

Router

Originally Posted by Dengue

Hello, I have borrowed my son's old Tormek Supergrind 2000 wet wheel grinder with the 10" wheels to sharpen and hone some old chisels.

The chisel blades are not being cut squarely, although they fit exactly square in the SE-76 square edge jig. In the cutting position, they appear to sit at about 10 degrees sideways on the wheel

Looking down on the Universal Support Bar when placed in the top horizontal position in a vertical plane ( the normal operating position) , it is definitely not parallel to the main drive shaft alignment of the wheel. There does not appear to be any bend in the support bar when looked along its length.

Can anyone please advise on a possible cause for this problem, as I am unable to use the machine. Is there any way the drive shaft may have shifted position in the sheet metal frame?

Hi Dengy

First the wheel must be parallel to the rod (dress it with the Tormek jig - not hand-held stone - if it is not), and secondly the blade must sit flat and square in the blade holder (check with a small square). The SE-76 is my preferred holder as it registers the back of the blade.

If this is set up correctly, and there is still an issue, then I would look at the blade. Is it out of parallel? If so, then adjustments may be made by the holder: loosening one side and tightening the other to tilt the blade slightly.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Many thanks for all your help and suggestions, they are very much appreciated. I have not used this Tormek for many years, and was at a bit of a loss.

Here is a summary of my findings, based on the above recommendations:

1. The wheel grinding surface was not at right angles to the flat sides of the wheel ( i.e., not parallel to the horizontal support bar), so I used the truing jig to flatten it.
2. The chisel I was using initially did not have exactly parallel sides, so I used a small Engineers square to align to 90 degrees in the SE-76 blade holder
3. I lowered the universal support bar down to the wheel, and it was almost dead level with the wheel grinding surface, as determined by a sheet of writing pad paper slipped between the wheel and the support bar. ( What I did not pick up was the bar actually bent very slightly upwards beyond this point).
4. I then sharpened a couple of chisels with parallel sides, and the end result was good, except that one side of the bevels was longer than the other by a fraction of a mm i.e, the sharp edge was not square to the sides. Quite visible to the eye. Very annoying!!
5. Examined the universal support bar. The right side extension piece of this bar where the jigs slide was not exactly at 90 degrees to the threaded upright. This bar was slightly bent upwards. It was OK in the section immediately above the wheel, near where the threaded upright rod is welded, but bent beyond that point.

From this, I would conclude that it would be best if the Universal Support Bar is replaced, and the wheel truing jig then used again on the new support bar to flatten the wheel. If anyone can draw additional conclusions, can you please advise us?

Rang Anthony at Ideal Tools ( a Forum sponsor) where my son purchased his Supergrind 2000 many years ago, telling him of the skewing problem, and enquiring about a new universal support bar.
He asked me to send the existing bar and the SE-76 tool holding jig down to him to check out, before I made any purchases.
I enquired about the newly released SE-77, and was told it was the same as the SE-76, but with a micro adjusting device which allowed the angle of the chisel to be altered to suit any non parallel sides of the chisel.

Thé main advantage of Se-77 is to sharpen your plane iron to a curvature or camber of your specification, repeatedly and consistently. Also this jig provides a slidable clamping knob which means for chisels and narrow plane irons, you can slide one of the knobs over so clamping pressure is applied more evenly. The Skewness adjustment is just a bonus by product of the camber adjustability. I own both Se-76 and 77 and find that the new one is a definite step up on accuracy of your sharpening.

I ended up with both an SE-76 and SE-77 when I set up my CBN wheel sharpening jig on a Carbatec grinder (don't ask how this happened, but it has something to do with excellent customer service from Jim at CWS......)

I use both of these, but find the camber adjustment of the SE-77 of limited use. The kind of tiny cambers I need on smoothing planes, etc. can be achieved more easily when forming the microbevel on a 1000 grit stone following bevel forming. I don't own a scrub plane, but guess that the SE-77 might be good for making larger cambers on these? However, the BIG advantage of the SE-77 is the ability to precisely adjust blade alignment to the wheel before bevel forming, which is a huge benefit for those with CBN wheels (which can't be "trued" like traditional alox wheels). This makes alignment of the Tormek bar to the CBN wheel less critical, and allows any slight error in clamping the blade into the SE-77 to be tuned out afterwards.

I also have both the SE-76 and SE-77. I purchased the latter because of the promise of repeatable cambers, and that David Charlesworth gave it the thumbs up in this regard. However, in practice, I find it difficult to set up. I need to practice more. So far I have had disasterous results. So I stick to the SE-76, which is easy to use and very reliable.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I had some problems with the SE-77 at the beginning, mainly the time it takes to line everything up and centering the iron on the mark in the jig. And Charlesworth's procedure was too combersome with the need to line up the centre of the iron to the centre line in the jig and tapping it here and there until you get it square.
this problem is now solved with a iron setting guide which locates the iron correctly in the SE-77. This jig consists of a length of timber, with a number of rebates cut to the exact sizes of the irons that I usually sharpen.
se-77 jig.jpg

Just found that David Charlesworth entry in his blog. I can see how the cambering process should work with the SE-77 guide, but I think the technique to get a nice even camber might be a bit tricky to master. I might have a bit more practice on an old Stanley blade before I set about butchering my LV and LN plane irons.....

Very happy with the new CBN setup so far - the rate of material removal compared to a standard Tormek has to be seen to be believed.

Agreed that the cambering process can be a bit tricky unless your tormek is in perfect condition, i.e., none of the conditions that could cause a chisel to "potentially" skew. I found that one of my universal bars is just slightly out of square. On its own, it doesn't noticeably skew the edge on a straight grind, but it does show up as uneven camber. But eventually you'll get it right. Once you get it, it's not that difficult.
20170425_162711_Richtone(HDR).jpg
This iron was cambered with a 1.5 turns on each adjuster knob.

Providing the blade to be sharpened has parallel sides and the face of the wheel is 90 degrees to the side of the wheel after dressing the quickest and truest way to square the blade in the holder is to lay it against the side of blade against the side of the wheel and tighten the holder. I don't have a Tormek but I use the Tormak jig on a CBN wheel and it works every time. No mucking around and fiddling with squares etc.