Tormek stone cutting more efficiently

[ionut]

Hello Everyone,

- Make sure the stone is true and soaked, let the machine run until the water in the tray remains at the same level if the wheel was completely dry.
- Lower the tray so the stone will not be touched by water.
- Dress/grade your stone, the dressing is much faster as the stone particles will help the process.
- Put your tool on the stone and grind/sharpen. There is enough water on the stone without being in permanent contact with it. The best stone product, the slurry, remains on the stone and helps the process.
- Use your common sense and don't let the water disappear completely from the stone, after a minute or so of grinding lift the tray enough to have the stone flushed and then lower it back.
- Repeat the process if needed until your grinding/sharpening is done. For touch-ups the process is very fast, you don't need to wait a minute.

Good luck and al the best,
Ionut

[Ken S]

Welcome back, Ionut.

Ken

[Rob]

Hello Everyone,

- Make sure the stone is true and soaked, let the machine run until the water in the tray remains at the same level if the wheel was completely dry.
- Lower the tray so the stone will not be touched by water.
- Dress/grade your stone, the dressing is much faster as the stone particles will help the process.
- Put your tool on the stone and grind/sharpen. There is enough water on the stone without being in permanent contact with it. The best stone product, the slurry, remains on the stone and helps the process.
- Use your common sense and don't let the water disappear completely from the stone, after a minute or so of grinding lift the tray enough to have the stone flushed and then lower it back.
- Repeat the process if needed until your grinding/sharpening is done. For touch-ups the process is very fast, you don't need to wait a minute.

Good luck and al the best,
Ionut

Hi Ionut

I wanted to thank you for your long post and insights on the svh-320 planar knife jig.  It was extremely useful to me....many thanks

Regards

Rob

[Herman Trivilino]

Good luck and al the best,
Ionut

Good tip, Ionut.  And welcome back!

[ionut]

Thank you Ken and Herman.

You're welcome Rob, I am really glad the information in that post helped you.

All the best,
Ionut

[Rob]

Hello Everyone,

- Make sure the stone is true and soaked, let the machine run until the water in the tray remains at the same level if the wheel was completely dry.
- Lower the tray so the stone will not be touched by water.
- Dress/grade your stone, the dressing is much faster as the stone particles will help the process.
- Put your tool on the stone and grind/sharpen. There is enough water on the stone without being in permanent contact with it. The best stone product, the slurry, remains on the stone and helps the process.
- Use your common sense and don't let the water disappear completely from the stone, after a minute or so of grinding lift the tray enough to have the stone flushed and then lower it back.
- Repeat the process if needed until your grinding/sharpening is done. For touch-ups the process is very fast, you don't need to wait a minute.

Good luck and al the best,
Ionut

This got debated recently based on your original post with this idea. Jeff didn't recommend doing anything to the stone when dry.  You seem pretty certain this works...any comment on the two very different opinions?

[ionut]

Hi Rob,

You are not supposed to use the wheel dry. The wheel is wet but not in continuous contact with the water in the tray. That way the slurry is not washed constantly away and that slurry makes grinding much faster. The same when you dress or clean the stone. In fact there is plenty of water to see it piling up over the edge of the tool and getting dirty with the mixture of steel and stone particles. On the top of everything the stones glazes slower. The color of the slurry it is also a good indication for when you lift the tray and flush the stone.
The exact same principle as when you sharpen things with bench waterstones by hand, nothing different.

Ionut

[Rob]

No I appreciate not "dry dry" I meant as you suggested ie charged with water but not permanently in the water bath. I see where you're going though.  Thanks

By the way if you still sharpen planar blades with the jig, you might like to see the lights I've posted today. They're really easy to position in order to get that backlit technique to line up the bevel angle with the stone.

The thread is called seen the light...posted earlier today.

[Jeff Farris]

I can't imagine this working well. It is not a factory recommended method.

[Mike Fairleigh]

I can see how it could be beneficial if you get good at knowing when to dunk the wheel again, but in any case it sounds like a lot more additional work than what the benefit would be.  I'm not criticizing; it just doesn't sound like a good tradeoff.

[Herman Trivilino]

It sounds to me like band aid on a bullet wound.  The correct fix is the SB grindstone.