Tormek T4 Reviews thoughts for new or prospective buyers

[Ken S]

In my reviews of the T4, I have tried to provide straightforward information for those thinking of investing in a Tormek T4 or T7. I will continue the series as I use the T4 for different applications. For now, I would like to present my views on "the next purchase(s)".

In my opinion, the first purchase, ideally made with the initial purchase, should be the TT-50 diamond truing tool. A properly trued and dressed grinding wheel is essential to doing good work. In fact, good grinding practice recommends truing the grinding wheel before doing any grinding. In my excitement to begin using the T4, I neglected to do the initial truing. Things "looked good". Around the same time I noticed my T7 wheel was not quite straight across. After truing it and seeing how much improved it was, I moved the truing tool onto the T4. I thought only one very light pass would suffice. To my surprise, it required several light passes. Things were much improved.

Almost every Tormek owner requires the TT-50 truing tool. Only those who only use the leather honing wheel for buffing and polishing and those who enjoy having a pristine Tormek on display in their workshops for bragging rights are excluded.

Advanced Machinery used to sell the T4 only as a package with the TT-50. I thought this was outstanding marketing. Unfortunately, the newer idea is to sell packages. None of the "packages" include either the TT-50 or the SE-76 square edge jig. Another outstanding idea abandoned.

One thing to be aware of when ordering the TT-50 is that there are two different models. You will want the more expensive model, which should cost about $89 USD. The less expensive model, the TT-50U (upgrade) does not include the diamond. It is designed for existing Tormek owners who own the older truing tool. The older model did not have the fine feed screws. The upgrade allows the owners of the earlier model to save some money and transfer their diamond to the new frame. Read carefully before ordering.

I am not a big fan of "kits", Tormek or otherwise. A beginning Tormek user who is a woodworker can go far with just the SE-76 square edge jig. Once one becomes fluent with chisels and planes, your own experience will direct you as to your next acquisition.

A beginning knife sharpener can go far with the standard knife jig and a short knife tool. I have the long knife jig, but have never used it. I find the standard jig quite adequate for my eight and ten inch slicers, my thinnest long knives. Your needs may be different; my wife and I eat very little meat. If you use long thin knives, add the long knife jig. Incidentally, there is a newer and an older model of the long knife jig. The older jig has a clamping surface of 100mm, hence, the "100" designation. If you are serious about long thin knives, you will want the newer 140mm model with a 140mm clamping surface.

I should note that there is much discussion on the forum about the short knife jigs made by Herman and Ionut. These are certainly useful, and should be included with every accomplished Tormek user's outfit. (I have two, one for the T7 and one for the T4.) My advice for a beginner would be to start with the Tormek short knife tool. It is easy to use. Herman will tell you, quite honestly, that his jig is easy to use, also. I agree. I also think that many things come easier when one has Herman's experience. Once you become fluent with knives, you will probably want to explore making one of Herman's jigs. It's a good jig.

I am a self confess Tormek junkie. However, I cannot bring myself to buy the axe jig. The only axe head I own is an old family relic from the Revolutionary War period. i would certainly never foolishly attempt to sharpen it. When I have tree work beyond my Sawzall, my preferred technique is to call a tree service. They all use chain saws. In my opinion, for me, including the axe jig in the hand tool package adds no value. I have always purchased the jigs individually.

If you are fortunate enough to have purchased your Tormek through a local dealer, inquire as to when they might have woodworking sales. These are usually in conjunction with woodworking demonstrations or store wide sales. I purchased almost all of my jigs this way, and saved 20%. I found it was cost effective to wait for a sale for most of my "wants". (Some of those wants are still waiting to be used, although the price has risen.

Whether you choose to purchase a T4 or T7 Tormek, you have made a solid choice. Either model will serve you well for a lifetime. Spend the small amount of time necessary to keep your machine and grinding wheel in tip top shape and learn the fundamentals. Your time will be well spent.

Ken

[Elden]

Ken mentions sharpening an axe. Here is a link to "An Axe to Grind"  put out by USDA Forest Service.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=an%20axe%20to%20grind&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fs.fed.us%2Ft-d%2Fpubs%2Fpdfpubs%2Fpdf99232823%2Fpdf99232823Pdpi300.pdf&ei=nJlKVYOID8nEggSdxYGICw&usg=AFQjCNGY2a233TBsiGOyQSPGhDV0erePag&sig2=kcOBJ1R3D81KVy01QHF3Gg

It is a somewhat lengthy pdf file. It is interesting and has good information.

If it has been posted on the forum before, I apologize for doubling up. However, it does not hurt to mention good material more than once

[Herman Trivilino]

I have two comments on Ken's excellent post.

New Tormek users should be aware that a freshly trued grindstone will not perform properly when doing something like sharpening a knife with the grindstone prepared fine. The grindstone is too coarse at this point and the stone grader cannot prepare it to the fine 1000 grit state. I keep at least a couple of old dull chisels on hand for this occasion. The freshly trued grindstone will aggressively grind away at those chisels and get it ready so that the stone grader can be used to prepare it to the fine 1000 grit state.

The HK-50 will work not only for small knives, but large ones and anything in between. I now use the Tormek knife jig for other things such as lawn mower blades and other oddly shaped tools that won't sit flat on the HK-50 platform. The HK-50 requires the base of the scissors jig, which is a very useful jig in its own right. I'm always surprised at how many pairs of scissors there are in a house, work shop, or office. Everybody has at least a few dull pairs that need sharpening. They sit drawers unused because they are dull and nobody wants to throw them away.

[Ken S]

Elden, you have outdone yourself again! What a fascinating booklet. I even found what I believe is the pattern of my relic axehead, the New Jersey pattern. That would seem logical, as I am from New Jersey as was the man who gave me the axe. New Jersey had ironworks at the time of the Revolutionary War.  I will download it into ibooks on my iPad for future enjoyable fireside reading. Thanks for sharing.

Herman, you make a good point about the grinding wheel being coarse after truing. This is especially true if the truing is done quickly (see the handbook). This would seem an excellent match for a nicked chisel!

You are quite correct, the HK-50 is a very versatile tool. You are also correct that it works best with the scissors jig platform. I can speak with some authority on this having made two jigs using the Turlock platform jig. The Torlock is a nice jig for its intended purpose, sharpening turning scrapers, however, it has too high a center of gravity to work well with small knives.

Ideally, I would learn how to use the Tormek with the SE-76 jig and some mid range bench chisels. Once that has become fluent, one may choose either path with knives. There is no dead end choice.

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Ken

[Rob]

I never bought the scissor jig...is it any good?

[Herman Trivilino]

I never bought the scissor jig...is it any good?

It does the job. And it does it well. The only draw back, if it's even that, is that some scissors have a bevel angle that varies along the length of the blade, being more blunt at the pivot end. The Tormek system cannot duplicate this and one must choose a constant bevel angle along the entire length. I've never noticed a difference in the way this causes the scissors to perform, but I suppose it might make a difference to someone who uses scissors regularly.

I even use it to sharpen hedge trimmers. Do you have hedge trimmers on your side of the pond. I know you don't have lawns. You probably have shrub clippers or the like. 

[Rob]

Do you have hedge trimmers on your side of the pond. I know you don't have lawns. You probably have shrub clippers or the like. 

Amazingly Herman...plants also grow in England :-)

[Rob]

This for example is my garden (& house).  The green stuff is mostly lawn by the way. 

[Timberwright]

You're in London, Rob?  Wow, I lived in the UK for several years and I hardly remember seeing a
lawn like that -- except for estates like Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (the county I lived in).

Really beautiful!

[Herman Trivilino]

I was under the impression that it's the garden you mow, not the lawn.

[Ken S]

Rob, lovely lawn and home. Very best wishes. I would recommend the larger Tormek model for sharpening lawns that size.

Ken

ps Outstanding photo, too.

[jeffs55]

Ken, you may not know that I disagree with your suggestion that the T4 is a viable alternative to the T7. Here is the most dramatic reason that I can think of and I have noted it in the debate between the purchase of the two machines. I would say that the average user would have to dress his wheel maybe once a year or less. I would say a commercial sharpener would have to dress it twice a year and I am being conservative on the professional. I would say that the dressing would remove a millimeter or more stone but to be conservative again, I will say 1 mm. The nimrod only wears a little stone away as he sharpens three or four knives a few times so he uses another millimeter of stone sharpening. Since the nimrod may not dress his stone at all we will only charge him one millimeter of stone used per year. The pro uses a lot more stone, say a mere 4.5 millimeters plus the two for dressing and that is 6 1/2 mm per year. In four years he has used an inch. The stone on a T4 is 200 mm = 7.87 inches when 25.4 mm = one inch. The T7 uses a 250mm stone which is 9.84 inches using the same conversion. In the quote below that I asked Jeff Farris a few years ago, note his answer. At only 7 1/2 inches the stone is "awkward". Do the math and you will see that the usable life span for a properly sized stone on the T4 is not much at all. Only the most infrequent user of the T4 would get any appreciable life at all from his original stone. Even the T7 user in a commercial setting would get limited life according to Jeff Farris, not me. Although he did not say as much, he sure implied it.

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Re: how small of a grinding wheel have you used Jeff Farris

« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2011, 07:57:26 am »

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They become awkward under about 7-1/2 inches.




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Jeff Farris

[Ken S]

Jeff,

I recall the quote from Jeff Farris. I believe the awkwardness comes more from the smaller wheel being used in the same size housing. A full size (10" or 250mm) grinding wheel projects far enough above the housing to allow a lot of room for tool movement. The statement could also be rephrased to say that once a wheel has been ground down to 75% of its original diameter it becomes awkward.

The housing of the T4 is smaller than the T7. I would expect the 75% wear limit to remain a reasonable guide. In the case of a 250mm 8" wheel, a 75% remainder would be 150mm or 6".

Using your wear figures, a pro might expect to replace his SG-250 every ten years. (A busy pro might expect to replace it far more frequently than that. Steve Bottorff told me he averages around eighteen months per stone.) With the same math, a pro using a T4 might have to replace his SG-200 every eight years. Given the present replacement costs for the stones, $184 and $110 USD, the pro using the T4 would have a significant overhead advantage over the T7 pro.

One of the advantages of using the latest model truing jig and (especially) the microadjust universal support is being able to make very light truing cuts. I recall Jeff Farris (as well as the handbook) recommending more frequent, light truing cuts. As you know, you can hear, see and feel the truing diamond cutting the grinding wheel. initially the cut will be intermittent. Once the cut is continuous, that is all that is necessary. The net result after a year might be the same as one or two heavy truing sessions. The work should be more precise with more frequent lighter cuts.

I believe Jeff Farris' comment about the awkwardness of a 7 1/2" wheel on a T7 is accurate. I do not believe me meant any implications in that statement about the commercial life of a T4 stone.

Ken

[jeffs55]

I interpret awkward to mean that the smaller the wheel, the greater the "concavity" in the sharpened blade. That is my made up word. We all know that a round wheel as opposed to a square wheel will leave a "hollowed" out area just behind the cutting edge of the device being sharpened. Just messing with you there, we do not have any square wheels around here. The caveman realized rather quickly they did not work. But the radius of a 7 1/2" wheel is tighter than a 10" wheel and the area behind the cutting edge will therefore be so much thinner. So, the T4 user has only .37 inches or really a third of an inch of life in him. The T7 struggles along with 3 whole inches or almost 10 times the life. As I have previously stated, the one third and the three inches are not apples to apples comparisons. If you peel thousandths of an inch off radially, you will get millions more revolutions from the T7 wheel compared to the T4. What do you say?

[Ken S]

Jeff,

When I started comparing the T7 and T4, I purchased five Irwin Blue Chip "sharpening chisels". To compare the amount of hollow grinding between the two models I ground a fresh bevel on two chisels, one from each Tormek model. If I examine the two chisels very critically, I can notice a slight increase in the hollow grind of the T4. Using a straightedge helps. This difference is very slight.

If the real awkwardness was the hollow grind effect, the majority of shop grinders, including those with BGM-100, would be unusable. If the useful life of the SG-200 was only a third of an inch, In that case, Tormek would sell them in multiple packages, like razor blades. I believe your interpretation of "awkward" is mistaken.

I would expect the SG-250 to outlast the SG-200. It should; it costs almost twice as much as the SG-200.

I can accept that for a few particular operations the T7  may have an advantage over the T4. The example which comes to mind is large mortising and framing chisels. These can certainly be handled by the T4, but, given the choice, I would consider the T7 better suited.

Millions more rotations? Perhaps Stig can provide some test results from Tormek AB so that we can add some data to this debate.

Ken