Wet grinder

[McAvoyandball]

We are a couple mosaic artisans using large ceramic tiles and we would like to use one of your wet grinders to aid us in smoothing the edges of our cut tiles,we cut lots of curved shapes and we were hoping that a wet grinder with a profiled wet stone would help in achieving a smoother finnish, is this a possibility.

[Herman Trivilino]

The Tormek grindstone is cylindrical in shape. Profiled shapes are not available. You'd have to make them.

[Ken S]

Welcome to the forum, Stephen. Normally, if something can be done with the tormek, one would find a "Tormek Friends" video on Tormek's website (the same website as this forum) showing a craftsperson happily performing that grinding operation with the Tormek. However, not having a video showing someone smoothing cut mosaic tiles does not necessarily mean that this work can not be done with the Tormek. The situation might be that the work cannot be done with the Tormek. It also might be that no one has thought of doing it before you.

As Herman pointed out, you might need to shape your own grinding wheel(s). We routinely use a diamond truing tool to keep the grinding wheel straight and flat. A similar diamond tool could be used to create a profile on the wheel.

Unfortunately, the factory in Sweden is closed on holiday until August 4. When it reopens someone there might be able to assist you.

In the meantime, If you happen to live near a Tormek dealer, I would suggest you call ahead and see if you might be allowed to try using the store's demonstrator unit. Take some mosaic tile samples with you and see how the Tormek works with the tiles. You will know within a very few minutes if the Tormek with its standard wheel will do the job or not. Once you know that, you can concentrate on shaping the grinding wheel.

Good luck and do keep us posted.

Ken

[Jan]

In my thinking, Tormek in its standard configuration, is not suitable for smoothing the curved edges of your cut tiles. The Tormek grindstone is 2" (T7) or 1 5/8" (T4) wide. Inside curves can be grinded only using the corner of the grindstone, which would result in an intense wear of the expensive grindstone.

I have good experience with cutting steel using the abrasive waterjet cutting technology.
http://forum.tormek.com/index.php?topic=2438.msg12486#new

I am sure abrasive waterjet will cut your tiles as well.  Using this technology you can easy create irregular complementary shapes and work inside large tiles. No edge smoothing is necessary. The width of your joints in the mosaic will be the same.

[McAvoyandball]

Thank you for your feed back guys it is very much appreciated.I will keep you updated with any progress we make on our wet grinder tile smoothing experiment.
If anybody is interested you can see our work on Mcavoyandball. Com.

Thanks Steve ball

[Ken S]

Very nice website, Steve.

I think the Tormek could be useful for smoothing convex and straight shapes. Concave surfaces might be more challenging. However, a new DVD, Sharpening School shows concave knife edges being sharpened with the Tormek and the standard straight grinding wheel. That makes me think that gently concave surfaces might be doable.

The question is: How well can the Tormek wheel cut your ceramic tiles? Doing a test with an aluminum oxide water stone would give an approximation.Using a dealer's demo Tormek would be a better test, if possible.

Even if the Tormek could not handle all the concave edge smoothing with the standard shape grinding wheel, being able to quickly smooth the convex and straight edges will would be a good boost to your productivity. I think it would be worth a try.

Please keep us posted.

Ken

[Jan]

Thank you for your feed back guys it is very much appreciated.I will keep you updated with any progress we make on our wet grinder tile smoothing experiment.
If anybody is interested you can see our work on Mcavoyandball. Com.

Thanks Steve ball

Really nice mosaics, Steve! 
My favourite is your lizard shown below.



Jan