Rapid stone grader wear

[Herman Trivilino]

Almost all of my lathe tools are HSS and I used light to moderate pressure on them but even with light pressure they developed grooves very quickly and before I could grade the stone to 1000 grit I had to resurface it to get a uniform surface on the stone.  The stones also cut extremely slow.

A lot has been posted here about the poor performance when reshaping HSS turning tools. Rob in particular found that the BGM-100 kit and a dry grinder worked better, but then found that a lanisher type machine worked even better.

I also found that the new stone grader already shows wear so it will not last long.

The fine side will quickly develop a concave shape, but this actually works to advantage as it adds more contact surface. Mine has been like this for over a decade.

I used little oil on the new wheel and finally after 25 years or so got a razor sharp edge.

Tormek excels at placing razor sharp edges on knives, chisels, and lots of other things. I can quickly sharpen every knife in my kitchen, and i only have to do it about twice a year.

Maybe it is the translation between Swedish and English but "impregnate with oil" means get the leather full of oil and that is exactly what you should not do.

Even if a honing wheel is over oiled it is not ruined. The excess oil can be scraped off and lifted out of the leather with repeated application of compound, use, and more scraping. Mine was over oiled but now works fine. Again, it's been in service for well over a decade.

One of the problems with Tormek is a lack of good training materials, but that is true of every tool I can think of. Even something as simple as a hammer! YouTube is quickly solving these problems.