A month with my new T8

[brianchin10]

I ordered a T8 before Thanksgiving after discussing the pros / cons with some forum members. After a month of real-world use I have a few questions as well as observations that might be of interest to the forum. I'm posting in the general section because this will cover both hand tools and knives.

Overall Impressions:
• Originally I only wanted something to sharpening knives with, but I have to admit, using the T8 for sharpening my hand tools has been a great pleasure as well. I haven't replaced my water stones, but am using the T8 before polishing with my finest stones / lapping paper. I will say that for the first time in many years are all my plane blades are sharp, properly cambered, and ready for use — and that's saying something.
• Portability was a consideration. I've found that walking from the parking lot to the soup kitchen to sharpening knives y holding the top handle (with the grinding wheel attached) is very manageable. I have the jigs in a pocket. The top handle does seem a bit flimsy, though, and I wonder how long it'll hold up. It seems to rotate a bit, so perhaps there is a nut inside the machine I can get to to re-tighten.
• My honing wheel is a bit out of true, but could be due to the leather. There is a noticeable "bump" each time the seam goes past. It doesn't affect performance. I'm still unsure exactly how/when to apply the honing compound. At this point the leather is jet black from polishing steel and any additional compound just seems to build up on the tool itself without absorbing into the leather. Perhaps I'm already fully saturated. Does anyone know what "grit" the honing compound is?
• I love truing the stone and do it frequently (probably too frequently). I worry that by using the side of the stone for chisel backs / plane irons I'm imparting a small amount of wear that cannot be trued. I try to use as much of the side of the stone as possible, but often the center of the stone does not have as much water present as I like to run the stone in a small amount of water to decrease spillage. For this I sometimes add a spritz of water from a bottle. I'm sure in practice the wear on the side of the stone will be negligible, but I might consider the diamond stone after I wear the SG out.
• I keep the T8 in a plastic tray. This keeps the water in, and allows me to easily swivel the whole tray on whatever surface I'm on.

Knife-Specific Impressions:
• This is a great general purpose knife sharpening tool!
• My productivity sharpening soup kitchen knives has gone from 4-5/hr with water stones to over 12/hr and I can sharpen heavily damaged blades as well.
• Plus it's a great conversation starter with the other volunteers. I'm sure I'll get even faster.
• The limitations are with larger knives / cleavers. The universal support is not tall enough to handle larger knives, even with the knife jig screwed all the way in.
• I do not have the small knife jig, but was able to free hand my sloyd carving knives just fine. Not sure I will get/need the small knife jig. Not sure I will get/need the long knife jig either, but maybe I'll come across something that is very flexible that'll require it.

Hand Tool-Specific Impressions:
• As I stated above, I did not think I was going to want to use the T8 for hand tool sharpening, but boy was I wrong.
• The SE-77 is a great jig for putting camber on plane irons and keeping them square when you don't want camber. If you are cambering, the blade must be centered in the jig, not registered on the square edge. If you are grinding square, you have to fiddle with the camber set screws to ensure that your tool is grinding square to the edge — simply lining up the marks on the jig isn't exact enough.
• I've put small white marks on the camber set screws so I can ensure that I'm rotating them both the same amount. It's also easy to accidentally rotate one or both of them in use as your hand touches the screws in the natural holding position. Will need to adjust how I hold the jig, but the marks are easy indicators that I've moved them. 
• Again, the universal support is not tall or long enough. When grinding a smaller chisel bevel, the SE-77 slides off the support bar before the tool can touch all parts of the stone. An extra inch or two would have been appreciated.
• I have the tool rest as well, which I've found doesn't work as well in the horizontal position because the stone is pulling the tool up and off the tool rest, unlike a traditional bench grinder. When grinding a skew rabbit plane iron, I first tried the tool rest, but then ended up mounting it in the SE-77 at the correct angle. The tool kept coming off the tool rest in the horizontal position. 
• When honing backs of chisels or plane blades, I found that putting a small spirit level on top of the tool and then sighting directly above the honing wheel I can ensure that the tool is perfectly tangential to the honing wheel. I put a mark on the Tormek body in line with the spindle so that I know the edge of the tool is right at 12 o'clock when I'm looking down at it.

OK I think that's it — for now. Hope that someone found it helpful/interesting. Either way, have a Happy (and Sharper) New Year all!

[Ken S]

Brian,

Well done! You are off to a good start with your new T8. You have also done a fine job with your very informative post.

I am pleased to find another member who enjoys frequent, light truing. After thirty five years of repairing telephone voice and data circuits, trouble shooting is deeply imbedded in my thinking process. Having a properly trued wheel is one of those things which eliminates a lot of "gremlins". I actually find the process of peacefully truing my grinding wheel with very light passes relaxing. Seeing, hearing, and feeling the high spots gradually being made concentric makes me feel mentally centered.

Unlike the many knife sharpeners on the forum, my first sharpening love has always been chisels and plane irons. This goes back on and off to the early 1960s and oilstones. I still have my old oilstones and Norton water stones, however, I have hardly used them since purchasing my T7 in 2009. I grumbled about cambering my plane irons (blades) with the SE-76 for several years, wondering why Tormek did not make a square edge jig with controlled camber. I have been an enthusiastic user of the SE-77 since it was introduced.

For those who do not understand plane blade cambering, it is grinding the edge at a slight radius. On a basic level, this, like rounding the corners of the blade, eliminates the distinct "plane tracks" left on the wood by the corners of the blade. On a more sophisticated level, the amount of arc in cambering controls the amount of cutting depth. A jack plane used for the initial flattening or straightening of a board would have more camber to allow deeper cuts. For this rough work, a blade might have camber with an arc of 1/32" or more. A long jointer plane used to match glue joint edges would have considerably less arc, perhaps .005". A smoothing plane used for the final planing would have an arc of around .001" for very fine shavings. The amount of camber is determined by how much wood needs to be removed.

Back to you, Brian: Tormek correctly surmises that the controlled camber crowd is much smaller than chisel sharpeners having trouble getting square edges. Therefore, marketing has emphasized the squareness adjusting feature of the SE-77 and barely mentioned the controlled camber feature. I hope more chisel sharpeners will evolve into using camber on their bench plane irons.

You should look into the US-430 extended length and height Universal Support Bar. This very recent offering evolved from the US-400 extended length support bar. It was originally used on the now discontinued T4000 specialty machine for knives (an ancestor of the T2). Forum members generated enough interest for Tormek to do a limited production run of the US-400, which sold out very quickly. When Tormek was considering another production run, I suggested adding more height. Tormek incorporated 50mm more height onto the two vertical legs of the new US-430 version. It now handles cleavers very nicely with the SVM-45 knife jig, as well as longer knives. If you are interested, I would suggest not waiting. I do not know how many of these Tormek is making or if they will continue after this run is sold out. I also do not know how many dealers will stock the US-430. I suspect not many as it is a very specialized accessory. I know that Advanced Machinery (advmachinery.com) in the US carries it. It also makes a very useful second support bar.

Three thoughts on plane and chisel backs:
If you are not already using it, do an online search for "david Charlesworth ruler trick". This is a major time and labor saver. EDIT: I neglected to mention that the ruler trick applies only to plane irons, not chisels as quite correctly noted by Mike. Thanks, Mike.

Ernie Conover uses a very fine ceramic stone to deburr the backs of chisels. This allows you to go back and forth with the leather honing wheel without removing the chisel from the jig. I also believe it can greatly reduce the possibility of rounding over the edge.

Third, for any future chisel purchases, buy fewer but high quality chisels like Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, or Blue Spruce. They should only need a few passes over your 8000 grit stone for polish. For existing chisels, if the backs are concave, I would only work on them enough to make the two ends and side to side coplaner. I wouldn't worry about a slight gap in the middle. I prefer to do this with a flattened water stone or abrasive paper on a glass plate. On a favorite old chisel, I have removed most of a belly (convex back) using the circumference of my Tormek wheel) and finishing up with my water stone or glass plate.

I am already too long. Keep up the good work and keep posting!

Ken

[MagneO]

Brian,

in the manual (the swedish one we get in Norway at least) it is stated on page 46 (last page before description of the jigs) that if there is a bump in the honing wheel at the leather strop joint it can be sanded away with ordinary sandpaper using a wooden sanding block. I am also new to this so I lurk around the forum a lot, seems to be a very good forum.

Regards, Magne

[brianchin10]

Ken - Thanks for the suggestion on the US-430. I've placed a back-order and will look forward to seeing how it will alleviate some of the issues vs. the standard support rod.

All of my chisels are Lie-Nielsen (I'm from Maine after all!) and the backs are polished on 13,000 water stone, followed by lapping paper from 9 micron down to .3 micron on a granite block. Truly mirror finish!

For plane irons, I have been sharpening using the ruler trick for many years and enjoy how simple-yet-effective it is. Pre-T8 I would also camber my plane irons using David Charlesworth's plastic shim trick to raise up one side of the plane iron on the stone and focus the sharpening on the opposite corner.

I find it interesting that you are quantifying the camber by the arc measurement — which I gather to be the distance between the line that intersects the two corners of the blade and the parallel line that is tangent to the arc in the center of the blade. In the past, I've always measured camber by the radius of circle that the arc subtends. E.g.: an 8" radius would result in more camber (tighter circle) than a 10" radius. If I am feeling particularly brainy, I'll see if there is a relation between this measurement and the camber set screws on the SE-77 — if, for example, two full turns of the camber set screws result in a repeatable camber measurement. Perhaps it depends on blade width and protrusion... Will put my thinking cap on.

Magne - Thank you for that bit of info! I'll se if I can't smooth out the leather with that advice.

[MikeK]

Three thoughts on plane and chisel backs:
If you are not already using it, do an online search for "david Charlesworth ruler trick". This is a major time and labor saver.

Great advice, but one small correction...the ruler trick is never done on chisels...only plane irons.  I've taken two one-week courses from David at his north Devon workshop, with two more scheduled for this Spring, and he stresses repeatedly not to put a micro bevel on the back of a chisel.

[Ken S]

Correct, Mike.Actually I knew that, but neglcted to include it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Ken

[Ken S]

Brian,
Please be sure to post your impressions at various intervals. I think this would ve useful for other new users and those still in the "considering a Tormek" stage, especially if you compare your thoughts with those you had at the beginning.

Keep up the good work!

Ken

[brianchin10]

Will do, Ken.


Once the US-430 comes, I will post an update with impressions. Thanks for the support!


BRIAN

[Sgian Dubh]

Thanks for starting the thread Brian and good to read your feedback.

I'm now about a month in to ownership of a T8 and I rate it very highly. There is a lot to enjoy in the initial familiarisation process and the overall learning curve is a very satisfying journey. I love the practicality and versatility of the system. It's also very consistent and precise.

So far I've sharpened chisels; all manner of knives; axes; scissors and gardening shears. I have confidence in the T8 and it makes sharpening fun too.

Does anyone else get fascinated by looking at the contents of the water trough at the end of a sharpening session? It's as if I expect to find gold in the slurry or something!

The only improvement I'd suggest so far is extending the clearance of the water trough from the grindstone. It's annoying when you handle the water trough carefully, but it still gets its plastic ground away sometimes.

If you're still at the 'considering a Tormek stage', then I suggest they are very hard to beat. I did a lot of research on many different systems before buying a T8. I'm so glad I spent my money on Tormek. I trust my instincts and a few days in to my research they were saying "Get a T8!" I did lots more research for weeks whilst kinda knowing all along what the outcome was going to be.

[Ornias]

While the T8 is a great machine, Tormek is very good at one thing:
Saving in manufacturing costs while still keeping a great quality end-product.

Thats not a complaint at all, just a fact based on the design of 20+ years of tormeks.
Take for example tormeks Prior to the T8, they consisted of 3 parts:
- 1 big plate in which they drill holes for both the frame and the top bracket for the axles. (those get cut out and bend into the right shape)
- 1 L Profile, from which they cut 2 pieces
- 1 U profile from which they cut 2 pieces
These pieces get some welds and thats the (unpainted) frame. (The welding quality of the S2000 and earlier is ABYSMAL btw, thats not welding thats a monkey with a welder.)

This proces is extremely easy and extremely cheap. Having completely teared down my S2000 I can make a diagram for a machinist friend from which he can make 10 frames an hour.

Okey now ontopic:
The T8 saves in manufacturing costs even more, All parts that are now part of the cast-zinc where previously made seperatly and where relatively expensive.
While Cast Zinc isn't cheaper than plate steel in itself, it doesn't require those seperate parts and doesn't require welding. This leads to a reduction in labor costs at the costs of a slightly more expensive material.
Simply put: Screw and put-together monkeys are cheaper than welding monkeys.

However, it has a downside:
- Cast zinc is softer (even their alloy)
- Cast zinc is harder to weld

Thus screw threading might wear out after years of use, without an easy way to fix it.
By combining parts into one, they made it harder for me to repair those parts seperately.
For the steel version I could even head to any decent machinist and ask him to make me a new frame, not so much with the T8.

The plastic sides are also something i'm not that keen on. I don't want plastic in my long term investments if I can help it. Certainly not plastic side panels (which again are a cost saving because they are INSANELY cheap to manufacture)

I don't like their manufacturing cost restructuring is being sold as an "improvement", it isn't. Its just a different (cheaper) proces to increase the profit margin. Yeah zinc doesn't rust the way steel does, but that's not the underlaying reason for the change in manufacturing process. I totally understand why they wanted to get rid of the welding monkeys and from a bussiness perspective I understand and agree with their choices. But the marketing is just that: Marketing.

So: Personally I would hold off on the T8 till the durability of the zinc has been proven for about 8-10 years.
It isn't a bad product (its a great product), But I wanted to play devils advocate and counter the "just get a T8" argument being made.

The T8 ALSO has arguments to be made against it. Everything does.