grinding wheel measurements

[Ken S]

One of the major complications of calculating knife bevel angles is dealing with different diameter grinding wheels. I have a theory as to how this difficulty surfaced. We have always had gradual wheel wear. That is just part of sharpening; it is not just a Tormek problem. The problem arose when we started using multiple grinding wheels. In my opinion, the problem was compounded when we started using non Tormek grinding wheels. I am not criticizing these wheels themselves, just their outside diameters. I have believed for a long time that this problem was caused by a vendor ordering "ten inch wheels" instead of 250mm. This resulted in oversized wheels. I posted this on the forum in 2017. Here is the link to the topic. See my reply #6:

https://forum.tormek.com/index.php?topic=3344.0

Here is supporting evidence I located today:

"Why this is so has always been a mystery to us at Fine Tools, but what may have happened is that the first person to think of using a Japanese water stone on a Tormek grinder was American or English, and told the manufacturer "Make me a 10-inch stone." So now we get stones 254 mm in diameter. As I said, I am not sure that this is what happened, but in any case, we just have to live with it."

I believe this will gradually become less of a problem with the increasing use of diamond and CBN wheels which maintain a constant diameter.

We have a related complication. The Tormek is a metric machine. Some countries, including my country, the US, use different measurements in day to day use. While the official US measurements are metric, most of us use US Customary measurement in our daily lives.

I will try to make things a small bit clearer. From now on, I will use only metric measurements in my posts. I am speaking as a forum member, not as the moderator. Others are certainly free to post with their preferred measurements.

Ken