Cleaning the T-8 Base

[jobewan]

Hi,

I am incredibly lucky to have a wife who absolutely loves to clean my shop.  She spends at least an hour or two vacuuming and wiping down surfaces etc after a shop day.  However one machine she cannot get to look as good as some of the others in the shop is the T-8.  It is only a couple of years old, but it shows water stains like crazy.  I promised her I would ask other users if they have any method or special cleaner they use on their T-8's?  Any help would be very appreciated.

2nd Question:  (Can you tell I have nothing to do at work?) - If I were to buy some parts to have on hand, for example a spare easy loock nut, or maybe a a second USB just to have on hand, is there anything you would recommend folks have a 2nd of?  Any part that you should be keeping a spare of? 

Thanks Folks.  Your help is invaluable.

Joe

[Ken S]

Joe,
Good questions. My suggestion for cleaning your Tormek is to give the outside a good deep clean whenever you clean and regrease your nylon bushings. This should be done at least annually. (If you are somewhat negligent about this, welcome to the club   
I normally remove my grinding wheel at the end of each sharpening session. This is probably overkill, however, making sure your water trough is clean and dry is just good practice. Make sure the area beneath your Tormek is left clean and dry. Same with the rotating base.

Spare parts? $500.00 US will give you a good supply of necessary spare parts. (Just kidding.) I recommend that you locate the website for the best source of spare parts in your country. Make a note of it in your handbook. In the US, this is Advanced Machinery (advmachinery.com). I suggest you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the parts section of Advanced Machinery, regardless of where you live. Advanced makes it easy to find the Tormek parts numbers. If you live outside the US, these numbers will make it easier to deal with your national parts distrubutor.
I would also check out your local hardware store, especially for M6 metric thread parts. This is the thread size that Tormek uses for its locking screws.
I have accumulated many Tormek and hardware store spare parts over the years. To be perfectly honest, I haven't used most of them.

Ken

[RickKrung]

How fortunate that your wife enjoys participating in your activities.  I hope she can accept that it just may not be possible to make the T8 look like new due to the staining, of both the machine case and the water trough.  I would advise to not try too hard/overdo it as damage could occur. 

As for spare parts, I do not see value in having a spare Easy-Loc nut (but I don't seen any harm and they must be relatively cheap), but I do see great value in having additional USBs.  I have about five, including on of the longer ones.  But, I have an FVB on which one of the USBs lives.  I also have set up a dry grinder with USBs and a belt grinder, so that is really the reason I have so many.  Without an FVB, I see value in having one USB in the vertical position and another in the horizontal, so that you don't have to switch a single one between positions and change the Micro-Adjust nut position.  If you get into precision angle control, I see value in having two Micro-Adjust nuts on each USB, one at the very top and one at the machine sleeve.  This allows one to precisely control parallelism of your height setting tools (eg. digital calipers, or in my case woodworker's marking gauge). 

I think more importantly, in addition to having spare USBs, is to get an FVB and, as your sharpening skills/activities increase, a BESS sharpness tester.  These are tools/accessories that actually improve your sharpening and are not "spare" parts.  I recommend devoting any money you have for putting into sharpening to these sorts of tools, rather than spare parts that may or may not contribute much. 

Rick

[John_B]

I don't even want to ask my wife if she would like to help clean my work area or my outside cooking area. We have over the years (49 so far) come to an agreement on who does what. As I have gotten older a third party, the contractor, has come into play.

The only spare parts I have is the new longer USB. The original is used for honing. What I like about this arrangement is that with a little care I can set a grinding and honing angle for knives and never have to adjust the USBs. The only time I move them now is if I want to grind at a different angle or use different jigs. Reading the posts here I cannot recall many where something failed. I think dropping the wheel is more common than parts failures.

[RickKrung]

I don't even want to ask my wife if she would like to help clean my work area or my outside cooking area. ...snip...

I don't either   We've been divorced for 47 yrs but are good friends.  She freely offers "suggestions" about how I could clean certain things better or differently but does not offer to do any of it

Rick

[jobewan]

Thank You Guys,

Hey Rick - what is an FVB (Front Vertical Base I am guessing)and where does one get such a thing?  I believe I have seen them in videos, bit dont know where they are sold.  If it doesn't cause a problem with the forum I would appreciate you letting me know.

I thank god every day to have a wife that is a cleaning maniac.  She is now approaching 60 years old and is still in perfect shape, and is a very good cook, and is, beyond all other things, my best friend.  We share a very unique sarcastic sense of humor, and enjoy each others company.  She is also a Woodworker - she entered the craft a little grudgingly, but now I come home and find her in the shop many days.  I am still in awe of her energy. I also love her more than I thought I was capable of.  I got very lucky!

JB

[John_B]

Thank You Guys,

Hey Rick - what is an FVB (Front Vertical Base I am guessing)and where does one get such a thing?  I believe I have seen them in videos, bit dont know where they are sold.  If it doesn't cause a problem with the forum I would appreciate you letting me know.

I thank god every day to have a wife that is a cleaning maniac.  She is now approaching 60 years old and is still in perfect shape, and is a very good cook, and is, beyond all other things, my best friend.  We share a very unique sarcastic sense of humor, and enjoy each others company.  She is also a Woodworker - she entered the craft a little grudgingly, but now I come home and find her in the shop many days.  I am still in awe of her energy. I also love her more than I thought I was capable of.  I got very lucky!

JB

You can order it here:
http://knifegrinders.com.au/11Shop.htm

Search this forum for dimensions if you have the tools to make it yourself.

[RickKrung]

...snip...
Hey Rick - what is an FVB (Front Vertical Base I am guessing)and where does one get such a thing?  I believe I have seen them in videos, bit dont know where they are sold.  If it doesn't cause a problem with the forum I would appreciate you letting me know.
...snip...

You can order it here:
http://knifegrinders.com.au/11Shop.htm

Search this forum for dimensions if you have the tools to make it yourself.

Yup, that is where one can buy the full meal deal that includes the angle setting software.  Wootz (username here) introduced it on the forum a couple years ago.  Search on his username and FVB and you should be able to find quite a bit of info on it.

It affords angle control during honing, from the horizontal position, that is not otherwise doable.  It also affords greater extension in the horizontal position for doing cleavers and such that are difficult to reach with the standard jigs.  I like it because it has two axes of adjustment.  I mount my laser pointer on a horizontal USB for when I am sharpening off of the vertical USB. 

The XB-100 is a vertical USB mounting accessory for bench grinders and the like.  I have used the FVB to set up my bench grinder for the same flexibility. 

You can make them yourself, but if you do, you must be careful to use the same dimensions as Wootz's if you want to use his software.  There are other software angle setting utilities available, and I am coming around to using the distance to the stone surface, rather than distance to the USB, for setting angles.  Frees one from caring what the FVB dimensions are as it only matters the "orientation" (distance) of the USB bar itself to the stone. 

As far as forum policies go, they aren't real clear, but I think the line should be somwhere around whether or not an item/accessory is available from Tormek or not.  If not, I think it should be okay to discuss it, as Tormek cannot provide that solution.  Pretty clear that way, to me at least.  Cannot say that I have adhered to that in the past (eg. Norton 3X standard grinding wheel for coarse grinding, Viel belt grinder), but that is how I regard it now. 

Rick

[Ken S]

Rick,

Regarding forum policies, our policies are generally common sense courtesy rather than l legalistic. I have probably promoted more non Tormek products over the years than anyone. My guidelines have been that a product must provide honest value and utility to Tormek users; that it does not compete with a Tormek product; and (recently) that a product being offered for sale should not be pirated from the inventor.

For many years, Tormek offered no CBN or diamond wheels, nor any wheel coarser than 220 grit. I was the first to recommend using the Norton 3X wheels, which provide very reasonably priced 46 and 80 grits. Although Wootz was the first member to post about using CBN wheels, I did a comprehensive evaluation about using them wet with a Tormek. Wootz recently posted that he would no longer be discussing CBN wheels on the forum, as Tormek was offering diamond wheels. I agree with this, although it has not been enforced.

Several computer assisted programs have been developed by forum members. Although none of these have originated or been endorsed by Tormek, I think they are all giant steps forward for knife sharpening.

I have mixed feelings about the FVB. I purchased one from Knife Grinders and have found it a useful tool. I think Wootz has been very generous in helping others built their own units. I have no problem with this. What I do have a problem with is anyone stealing the idea and offering them for sale. I have encountered this on another chat group and posted that while it was legal, in my opinion, it was unethical. I feel strongly about this. I hope attempting to sell pirated copies never surfaces on this forum. It might or not be prohibited, however, I would certainly not hesitate to state my opinions about the ethics of stealing revenue from the legitimate inventor.

I have no problem with honest discussion. This is a learning forum. Just, please, let's keep it non commercial.

Ken

[RickKrung]

Rick,

Regarding forum policies, our policies are generally common sense courtesy rather than l legalistic. ......snip...
Ken

I would have thought you would address this generally to the forum, than to me personally. 

Rick

[Ken S]

Rick,
I did not intend to single you out. If I had wanted to address it to you, I would have sent you an email.
I meant it only as a response to your question in your last reply.
I apologize if I offended you.
Ken

[RickKrung]

Ken,

You didn't offend me   I was just musing.  I know you would have sent me something offline. 

Rick