Tormek for primary bevels

[BrianB]

Howdy folks. Thanks for letting me join the forum.

I'm considering adding a Tormek to my shop. I'm a woodworker. I am looking at the Tormek for regrinding primary bevels on chisels and plane irons. I will not use it for actual honing.  I am quite happy and efficient with honing on my waterstones.  As you know, after a while,  microbevels grow pretty large and the primary bevels needs to be reground. I have been doing this on a diamond plate but it is very slow going, and I don't want to put the wear on my diamond plate.

For this purpose only, primary bevels, I am trying to decide if the Tormek is a better machine than a slow speed grinder with an 80 grit CBN wheel.

After a lot of research I have the following concerns:
Even with the square edge jig, it can be fiddly to get a square edge on the Tormek
Tormek stone needs to be dressed, requiring a $100 tool on top of the kit
Some say the Tormek takes a very long time to regrind a primary bevel, say on a 2 3/8" wide plane iron
It seems like a very expensive overkill for use only to grind primary bevels

I have used a slow grinder with CBN wheel at a friend's shop to do a few primary bevels on plane irons as a test.  I found it very easy to get a square edge, quickly, without burning the steel.  Obviously some Kentucky windage and a light touch are required.  To me it seems the only advantage to the Tormek for me would be that there is no chance of burning the steel.

I am asking for input on this.  How long would it take on a Tormek to take a plane iron with a primary bevel ground at 30 and regrind that to 25?  Does anybody have any advice for me regarding this decision?  Thank you

[jeffs55]

I have no experience in what you are doing. I do have experience in just setting up a Tormek to sharpen a knife or a chisel. Reestablishing a bevel is the same thing only different isn't it? Anyway, you are talking inefficiency in this. Just setting up is a pain. You have to set the angle, fill the trough, grind and hone (you have to hone somewhere even if not on the Tormek) which would make the most sense since it is right in front of you. Then you have to at some point down the road to either grade and or true the stone. After all that you have to empty the water trough which takes me all of  a few seconds but some take longer. After you do all that you have a concave bevel rather than a flat ground bevel which even though it is miniscule just does not appeal to me. Get a belt grinder and make a flat ground bevel. IF you insist on using a Tormek for just this purpose, get the T4. Which will make an even more concave bevel but costs a lot less. Can you tell that I would not do this?

[BrianB]

Thank you for your insight Jeff. It is very helpful.

Yes, it would be the same as sharpening. But I would need to grind quite a bit longer to essentially change the angle of the whole bevel. My main concern is, how long would the actual grinding take to do so?

I would leave the machine set at 25 degrees all the time
 

[Ken S]

Welcome to the forum, Brian.

I would present a different opinion. If you are certain that you will use a Tormek only for reshaping primary bevels on chisels and planes, I would recommend dealing with a dealer like Advanced Machinery which will sell stripped Tormeks. Here is a link:

https://advanced-machinery.myshopify.com/pages/create-your-own-t-8-stripped-package

Other dealers may offer this service. I would start with advanced to get an idea of price. All you really need for grinding primary bevels with planes and chisels is the stripped down unit, the US-105 universal support bar, the SE-77 Square Edge Jig, and the Anglemaster. You won't need the leather honing wheel, DVD, or handbook.

I would suggest either the Tormek DC-250 coarse diamond wheel or an 80 or 160 grit CBN wheel from Knife Grinders. The diamond wheel is designed to work with diluted Anti Corrosion Concentrate. The Knife Grinders CBN wheel is designed to be used with plain water. I would avoid CBN wheels which have to be used dry. That defeats one of the best features of the Tormek, dust free grinding.

If you use the Diamond or CBN wheel, you will not need either the "hundred dollar" truing tool or the stone grader.

At this time, there are no good diamond or CBN choices for the T4 which can be used wet.

I would include the caution that this stripped down choice may not be the most economical choice if you later decide to use the Tormek for other purposes.

Like you, for many years I used oil and water bench stones for honing (and sharpening). Since I started using my Tormek, I have not used them. I used to sharpen with microbevels, something unnecessary with the Tormek. Used skillfully, I think the SG-250 and leather honing wheel with PA-70 yield very adequately sharp edges.

Fiddly square edges with a Tormek? Good technique and practice go a long way in reducing this. So do your Kentucky windage and a light touch.

Regular grinding wheels (all regular grinding wheels, not just for Tormek) need to be dressed. My DMT diamond flat plate cost twice what a Tormek TT-50 costs. And, it does wear out. With the TT-50, a replacement diamond cluster, around $50US, gets you like new, should you ever wear out the original.

How long is "a long time"?  The Tormek is primarily designed for resharpening rather than reshaping. Reshaping is not as fast as a higher speed grinder, however, how often do you reshape rather than resharpen? My#7 jointer plane has a 2 3/8" wide blade. With the SE-77, I can grind a controlled amount of camber evenly. My bench planes are 1909 vintage Stanley Bedrocks. They have thinner blades than today's premium planes. I have never ground a thicker blade.

If your 30° bevels are with A2 steel blades, are you sure you want to reshape them? Vendors like Lie-Nielsen recommend 30°.

Yes, a Tormek may be overkill for just primary bevels on chisels and planes. However, these barely scratch the surface of the Tormek's versatility.

Ken

[jvh]

Hello,

interesting questions but quite hard to answer. I will add a few notes to think about, the decision is up to you...

IMHO:

I will not use it for actual honing.

Tormek is good on that and results are very consistent. If you won't use it for honing (eg. on initial grind), you will waste a lot of money and you will not use all its potential.

I am quite happy and efficient with honing on my waterstones.

You can still use them, paradoxically the hollow grind can give you an advantage in this, because you do not need to lift the blade so much when regrinding on a flat stone, because there is no material in the middle and you can keep the original angle of the blade longer time.

I have been doing this on a diamond plate but it is very slow going, and I don't want to put the wear on my diamond plate.
For this purpose only, primary bevels, I am trying to decide if the Tormek is a better machine than a slow speed grinder with an 80 grit CBN wheel.

It depends on used stone. It's not fast with standard SG stone, especially when grinding plane irons from HSS or other high quality steel. It will be much better with coarse diamond or CBN wheels but they are not very cheap. In any case, I think that even grinding with a base wheel will be easier and faster than by hand on a flat stone.

Even with the square edge jig, it can be fiddly to get a square edge on the Tormek

SE-77 jig has two small adjustment screws, there is no problem to correct angle and get a square edge.

Tormek stone needs to be dressed, requiring a $100 tool on top of the kit

TT-50 truing tool is included in T-8 delivery. You can use also diamond plate in SE-77 jig for truing and dressing, details are here on the forum.

Some say the Tormek takes a very long time to regrind a primary bevel, say on a 2 3/8" wide plane iron.

See above, grinding such wide plane iron needs time. Belt grinder will be much faster, slow speed grinder with an 80 grit CBN wheel too (with all they pros and cons).

It seems like a very expensive overkill for use only to grind primary bevels.

I agree, but if you can use it also for other purposes (carving tools, chisels, knives, garden tools, etc.), it can be good investment.

How long would it take on a Tormek to take a plane iron with a primary bevel ground at 30 and regrind that to 25?

Hard to answer, see above. The problem is that it is not designed as machine for one-time removal of large amounts of material. The main advantage is consistency and repeatability during grinding the same tool. Then its fast.


jvh

[Ukfraser]

Im still learning /researching but 2 things that strike me about this thread

1) if you take ken's suggestion about a diamond stone and are worried by the concave grind, adding the mb-100 multi base would enable you to get a flat angle using the side of the stone.

2) are you planning to take your blades right back to 25 deg and then add the second angle or are you just trying to reduce the amount of material above the second bevel?

Watching the video on some "finger nail"? wood turning gouges, they are taking material off at a less steep angle after the principle sharpening angle so surely the amount you are removing will vary on each blade and so getting times will vary considerably.

I am currently considering my approach as i notice that some of my chisels and plane blades  have a rather long second angle and am currently planning on just reducing the amount of material for the first bevel, rather than taking it right backand then building up. So would value comment from other forum members on this approach. (Im referring to the principle, not to the gouge tool jig.)

[BrianB]

Thanks for all the advice gentlemen.

Ken, I did not know the packages were available piecemeal. I am going to look into this further. Regarding how long a "long time" is, it took me about 3 or 4 minutes to carefully regrind a plane iron on my friend's CBN wheel, and that was my first time doing so.  So I would say anything approaching 10 minutes of actual grinding time is a "long time".

All my planes are Lie Nielsen or Stanley with thick Hock A2 irons.  I have a few PMV11 tools also.  I do need to regrind them back to 25 fairly regularly, as the 30 microbevel grows too large.  Once they are reground to 25, I start over with my 27-30 microbevels.

I completely understand that I would be underutilizing the Tormek with my planned use. I just don't think the Tormek can match the speed or quality of edge I get on waterstones.  It takes me less than 60 seconds to put a new edge on a plane iron on my Shapton 16000 stone. And that edge is the sharpest edge I can imagine creating. I have a permanent sharpening setup that is always on the bench.  There is no setup, cleanup, etc.  However, I don't want it to sound like I'm on a production line and every second counts. That couldn't be further from the truth. I just don't want to be standing at a machine for say 10-15 minutes vs the 3 or 4 minutes I experienced on a CBN wheel.

I was also considering an advantage for the Tormek is sharpening planer and jointer knives. I've read some horror stories about that on this forum and will need to research further.  For those, I have a system in place using a Deulen jig, where I get all 3 knives shaving sharp in about 15 minutes. I don't know if the Tormek can help me there, I was just trying to justify adding the Tormek to the shop.

I think after all the research I've done, at this point I've learned that if I chose a Tormek, I would buy it piecemeal and use a CBN wheel on it.  I'm hopeful that somebody can tell me how long it takes to do the actual grinding to change the angle on a plane iron with the standard Tormek wheel, because I do see the utility of being able to sharpen other things with the Tormek and would be willing to pay for that if grinding primary bevels is efficient on the standard wheel.

Men, thanks so much for all the advice so far!

[Dakotapix]

Tormek makes a device that can be adapted to a dry grinder that allows you to use their various jigs on that grinder. It is the BMG-100. Here's a link to an Australian woodworker who is well known on the various forums. His name is Derek Cohen.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/WoodworkTechniques/UltimateGrindingSharpeningSetUp.html

He essentially uses the BMG-100 with the SE-77 (or SE-76) square edge jig to prepare the hollow grind he likes. His photos pretty well show his setup. He does not use a Tormek any longer but, instead, does all his finish honing on stones.

[RichColvin]

Brian,

Mike Pekovich at Fine Woodworking is an advocate for using the Tormek to sharpen chisels and plane blades for the primary grind and water stones for the secondary grind.  And Mike is an excellent woodworker whose opinion I value.

But consider that you will be sharpening other tools and water stones may not be needed.  You can use the base Tormek system to sharpen wood carving and wood turning tools.  At most, you may consider using the Japanese grindstone.

And sharpening drill bits is something to also consider.  There are those who advocate buying new brad point bits when the old ones wear out.  I find that to be wasteful and unnecessary.  It is also a bad approach for woods which have tearful problems.  Sharpening a bit to a very fine sharpness makes drilling holes in burls especially more pleasant.  And a sharp bit is less likely to cause heat problems in very hard woods like ebony.

So adding a Tormek to your tool bag will be a useful investment that you will find worthwhile.

Good luck,
Rich

[Ken S]

Rich,

I have no doubt that Mike Pekovich's method will produce fine edges. I used bench stones myself for many years.
I would say that it is not the only good method. Using secondary micro bevels is a logical expedient for reducing the manual labor in using bench stones. Using a Tormek, the electrically powered Tormek handles the labor, not the sharpener. I don't see the need for secondary bevels when using a Tormek.

On a practical level, the wood doesn't know if a sharp edge was produced by a Tormek+ bench stones or all done by a Tormek. Both methods will achieve the intended purpose. I think the real key for sharp edges is stopping to resharpen when the first sign of dulling appears rather than by soldiering on with a dull tool.

I believe the well trained woodworker should be fluent with both methods, and work with whichever best suits his needs and preference for the task at hand. The decision should not be totally either or.

Ken

[BrianB]

Thanks again for all the advice. I decided the slow speed grinder with CBN wheel is the most efficient tool for what I need to do.  I did learn a lot from you all on this forum!

[Ken S]

Brian,
When you finally "see the light", we will still be here and welcoming. Just kidding.Enjoy your low speed grinder and don't be a stranger.
Ken

[RichColvin]

Rich,

I have no doubt that Mike Pekovich's method will produce fine edges. I used bench stones myself for many years.
I would say that it is not the only good method. Using secondary micro bevels is a logical expedient for reducing the manual labor in using bench stones. Using a Tormek, the electrically powered Tormek handles the labor, not the sharpener. I don't see the need for secondary bevels when using a Tormek.

On a practical level, the wood doesn't know if a sharp edge was produced by a Tormek+ bench stones or all done by a Tormek. Both methods will achieve the intended purpose. I think the real key for sharp edges is stopping to resharpen when the first sign of dulling appears rather than by soldiering on with a dull tool.

I believe the well trained woodworker should be fluent with both methods, and work with whichever best suits his needs and preference for the task at hand. The decision should not be totally either or.

Ken

Agree