Tormek T1 - am I expecting too much?

[AJB Temple]

New member here.  Adrian.  I'm a chef in our small fine dining restaurant.  Lifelong knife enthusiast: Japanese single bevel sourced direct from maker's workshops in Japan (all Carbon), several more western J knives - double bevel. mostly VG10 variants (eg Misono etc) and my much older German knives, mostly Gustav Emil Ern but a few others as well. Sharpening hitherto has been Naniwa stones up to about 20,000 grit, splash and go, impregnated leather strops. 

Bought T1 which arrived yesterday.  Disappointing.  I started off with a Japanese SS knife that was pretty blunt and I wanted to profile to about 12 degrees each side. I must have spent an hour on this and despite using marker and lens, I can't seem to get a burr. It seems very close but a burr does not form very well, and then if I use the honing wheel the knife is dulled.  It comes back a bit if I hand strop. 

T1 is MUCH slower than I expected.  Is this normal?

Second question.  I'm right handed and my best knives, especially several Yanagibas etc, are single bevel carbon - no bevel (maybe a micr bevel) on the left face.  The T1 requires me to go in from the back to rin these through and grinds a tad unevenly.  It is easy to catch the horn on the wheel. Any brilliant ideas?

I only really got the T1 to deal with the German knives and maybe a bit of angle change here and there.  The premium knives rarely see anything other than an 8000 Naniwa and the strop and they are razor sharp.

It's a bit awkward with butchery boning knives as well - hard to get to the very end closest to the handle without the grind looking a bit rough.   

Final question - is there a method for doing Chinese cleavers. 

Many thanks. Adrian

[tgbto]

Hi Adrian, and welcome to the Forum.

TL/DR: The T1 is only for quick touchups of western-bladed, no-too-dull knives.

Uncut (^^) version :

Although the T1 has a diamond stone, it is not intended for heavy reprofiling. Forum members usually follow a couple different methods on T4/T8-type machines : either grade the stone very coarse or use it just after truing, ore use after-market ultra-low-grit CBN wheels, or even Norton coarse bench grinder wheels. Those are not options for the T1, and only the last two will work on super steels.
For heavy reprofiling, many members use belt grinders for heavy-duty work, then finish up on the Tormek.

So the T1 being slow is normal, especially on super steels which will wear down more slowly than standard steels. Also keep in mind that super steels can form a very tiny - yet quite hard - burr. These need to be honed thoroughly, and this will again take longer than standard steels.

I don't own a T1, but regarding your single-beveled knives :
- Yanagibas, like usubas, takohikis and debas are those thick,single-beveled, japanese kitchen knives (also called wa-bocho, wa standing for Japan). They cannot be sharpened on a T1 (not on any other Tormek for that matter) as it will ruin the grind. The bevel is flat/very-slightly convex and the Tormek will make it concave. The bevel is to be sharpened along its entire height and the Tormek will only sharpen a tiny bit at a time. The hollow, u-shaped back (ura) is to be sharpened flat so the top and bottom get equally sharpened. And I won't even talk about what happens at the tip (kissaki). Thoses knives must be sharpened on flat media, preferably the traditional way : using flat benchstones. So if your knife actually is a yanagiba, keep away from the T1.
- If by yanagiba you actually meant a sujihiki (also called laser), this is a western-bladed japanese knife (also called "yo-bocho"). There should therefore be no problem sharpening it on a Tormek, and if it is highly assymetrical as sometimes is the case, then sharpen it very assymetrically, but I'm not sure it applies for your knife.

Also a common problem with Tormeks (it is a bit different though on T1/T2 compared to T4/T8) is having trouble with bolsters.
Depending on the shape of the bolster/handle, it may not be doable to sharpen a knife close to the handle. Victorinox swibos are infamously known for this : as the handle is made of plastic, the only way you can sharpen it close to the handle is by heavily (and messily) grinding the plastic away.
This is especially true for
this kind of knife which, if you look closely is not factory sharpened close to the handle. However, as you sharpen it on a Tormek, you will create a dent at that point where you can no longer get closer to the handle, and this will be an issue for some cuts. Again, a belt grinder is the solution.

I cannot talk to chinese cleavers on a T1 as I own neither. Hope this helps !

 

[AJB Temple]

Thank you. This is pretty much the conclusion I had arrived at.  The yanigiba's are very fine (and expensive) and I will stick to the Naniwas or J naturals for them.  The various other fine J knives likewise. They are sharp anyway.

My team mainly prefer our German double bevels which don't "steer" and that is why I bought the T1 really as they dull quickly and are tedious to sharpen. 

I also have an Edge Pro belt device with a lot of grits (workshop not kitchen), but it lacks speed control and so can blue a tip in an instant,  Mainly used for chisels and plane blades.

I will stick with the T1 for a while and work through the GEU's etc and see how they do.  Otherwise it will be moved on.  T8 is much too messy for a commercial kitchen environment even though we are small.