Newbie question - Square edge jig

[ngrayson]

I've been drooling over a Tormek for years and finally got permission from my "financial manager" to buy myself one for Christmas from herself as my present    I bought a T3 which seems to be more than enough for me.

This may seem like a naive question but how square should my edges to be with the square edge jig? I've tried 3 bevel edge chissels so far and only one is anywhere near square. The wider 1" one is quite a bit off. I have pushed the edge of it right against the side of the jig but it does not seem right.

So assumming there have been no reports of dodgy jigs, I have to assumme its complete incompitance on my behalf.

Any one got any tips.

Cheers
Neil

[Jeff Farris]

Neil,

The most common problem is that the tool squirms away from the reference edge as the clamps are tightened.

The next most common problem is that the Universal Support and the surface of the grindstone are not parallel (which is solved with the diamond truing tool).

Finally, we've found that very many chisels are twisted a bit from the cutting edge to the shank, which will cause the tool to clamp out of alignment with the face of the tool at the cutting edge.

For this last condition, you may find your only option is to correct the alignment of the tool in the jig by tapping it gently with a small hammer.  I have one I use to set plane irons in Japanese planes that works nicely.  A tack hammer is about the right size, too.

[ngrayson]

Jeff,

Many thanks for the information, its clear from your postings that you a man of experience.

I sincerely hope that I dont have to true the wheel on a brand new machine as thats another £50 part and it should not be necessary.

I'll have another play withe the jig first and see where that takes me. I can see how a bevel edge chisel could move in the jig so I'll give it a tap to settle it

cheers
Neil

[ccarchia]

You sound just like me. I have always wanted a Tormek and when the T3 came out I saw my opportunity and got it for Christmas. Unfortunately I think Tormek did a disservice to themselves producing this machine. I had the same problem you described while I was sharpening some of my cheaper chisels. Nothing was coming out square no matter how careful I was with the setup. I checked the support for strait, the stone and shaft for true and square and runout. I checked my chisles for flat and parallel, all were good. The problem I found is in the holes that the Universal support go into, specifically the verticle mount holes. I believe that the tolerances are too sloppy to allow the support to slide up and down and remain parallel with the stone which is necessary to achieve a square edge. I continued to use the tool but now I set my angle then tighten the lock nut closest to the stone then I press down on the outside end of the support just enough to take the slop out and tighten the second nut. This procedure seems to work as now i am sharpening much closer to square but I am hesitant to put my good plane blades on the machine. Maybe I'll keep hand sharpening them until I can afford a T7. Until then I will continue to use it for all but the most important stuff. I hope Tormek comes up with a fix for this before people start judging them on this machine.

[ngrayson]

Very interesting. Over the last days I had arrived at the same conclussion.

I locked a square into the square jig which for my money should then have made the stock of the square parallel to the wheel and it was not. By moving slightly the none threaded part of the jig support I could correct it. I agree that this in my mind is a design flaw on the T3 and hope that Tormek do correct it some how. Without this, its difficult to know how to reliably ensure that one is square to the wheel each time.

To be truthfull, I'm a bit disappointed, the legend is a little  tarnished in my eyes.

[Herman Trivilino]

I've never used the T3, but the problem of not getting square chisels is not unique to the T3.

If your conclusion about the tolerances not keeping the tool rest precisely parallel to the surface of the grindstone is true, you can make sure they're parallel by using a anything as a gauge block.  Take, say, a scrap piece metal or wood and place it between the tool rest and the grindstone, and slide the tool rest down until it traps the gauge block between the grindstone and the tool rest.

Slide the block back and forth along the surface of the grindstone and check to see if it's really not parallel to the grindstone.  If there's enough slop in the the tool rest mounts you should be able to adjust the tool rest until it is parallel.  If there's not enough slop, and the grindstone is true, then you should be able to get a refund.