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+1 for the WSKO for quick deburring. The leather belt with Tormek paste does wonders.

Just my two cents, because I have no experience in a commercial environment such as yours...

Before going the full Vadmin protocol, it might be nice to take a look at what improvement each step brings to make sure it is worth the time and effort. What is your BESS score with just the SG @15dps and a good honing on the leather wheel with PA-70 ? I think you should not settle for anything higher than 120/130 BESS. My SWIBOs are usually in the 100/120 BESS ballpark after just this.

Then gradually add each step, and see if you get an improvement that makes it worth your while. Please remember that while Wootz showed that his techniques could get him weel into the SUB-100 BESS zone, he also demonstrated that initial sharpness has little influence over edge retention.

With whatever little experience I have, and therefore a very basic technique, I find that the felt wheel only works for me with very hard/brittle steels and not softer, more malleable ones. My Victorinox SWIBOs are definitely in the second category. Felt wheel with 1 micron diamond spray seemed to *add* 30/40 BESS for those.

So from what I understand, it will work for blades with straight (parallel) sides.

Quick question : how does component 2 reference the blade plane of symmetry, and not either side of the blade ? I wonder how blade with, say, a 3° taper angler are accomodated ?

Aside from specific situations where I want a very fine finish (such as sujihikis), I find that grinding on the SG in its natural state and honing with the Tormek compound is the best speed/sharpness compromise. In addition, I think the bite from the toothier edge works wonders (and is durable) for vegetables.

When I know the precise edge angle, or use the sharpie trick, it is a matter of 3-4 minutes per knife, not including computations and/or USB setup. So I guess that's kind of a lower limit on what I could expect if I sharpened freehand.

Aside from specific situations where I want a very fine finish (such as sujihikis), I find that grinding on the SG in its natural state and honing with the Tormek compound is the best speed/sharpness compromise. In addition, I think the bite from the toothier edge works wonders (and is durable) for vegetables.

When I know the precise edge angle, or use the sharpie trick, it is a matter of 3-4 minutes per knife, not including computations and/or USB setup.

Ken, all of those are very fair points, but if you take another look at the quote which is the subject of this post and seems to have ruffled a few feathers, it is not :

"The Tormek is bad at sharpening knives"

I wouldn't own two if that was the case. Yet I'm not a professional sharpener, I don't care how much time goes into getting the edge I want on a $200 knife and whether my investment is paid for. The quote is rather

The Tormek was not created as a knife-sharpening equipment. Knives are kind of an afterthought.

That looks like a fact to me, and I'll be happy to be proven wrong if the Tormek was indeed created as a knife sharpening equipment. It seems to me though that it was created with woodworking tools in mind.

Is that so bad a thing to say that it justifies its own thread going into the T1, T2, charity, darkroom and the way knives were sharpened by the romans ?

Does it mean the Tormek is a bad knife sharpener ? Certainly not. To me it only means that its wider usage domain requires that a few compromises be made for knife sharpening, like accepting that increased precision and superior heat management come at the expense of throughput and portability.

It would be interesting to learn why it was discontinued. 

Maybe, maybe because even without the hassle of removing the wheel to hone, without having to buy a supplemental USB, etc. etc., only few knife-only sharpeners would buy a machine that required much more time to set an edge than a belt sander. Even if it could produce hair-splitting edges. So making it a profitable product even at (or more so because of) a high price point would be a challenge. I don't know if this is true, but the link given by @Dan mentions an initial price of 1500 EUR (1600+ USD) with the DC stone.

I think the "crazy sharp" knife sharpeners market is much tinier than the "push cut tomato" one. So having only one lineup for very sharp edges, even if sharpening knives requires a bit of contorsion, seems a more sensible approach. And for 1600+ bucks one could easily buy a standard T-8 for grinding and custom one for honing. AMHIK :grin:

"

I had the same problem with some customers years ago with my custom processing photographic darkroom business

Exactly. The Tormek is ideal for the knife sharpening equivalent of your custom processing darkroom, whether as a hobby or as a business.

To serve those who aren't ready to pay the premium that goes with that kind of standards, and who might not be ready/willing to get "educated" a faster solution is key.

Yes ?

So for someone such as the OP on the thread where I mentioned the T-8 not being primarily designed for their use, who does only knives, who does that for a living as opposed to most of us home users, for whom each knife will essentially be a bevel-setting job or a sharpie-trick job, and who probably won't chase sub-80 BESS, we agree a Tormek is not really the best-suited tool ?

Tormek has developed some remarkable jigs for woodworking and turning tools. However, there are no specialty machines for these tools. By contrast, the Tormek lineup now includes two specialty machines for different segments of the knife sharpening market.

Yes, exactly that. There is no need for specialty machines for woodworking tools because that's exactly what the Tormek T-8 and T-4 are. There is a need for "knives-only" machines because the Tormek T-8/T-4 is not intended to quickly sharpen a random knife. And even those knives-only machines will require a lengthy initial sharpening to set the angle.

Don't take me wrong though, I love the Tormek and the edges they produce on my knives. It just takes much longer than a belt sander, and customers who will be able to tell both apart are a minority. Plus being able to quickly resharpen a knife means that it has already been sharpened once on the Tormek at a known angle.

My opinion is still that, for an knives-only sharpening business targeting everyday cooks who want sharp knives at a reasonable cost, the Tormek is not the best suited tool (and the T-1 and T-2 aren't either, as discussed at length in several other posts). For a versatile sharpening business targeting customers willing to pay a premium for scary sharp knives, I think the T-8 is the weapon of choice.

I don't have the same experience as John. I own a cheap miniature belt sander, and for a dull knife I can raise a burr with a coarse belt in a matter of two to three passes, in under a minute. In the same amount of time on the Tormek, I would still be adjusting the USB height to find the right angle.

And we're not talking about speed yet. The Tormek, even with a DC coarse diamond wheel will be much slower than the belt sander with a medium belt.

The Tormek will be more consistent (although experienced freehand sharpener get amazing results), create less dust, be more silent, be more precise if used with jigs, but it will be slower for knives, and require (clean/sludgy) water management. Using diamond wheels dry is - as per Tormek instructions - possible but not recommended, and generates dust.

As a reminder, the Tormek was not created as a knife-sharpening equipment. Knives are kind of an afterthought, as the Tormek allows for very precise angle management which helps reaching very high levels of polishing and initial sharpness.

However, as far as day-to-day cooks are concerned, initial sharpness is not as important as edge retention. An experienced freehand sharpener does not need a Tormek to set such an angle on even a very blunt knife that it will perform well initially and in the long run.

I'd fully second @cbwx34's opinion : the Tormek is quiet silent when running.

I often have two of them running at the same time and most of the noise comes from the blade being ground rather than the motor (my water troughs being virbation-free). And even then, it not even close from the noise of a belt sander, as the speed is much lower, and the stone and water dampen the grinding noise. Humming is the right way to describe the sound of a T-8, and a rather low frequency humming at that.

As for freehand sharpening, I don't do that often but it is easier to do than on my belt sander as there is no slack in the stone that would change the angle at the tip. I find the tactile feedback of the SG stone very pleasant.

It looks like it's normal :

See here on the Tormek FAQ, the search result returned by "T-1 warm".

Something I missed when I first looked at your screencap.... To further comment on the meaning of the angle in TormekCalc, maybe it's not obvious in german, but in english it goes :
declared angle/measured angle/ground angle

• "declared" being the angle given by the manufacturer (e.g. 16dps for most shun knives)
• "measured" being what you read on a goniometer, or better, what you get from bevelCalc with the sharpie method and measuring the top-of-usb-to-wheel distance
• "ground" being whatever you decided to grind using - most likely - TormekCalc, based on either the angles above, or Wootz' advice, or your own reasons.

So, rare exceptions aside, you shouldn't have 20dps deklariert and 10dps geschliffen.