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Seems that Tormek have heard the cries of despair and are introducing a new product that helps with water management. 8:30 pm Swedish time. Looks like it is time to open up the wallet again.

We had a family gathering here yesterday and my 44 YO daughter brought all of her kitchen knives around d to be sharpened. They were pretty much blunt and one had an interesting belly from poor sharpening previously.

I did the first knife and she watched the progress and then she said, Can I do it? So I them instructed her on the process while she did the next couple. The third knife had a belly near the handle so I re-shaped the knife by eye on the belt sander then she started from the 80G through to honing. She then did the remainder of the knives and by the end she was quickly producing super sharp knives while I watch on in awe at her ability to quickly pick up a brand new skill.

Her comment was "That is why I won an award in school for woodworking".

PS her day job is a senior manager in one of the big accountancy companies so you would not pick her as handy at skills such as knife sharpening and woodworking but you don't judge the book by its cover.

Tormek posted a new video. Not about sharpening per say but a really cool story. No spoilers.

https://youtu.be/_9h-fFMRyFc?si=xYJqxV29Kre8XfeN

Probably not so much a sharpening tutorial as a treatise on abrasives.

I have been meaning to do this for a very long time. I will eventually make a video going over the basic principals of sharpening.

The purpose of this is to counter some misconceptions and misunderstanding and also to provide an introduction to abrasives for anyone new to the subject, or indeed as a refresher for the more experienced.

It is still somewhat a work in progress but this is pretty much it in essence, with maybe some editing. I will probably add some more references as well but that is fraught since many of them come and go over time.

It is quite long but there is a lot of material to cover.

There will eventually be a YouTube video but that will require some planning.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MsXvMZ5ISZxjxvqt0FepLhsQKLw4_WsMnGq1auMtfSk/edit?usp=sharing

I have been working on doing a video on abrasives and to this end I am working on a tutorial on abrasives. It is a very deep rabbit hole. I already have a web site dedicated to using the Dremel which talks about abrasives, but only in relation to Dremel bits.
My first full time job was at an engineering supply company back in the late 70s (and no, they did not sell Tormek!). I did learn a lot about abrasives at the time sine we sold a wide range of abrasives and received industry training on many of the goods we sold. I also did materials science at college as par of my electronics training. This put me in a good position to understand some of the science associated with sharpening. However, I have found that it is a far deeper hole.
One of the issues is the term hardness. Unfortunately there are two entirely different definitions of hardness and sometimes they appear to be used interchangeably. There is the engineering definition and the geological definition.
Rockwell hardness is the resistance to plastic deformation. In short they push a ball into the surface with a given force and see how deep the hole is. This is typically used with respect to metals.  On the other hand MOH hardness is the materials resistance to scratching. A material with a higher Rockwell hardness is likely to have a higher MOH hardness but they are not the same thing, nor are they equivalent.
The reason that this is important is that Rockwell hardness does not determine which sharpening material to use, but MOH hardness does. Sharpening is a scratching process, not a plastic deformation process (although plastic deformation plays a part, especially when forming a burr). So you need a material with a higher MOH hardness to sharpen.
Whilst most knives and many tools come with a Rockwell hardness seldom, if ever do they specify MOH hardness. You can get MOH hardness test kits where you use the tool to scratch the material to find its MOH hardness these are not that common.
My practice is to see how well I can sharpen with a particular wheel or stone then change it if necessary.
The rule of thumb is, if the tool or knife is too soft then it will clog higher hardness wheels such as diamond or CBN. if the tool or knife is too hard then it will glaze the lower hardness wheels such as aluminium oxide.

I suspect that the Tormek Diamond wheels may be engineered in such a way they they do not clog with low carbon steels but I do not *know* this. Maybe a question for Tormek themselves.

Just saw this on the Tormek Innovation YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/SlmK7cdyKf8?si=Gmep9glb91snjpdq

Should make setting the angle so much w.

I have been looking for the metal plate referred to in the T-8 getting started guide that came with my T8 Black but there does not seem to be one. Is this deliberate? Maybe they thought that it would mar the clean black look of the anniversary edition???

There is a new Tormek Sharpening class up on the Tormek Innovation Sharpening on their YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOM931z3YPM

My new T8 arrived today. My son inherited my old T7 and is busy buying new jigs for it

Not so much of a question as an observation. If you are not using your Tormek for a couple of days remove the wheel. I was doing other stuff and left a diamond wheel on for a couple of weeks and I had to resorte to a wrench to remove the nut and I had to use some gentle persuasion to remove the wheel from the shaft.

So, my advice would be to remove the wheel at the end of every sharpening session. I suspect that it was the anti corrosion additive which seems to go sticky if you have any residue remaining. I usually do that but for some reason forgot this time.

My sister in law brought over 15 knives yesterday for me to sharpen. All were in various stages of extremely blunt to needing reshaping! I think it gave me a taste of the life if a professional sharpener. They were all pretty ordinary supermarket knives so nothing special. One was a vintage carving knife with the rectangular bone handle that grandma used for her Sunday roast.

The wife keeps suggesting that I take my setup to the local market. After yesterday's marathon I think I will leave it to the professionals. Not that I was tempted, but it just confirmed my thought that it is not something I want to make a living from.

A local (to me) knife sharpener was asked if he could sharpen a round blade from a pizza cutter by his local pizza shop. Here is the result of his investigations. Interesting.

https://youtu.be/CELSYmNsnXM