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Hey Ken, what do you use instead of the honing-wheel?

I too initially thought that it would make more sense to grind all the tools on the coarse stone, then grade it to fine.  The problems are you will end up wearing the stone faster because you will load up the stone and have to regrade/refresh it as you go more. You will also have to reset the jig and support a lot more times.  It saves nothing.  Just do each tool separately, going though coarse - fine - leather, then next tool.

Steve: My honing wheel is good now, but thanks for the offer.  I started another discussions a couple of months back regarding that subject and that's what led me to the Mineral-Oil.

Regarding the classes: feel free to contact me.  MiddletonGuitars@Gmail.com

That's funny: I used to teach Guitar, now I'd rather make them

Steve:

I recommend avoiding 3-in-1 oil like the plague!  I nearly ruined my honing wheel with that stuff!


And, Yes.  I make guitars electric guitars and basses.  I'm looking to do acoustic guitars down the road as well.

When I had that problem, I found I was taking too deep of a cut. 

I'm not familiar with that one, but I can't recommend-enough to use pure "Mineral Oil"!  I will never use any other oil on my honing wheel besides that again!  I got mine at Target in the Pharmacy section.  I think the bottle and was a couple of bucks and will last me a lifetime.

What angle are you sharpening to?  The lower the angle, the easier it is to cut across the grain. 

I agree, you should not "have to" look one over, but I was very disappointed in my my experience to the point I almost didn't want to buy a Tormek at all!

If the factory had done its job on quality-control, there would not have been a store with all 3 of its T3's in-stock being equally out-of-tolerance of what the manual said, the store-owner, and my own common-sense could tell from 10-feet away. If the boxes didn't look like they were in pristine-shape, I would have thought that maybe they were dropped in shipping or something like that. 

I believe I did a fair evaluated the T3 and had thought thing through by purchasing the extra items so that that I would have a fair comparison between the T3 and T7.  There "was" without a doubt a difference.  I believe the T7 is very well-made and I knew of its reputation before-hand, which led me to buy that brand over the cheaper competitor. 

Like I said before: This might have been a fluke and something that was worked out in the beginning. I really wished the T3 worked out for me.  I believe the T7 is a little overkill for my uses, but I'm very happy with it.  I think Tormek is a great brand with good products and customer service.   

I actually first bought a T3 but was horribly disappointed with it.  The wheel was anything but true.  I don't know if the shaft was bent or the wheel was molded out of alignment, but it wobbled considerably! I had even purchased all the extra items that would have come standard with the T7 (like the Truing-tool) so that I'd have the same setup as a T7; just with a smaller wheel.   I took mine back and had the store owner look it all over and he confirmed it was a lemon.  We checked his other stock and they all were equally poor.  All the T7's in the store were working great, so I traded up and have been happy since.  I have not had a chance to look at a new T3 (Mine was the very first production-run), but I would suggest to anyone that they look it over with a fine-toothed comb and run it in the store before buying one!

Yeah, this is the same wheel!  I thought my manual said to use "any light machine oil".  I'll have to double check that, but I believe that's what led me to using the 3-in-1.  Never again.

I just tried mineral oil today and it is a night-and-day difference, compared to the 3-in-1 oil I was using.

The wheel is much more "grippy" or "rubbery" and the polishing/honing has improved by at least double!

I think the manual should advise against any use of 3-in-1 oil on the honing wheel!

Just curious: How do you guy handle the dirty water and the sludge that builds up at the bottom of the tray?

I've always been worried about just dumping it all down the drain and have gone to great lengths to practically filter water before it goes down the drain and put the sludge in the trash.

Is there an easier way?

Here's an update:

I got back from vacation and have had a chance to work with my T7.  I found I am now able to get a polished and honed edge without the hand-strop.  After I confirmed I could get to that point, I then tried a couple of swipes on my hand-strop and still get a nicer edge.

I'm sure after I get some more practice with the wheel that I'll be able to get to the same point, so it looks like it's all working.


I also reread my earlier post and it looks like I sound a little defensive towards ionut.  I'm sorry if it came off that way.  I only meant: what I did seemed like a good idea at the time.

Herman: I was referring to a "Scraper-Plane Blade" vs your typical card-scraper.  You're supposed to prep a scraper-plane blade with honed 45-degree bevel instead of a 90-degree edge.
Then you progressively roll the tip of the bevel further that direction to a hook like you would on a card scraper. 
Alternatively, you could also set up the blade for 90-degrees for wild-grained woods.  Then you'd have the higher cutting angle with less material removal; like a bench plane.
I have my scraper-plane blade set up with 90 on one edge and 45 on the opposite so I have both to choose.  I then can install the blade whichever way is needed.


ionut: My method was aggressive, but there was so much oil saturated in there. I first tried the side-edge of a tool, but it just squished the leather and would only draw some of the oil out.  I had to slice off the saturated leather to get the clean area. Doing it freehand was making me nervous about either tearing the leather (which happened anyway) or the scraper getting ripped from my hands and cutting me up real bad.  With the jigs on-hand and that extra plane-blade, that was what I came up with to get to where I needed.