Tormek Community Forum

Hi Folks,

Whats the saying crawl before you walk, walk before you run.

I just got a little bit carried away with myself. I should have used the Tormek for a few months then tried something more difficult.

I went out and bought myself the waterstone. I was a little bit disappointed to be honest. Put it on the machine and what a wobble! Nothing like the standard stone. Took about 1mm off it. I had to take about 3-4mm off the waterstone before the wobble stopped. Is this normal?

Not an easy stone to use, as it obviously doesn't move very much metal. So i gave a chisel a go that i had done to 1000 and polished. I found that i had to move the micro adjuster by 1/4 turn a few times to get some burr. And i was pleased with the polished look. And i dont know if i did the correct thing but i still finished off on the honing wheel, as i thought that the 6000 paste would put an extra bit off polish on it and took a tiny burr off the back.

Now its only one chisel and i spent a good twenty minutes comparing it with a polished chisel to 1000. Was it sharper Yes it was. Was it £220 sharper. lol.

My past trade was a joiner and for what its worth to anyone thinking off buying a japanese waterstone for most woodworking. The standard set up is sharper than i ever used a blade as a joiner by a mile. If however you are a cabinetmaker and want the extra sharpness then the waterstone is a good buy.

I may be back on next week after i have practiced some more to tell everyone to go out and buy one as they are wonderful. Thats if i have fingers left to type with. These chisels get scary sharp. One wrong move and you have sliced yourself!

Love this machine

John

Welcome again, John.

My primary reason for purchasing a Tormek was for the grinding function. I had just prepared several chisels for a hand cut dovetail class using water stones.  They needed a lot of work flattening and polishing the backs, let alone the bevel side.  My older hands were quite soar.  The Tormek seemed like a better way than hurting my hands.  It still is.

I also liked the idea of not overheating any more edges with the dry grinder and having my chisels a bit more square.  (i'm sure you have never encountered these problems. :)

I'm afraid you won't get many replies about the 4000 grit wheel. It's a fairly new accessory, and, shall we say, not terribly underpriced.  I doubt many of us actually have one.

I happen to have bought one.  It was a sale situation at my local dealer. As it was on my list of future hopefuls, I bought it.  It sits pristinely in the box.

I know only one member of the forum who uses the 4000 grit water stone happily and successfully. He uses it in a separate Tormek machine than his regular wheel.  (You really didn't want to hear this, did you?)  In my opinion, that's the way to really use this fine accessory well.

The black stone, which I have used, is a stand alone stone for its functions.  For high speed steel turning tools, drill bits, planer/jointer blades; it does the whole job.  No need to switch back and forth with the regular wheel. Having a separate machine is a lot less pressing with the black stone.

The Japanese wheel is for polishing, just like the 4000, 8000, or higher water stones, diamond powder or "stones", or Arkansas stones.  To use it on a chisel, you first go through the coarse and fine gradings on the regular wheel.  then, if you have only one machine, you must change wheels.

If you are sharpening several blades, you could do all the general wheel work first, and change wheels only once.

Frankly, I find either of those choices more complicated than using an 8000 grit water stone with the blade in a jig set for a slight micro bevel.

I do plan to add a second Tormek unit someday for the 4000 grit wheel.  Until then, unless a special situation arises where I have a lot of polishing to do, the SJ wheel will probably remain in waiting.

I hope you hear from other members who have actually used the 4000 grit stone. Good luck with your new SJ.

Ken

I too would like to hear from more users of the Tormek Japanese Waterstone (SJ-250).

I don't have one and don't really see a need for one. 

If I did have one I imagine I would find lots of uses for it.  I tend to be the type who tries to get by with what I have on hand.

If mounted on a 2nd Tormek it would still be necessary to readjust the jig, unless both stones were the same diameter, or you were using the homemade knife rest jig (yes, I think I'm going to give it that name officially) and you had two of those as well.

Thanks for the replies,

Ken it may not be what i want to hear, but you are spot on.

But then i found it out for myself after i had bought it!

And i just really wanted to let anyone else know before they spent £220.

I am sure i will still use it as with the new t7 i can change the stone over in 30 seconds.

Thanks

John

John,

Don't get discouraged.  As strong as the Swedish economy is, you may look back on this and be amazed you bought the SJ-250 for only 220 (sorry, this Yank doesn't know how to type the pound sterling sign).

Keep thinking and doing.

Herman, I don't think adjusting the USB for differences I wheel diameter is actually a big project.  When I first bought my Tormek, I had a terrible time using the angle master.  After i redesigned and "improved" it, I tried using it in good light and found out that the standard approach as shown by Jeff in the videos really works quite well.

Ken

The Japanese stone is meant as a replacement ie alternative to the honing wheel. I have to say, i just don't get it.  Why would is opened £220 replacing something that works fine?

Rob, for the leather wheel to be equivalent you'd have to continually add paste, and the Tormek paste is 6000 grit.  The Japanese Waterstone is solid 4000 grit all the way through.  The leather wheel hones and polishes, the Japanese Waterstone grinds.

I couldn't see spending £220 for it either, but then I don't sharpen knives for Sushi chefs.   ;)

I have an off brand Japanese water stone mounted on a separate Tormek. It is not necessary at all in my experience and certainly not worth the money. It does put a nice shine on an edge though but so does the honing wheel. I would not recommend its purchase.

Hi John,

The Tormek Japanese 4000 stone is a great stone, walking requires more finesse so running sometimes is easier and will teach you how to walk properly.

First, if the stone was badly wobbly it should have been returned, this is not acceptable in Tormek language.

Second 3-4 mm of truing is humongous for that stone what am I saying here, for any stone, When you true it you have to take less material in one pass  than you use to take from the 220 one even if you have to take multiple passes. I would suggest you to start the truing from the left side of the stone in this way because the diamond tip is closer to the universal support posts when it gets to the opposite side, there will be less vibrations and less chipping on that side than if you would do it the other way around.

This is a polishing stone not a material removal stone, it is supposed to refine the edge form a 1000 setting of the original stone so don't expect any major steel removal as this stone was not designed for that. For polishing is far more efficient than the honing wheel in giving you a 4000 edge, and with no risk of rounding over the edge like it may happen with using the leather wheel if not done properly. The small ridges and valley left by the 1000 abrasive will be quickly levelled to give you a perfect straight edge. If the 1000 grading of the 220 stone is not done properly the honing wheel only will not polish properly the edge and will never be able to get you the straight levelled edge that would be required for a really long lasting extremely sharp edge it will give you more of a rounded spikes edge that has a polished appearance. The 4000 stone will always give you and precise straight polished at 4000 edge.
Now every abrasive will create a burr regardless the size of the abrasive used, the only thing that changes is the size of the burr which is proportional to the size of abrasive used, so if you had troubles with the burr was because of two possible reasons, either you were not really working the edge, or your fingers are extremely sensitive. After a proper 1000 grading and a proper angle set with the 4000 stone you should have not had to work more than 30 seconds on the edge and if you feel a burr after that the burr should be far smaller and weaker than the one left by the graded 1000. I personally have hard times feeling a burr after 4000 stone, but my fingers have a thick skin.

The manual states to not use the honing wheel after the 4000 stone but I would suggest you to use it only not in the same way as you would after the 1000 grading of the original stone. As I said the 4000 will create a small burr or will reduce the 1000 to a 4000 one, and I was able to see it with a cheap small microscope so a bit of honing wheel use will be effective in dealing with it. Tormek claims the honing compound is a mixture of 3, 2, 1 micron aluminum oxide based abrasive, but if you get a dab of it and rub it between your fingers you will feel the grit between your fingers which suggest that either the abrasives are present as lumps in that paste or they are not the claimed size. The good thing though is that immediately after starting using the paste these particles will break down so they will be the most efficient in dealing with a 1000 abraded steel and then by braking down in finer particles will do more of a finer polishing action. In my experience using the honing wheel after the 4000 stone freshly loaded with honing compound will defeat most benefits of the 4000 stone so I would suggest you to use a bit worn out compound after the 4000 stone. In my case I was able to  put together a 1 - 0.3 micron honing compound that I use after the 4000 stone which is giving me fantastic edges for a "heavy" machine like Tormek Honing on the leather wheel is also very fast and does not require any extra pressure, you only have to remove a 4000 burr which is very small.

Now because you have a second stone to your machine your workflow has to be a bit different. First the wheels will never have the same diameter and if they will, it will happen for a short period of time. So I suggest you to find the offset of your wheels and use it in order to blindly set the angle on the 4000 stone, After finishing with 1000 put the 4000 wheel in place and using the marker method find the exact amount and the direction you had to move the adjusting wheel in order to match the bevel angle. Use that offset every time when you switch the wheels and you'll get perfect results. But be careful, the wearing rate of the stones will be different so once in a while depending on how much sharpening you do you will have to update this offset. Also because you probably have one machine I would suggest you to make a template that would allow you to project each tool the same amount from the SE76 which would result in the same bevel angle for the same adjusting wheel position.. For woodworking you could have 25-30-35 degrees projections or more on that template and you could group the tools based on the bevel angle, and first use the original stone for all the tools and then mount the 4000 stone to polish all of them, so you will not have to spend 30 seconds between tools to change the stones. To be sure though you would obtain the best results you would also want to change the water in the tray when you change to the 4000 stone, so you don't run the risk of mixing 220 grit with 4000 which only results in a waste of time and steel.
And I promise this will be my last suggestion, in one of the older threads I was talking about marking the wheels to avoid small manufacturing or wear imprecision that may results in non square edges or non matching ones. Mark the shaft, the stones and the washers, and always mount the stones aligning all these marks. When you do this first time you will have to true the stones taking the minimum necessary so when you change the stone the grinding surface of the new mounted stone will match the other one regarding the square-ness in relation to the universal support.
You will soon discover how much sharper your tools get.

All the best,
Ionut

... and on the top of everything, using the offset I was talking earlier about, you could use the 4000 stone to put a microbevel if you like them instead of polishing the entire bevel and that would probably take humongous amount of  2-3 seconds or swipes per tool. This is not really necessary having a motorized sharpening tool, it is an option though.

Ionut

Excellent post, Ionut.  Innovative and thorough; typical of the high caliber I would expect from you.

John, you have received an answer from the forum member I referred to as the only one I know of who happily and successfully uses the Japanese waterstone.

Ken

We're not worthy.....nice one Ionut  :-)

Superb post, Ionut.  There's a lot of good information there and I nominate it to be a sticky.

It's obvious that you are a true craftsman.

I second that

Thanks for the excellent advice Ionut.

I am struggling with this stone. It still has a wobble so i can only assume the stone is faulty. I wonder if they will take it back after i have trued it.

Trueing it helped but it still has a wobble. When i first used it out of the box it had a massive wobble. I should have sent it back.

Thanks again

John

Return it John, they will take it back...they're a decent bunch

With my "Cadillac product for a Cadillac price", I expect Cadillac service.  (Rolls Royce for your side of the pond) 

If the stone is not right, take it back for a refund.

Ken

I doubt that the fact that you trued it will make any difference.  If the vendor is reliable they they should take it back.  If they don't, take it up with Tormek.

When you first posted, I was surprised that the wheel could be 3mm-4mm out of round. I thougtht that would be unacceptable. 

My first post to this forum was due to wheel problems.  At that time I had no idea if what I was experiencing was normal or not.  But thanks to all of the good folks here, I soon determined that what I was suffering was not normal.  I returned the wheel.

Tormek support was exemplary. I had a new wheel in like three days.  No problems at all with the new wheel.

I don't know where you live, but you can find all the information you need, including who handles US Tormek warranty in the following post.  It was the first post I made here:

http://forum.tormek.com/index.php?topic=1508.0

If you don't live in the US, your supplier should be able to tell you who to contact.

Really glad I did too.  Not only because I resolved my problem, but I got to meet all of the good folks here!

I've not had problems myself but all those who have have recounted the same excellent service fom Tormek

Which dealer did you buy it fom?

The first stone I got and it was not a Tormek stone wobbed badly in sideways plane. It was from Rockler or Woodworker or someone else, and they promptly sent me a knew one.

I have a theory about modern tool and machine dealers, the big ones at least.  In this day and age of forums and bulletin boards, plus of course feedback areas of online purchase engines, they can't afford to give bad service.....it would spread so fast, with the instant news nature of the Internet

Equally when good service has been given, that also spreads fast.

It was always the same before the Internet but just more slowly

I realize the Tormek with the Japanese wheel can deliver mirror polish on the entire bevel of a chisel. 

My question is, in the real world of woodworking, does this shiny bevel actually cut better or longer than a well polished micro bevel?

Ken

Its another perfection frame issue isnt it Ken

I guess if you're hand cutting dovetails and you're charging top dollar for a commissioned piece or perhaps exhibiting then you might justify that level of perfection.  For my furniture, I could never justify it.

You know, I'd love to have the japanese stone just to try it and see for myself, but in practical every day life I would never spin off the wheel and mount that one, have to reset the jigs because its radius would always be different....just to polish.

If I had two Tormeks thats the only practical way I could see me actually doing that for each sharpening.  Even then you'd have to reset the jigs

Good point, Rob.  If I was trying to impress people with my fine workmanship, mirror bevels would certainly do the trick.

I also agree that I would not want to change wheels midstream with each blade.

I don't think compensating for differences is wheel diameter would be a dig deal.  One reason the turning jigs work so well is by using standardized blade projection in the jigs.  The TTS-100 has three pre measured projection distance slots.  These distances are plugged into the settings.

I have been slowly developing a system of standardized projection lengths with plane and chisel blades.  I believe this standardization, in conjunction with the known difference in wheel diameters would simplify resetting.  I believe once the compensated USB distance was initially set, no further adjustments would be necessary.

A second Tormek is not on my short list, so it will be a while before I can develop this idea.

While the logical part of me realizes a mirror polished entire bevel is just for looks, it certainly does look very professional!  Maybe appearances matter more than function. :)

Ken

Quote from: Ken S on March 25, 2013, 12:37:03 AM
Maybe appearances matter more than function. :)

Certainly appearances do matter, and in some cases perhaps more than function.  One area is salesmanship.  But even in the area of professional workmanship appearances do matter.  When your workmanship looks better than it needs to be for function, it can lead to future business opportunities.  A professional workman needs to be always looking ahead to the next job.

There should be no difference between a full bevel polished and one with only a microbevel polished, if done in the same manner and in regards of how those edges would perform and of course if the microbevel would match the full bevel angle.
The microbevel is a sharpening shortcut and nothing more, it reduces the amount of polishing required due to the less surface to be polished and a bit steeper angle which ensures that the actual cutting edge is touched.  the back side of the coin when microbevel are used is the fact that the next sharpening session requires more steel removal to create a burr, which can be argued to be acceptable as this step is done with a medium stone anywhere around 1000 stone. Another disadvantage is when this microbevel is applied to Japanese woodworking tools. The steel that makes the cutting edge is much harder than O1 and A2 steels and tempered much higher which creates a more brittle steel. The microbevel in this case will create a small area where the hard steel has no support and will lead to more micro-chipping in normal use and will require re-sharpening more often.  In the context of the Japanese chisels there is another disadvantage in my opinion, these tolls due to their larger bevels can be very reliably used bevel down to do cleanup work of any kind. A microbevel in this case would definitelly not help.
In past I have used microbevel but I have abandoned them.
The mirror polish deosn't really mean the tool is sharp, there are abrasives that will never get the tool as shiny as one would expect, like silicon oxide, also the natural Japanese stones usually don't get such a mirror shine on the tools but they extremely sharp. The steel also has to do with the level of shine as well, the powdered metal tools don't get as shiny either with some abrasives. The most shine is provided by aluminum oxide, but again the extra shine or mirror polish on the tool does not necessarily mean the tool is sharp as it can be.

All the best,
Ionut

Thanks again Ionut great information,

I got a response from Tormek today which i can't quite follow.

"Hello John,
Did you get a new washer with your japanese waterstone? (yes)
The problem is that the js-250 does not have the centre bushing.
It demands that the hole to be a bit larger than normal, in return
the washer is the main support for alignment instead of the hole on
the centre of the stone.
If you have the older stamped stainless steel washer it can be difficult
to get the stone to align correctly"

Can someone help me on this, yes it came with a new washer which was identical to the one already on the machine.

Now after some thought, could it be possible that the washer goes on the outside? Not according to the video it doesn't.

Help!

Thanks

John

Hi John,

I don't remember all the details because I've installed that stone years ago and never took it off since. But I remember there was a washer and to me it seemed logic, I have used both the old and the new provided one and sandwiched the stone between them. I didn't see a video available in those days but it may have been available somewhere also I don't believe the small paper note said anything about the installations steps or not, as I said it happened long ago. Use both washers, if not to nut may dig in the stone as you tighten it.
Let me know what's happening.

All the best,
Ionut

Quote from: fraseman999 on March 25, 2013, 11:21:51 PM
Thanks again Ionut great information,

I got a response from Tormek today which i can't quite follow.

"Hello John,
Did you get a new washer with your japanese waterstone? (yes)
The problem is that the js-250 does not have the centre bushing.
It demands that the hole to be a bit larger than normal, in return
the washer is the main support for alignment instead of the hole on
the centre of the stone.
If you have the older stamped stainless steel washer it can be difficult
to get the stone to align correctly"

Can someone help me on this, yes it came with a new washer which was identical to the one already on the machine.

Now after some thought, could it be possible that the washer goes on the outside? Not according to the video it doesn't.

Help!

Thanks

John

I see where they're going, its just the instruction is unclear. My advice would be to telephone them to get talked through the procedure.

Reading their (somewhat broken English) mail it sounds to me like the jap stone has no metal lining the hole in its centre (bushing) so due it's slightly larger bore makes it a sloppy fit on the revolving shaft. That's what's causing your wobble of course ie the shaft isn't exactly centred in the middle of the stone.  Presumably the washer they supplied will somehow correct for this

Does it have a shoulder or flange which push fits inside the stones hole to exactly centre it?

Either that washer will have some logical feature to its engineering that "naturally fits" somewhere or they've sent you the wrong part in the kit (that is possible but its highly unlikely). I've frequently had parts missing from new kit before but never the wrong part.

A phone conversation with their tek team should clarify that instruction

Are you talking about a side to side wobble, or an up and down wobble? 

Truing will do nothing about a side to side wobble. The good news is, a side to side wobble won't affect performance of the machine in the least.

To minimize it for appearance's sake, try turning the inside washer a quarter turn and relocking the nut. After a few tries, you'll find the "sweet spot" where the washer and the stone surface match best.

If it is an up and down wobble, that has redeveloped that quickly, contact the Tormek importer in your country.

Thanks again to everyone for your replies.

Mats Wuolo from Tormek has said their tolerance side to side is -/+ 0.5mm so thats 1mm.

I put the straightedge jig on with a chisel, laid the chisel down the side of the stone and took a video. Its around 6mm wobble.

He has agreed after watching the video that it needs changing. Fedex will pick my old stone up tommorow.

The only moan i have is that i will be without one until i get my replacement. I thought they would have done a swap.

Anyway hopefully it will be resolved.

Cheers

John

Well that sucks dude....but at least the service is good.  Maybe they should look at QA before things leave the factory a little more closely?

It seems they've experienced a quality control issue with their SG grindstones lately, too.  A couple posters have noticed bad spots within the stone.