I'm considering buying a Tormek T7, but I am concerned about plane iron sharpening. It seems that if I want to have a camber on my plane irons, they would not be possible to sharpen on the Tormek. As a reasonable compromise I would consider just relieving the corners on my #4 and #6, but it seems to me that I would still have to freehand my Jack iron, as it has to have a cambered iron. How have others solved this problem?
It's actually pretty easy to camber an iron on the Tormek. As you slide the iron across the stone you just spend a little extra time on the outside edges, with the middle of the iron off the grindstone.
Mike,
I find it helps to use a longer blade projection from the SE-76. This allows you to flex the blade more easily to add more camber, as you would for a jack of fore plane (to do the initial rougher planing).
Ken
Thanks much Jeff and Ken. Good to know I can camber using a jig. I will only be cambering my Jack plane anyway. I posted this question again because I was notified that the this subject was locked, obviously a misunderstanding on my part, so please disregard my new post of today's date.
LOL..equally...ignore my response :-)
Mike,
A belated welcome to the forum. You ask a very good question.
I have used the longer projection/ lean on the edges method of sharpening my plane blades with adequate success. In addition to the jack plane, I also add a little camber to the jointer and less to the smoother.
While the exact shape of the camber is not important, especially for the jack, it seems untormeklike to "eyeball" it. There is room for a jig here. This is especially true for those who do sharpening as a business.
In the almost four years I have been a part of this forum, I have seem several notable developments for the Tormek. The new (now standard) EZYlock stainless steel shaft is a notable improvement. The new drill bit jig is amazing. We have our choice of three different grinding wheels now. The new water trough is an improvement.
We even have our choice of jigs for small knives. The newest entry is from Tormek. The other entries have been conceived and built by members of this forum.
Since you only camber the blade of your jack plane, making a jig for it should not be difficult. There is no need to accommodate different blade widths or different arcs. All that would be required is a simple platform to hold the blade securely that also pivoted. It could be a simple affair made of wood.
I could see this jig being similar in development to the small blade jig. Multiple developers in the forum and also by the engineers in Sweden. I would expect the factory made version to be adjustable, both for blade width and degree of camber. For the home made versions, I would expect some of them would also be adjustable. Some might be for a single blade width and perhaps adjustable for radius.
Let's see what develops!
Ken
That seems like a good idea, Ken. Of course those of us with less experience will want to know the measurements. Do you have any idea what the radius of curvature would be, or how much "extra" has to be removed from the sides of the different blades?
Herman,
A good starting point for a jack plane blade (for "fore plane" rough work) would be a radius of eight inches. my source, Chris Schwarz' Handplane Essentials, recommends something between six and ten inches. Chris uses eight.
As to radii for jointer and smoothing planes with very slight camber, you will need to consult the forum physicist. My last millennium math is rusty. We would need to deduce the radius from a cord of a couple thousandths in a two inch width for the smoother and around six to eight thousandths is a width of 2 3/8" or 2 5/8" (for a number 8 plane).
Ken
I'm of the ilk that, on smoothing planes at least, you sharpen straight but you take down the corners a bit. If you camber the whole width of the iron then you have to extend the iron to that camber to get a full width shaving. If your iron is straight and you "break" the corners then you can vary the depth of the cut and still get a full width cut.
Thanks for the welcome Ken and also the advice. I also think a jig, whether from Tormek or shop-made for cambering a Jack plane would be a good option. I know that many top woodworkers camber the irons on all of their planes, but I have just rounded the corners a bit on my smoother and taken off more at the corners on my fore plane for deeper cuts. I know that both ways work well, but for me it is easy to sharpen a straight edge. I use my fore plane for larger panels for first pass flattening after the Jack and also as a jointer so a straight edge suits me.
Another question that comes to mind about sharpening on the Tormek is the use of a micro bevel, or perhaps just using a 30 degree primary bevel from the start. It seems to me that with Tormeks angle jig it would be easy enough to grind a primary bevel of 25degrees and then reset the jig at 30degrees to grind a micro bevel. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
That's absolute childs play Mike. Just use the angle master to set the primary bevel angle and grind the whole bevel...then reset 5 degrees more for the secondary bevel and about 6 swipes will do it. You only want a very narrow strip at the tip of the edge because next time you hone....you only hone the micro bevel. It saves a ton of time.
I only have my secondary bevel 1 degree steeper than my primary on the two planes I use the most ie smoother and block.
In fact if you re do it frequently enough you can often get away with just freehanding it on the leather honing wheel to "bring it back from the dead" for a while longer before you actually resharpen.
This is particularly true if you're not planing really aggressive hard wood
Thanks Rob. That is what I do when sharpening by hand and it works great and takes just seconds to renew the micro bevel. I'm very happy with my hand honing regime, but I've got arthritis, so I'm looking to making the job a less physical. The only thing stopping me from buying the Tormek is the price, but I'm pretty convinced it would be a worthwhile investment with it's quality and flexibility, so I will probably buy one in the near future. Meanwhile I'm exploring it's possibilities.
Mike,
The deciding factor for me in purchasing a Tormek was my hand pain after preparing several chisels for a hand dovetailing class. I will admit that my lack of planning was at least partially responsible for my hand problem. However, I think this is an area where the Tormek really shines. It does the the hard work cooly and without complaining.
The new calibrated adjustment nut on the universal support bracket makes adding a micro bevel easy. Just do the initial grinding and decide how much you want to turn the nut to achieve your desired amount of micro bevel.
I believe the theory behind the micro bevel is to reduce the amount of sharpening work by just sharpening the very edge of the bevel. That's a great idea for hand work (especially for "experienced" hands). With the Tormek the micro bevel may or may not be such an advantage. If you do the entire procedure including the leather honing wheel on the Tormek, I doubt the micro bevel has much benefit.
If you prefer to leave the final honing/polishing to water stones or other media, then the micro bevel still makes sense.
I suggest you try sharpening a chisel or two both ways. See what feels comfortable to you and your work. You may find the faster single bevel method quite adequate. You may find some applications where the extra time involved in really polishing a micro bevel yields better results.
Personally, I still lean toward the micro bevel and finishing with water stones. I have not abandoned the leather honing wheel. I am a creature of habit, and have not yet developed my skill with the leather honing wheel to the point where I am confident with it. For the present, my jury is out on the honing wheel versus polishing stones.
In plane terms, I think the single bevel cambered edge is quite adequate for the jack. The smoother might benefit from careful hand honing. The jointer might as well, depending on how ofter the jointer was followed by the smoother.
Nick the corners or camber? This reminds me of Mark Twain's quote, "Man is the only animal with the one true religion, all seven of them."
I realize the cost of the Tormek represents a major investment. At least the T7 is ready to use for planes and chisels right out of the box without purchasing additional accessories. The versatility is available for sharpening things like turning tools and more specialized tools IF you want or need it. If you don't need to sharpening turning tools, planer blades or drill bits, you don't need to add that cost. It is nice to know that should your needs expand, the supporting accessories can be purchased later.
Keep us posted.
Ken
From what you said Ken, all options are pretty much open. I agree with you that the Jack doesn't need to be sharp as the smoother. I don't have access to a lot of the hardest or special woods like tiger maple for eks. here in Norway, so I don't obsess too much on the finished bevel, I just hone to 1200 and strop with paste. That gives me a very satisfactory edge for the work I do. I'm pretty sure the Tormek could do the whole job for me without having to resort to further hand honing, and that of course is the appeal to me of owning a Tormek.
Mike...I bought the tormek originally because I had got to the stage where I couldn't bare to get out the stones to hand hone my plane blades. I was just "fed up" with sore fingers (and I don't have arthritis!!!)
The Tormek made all the difference to me. Now doing plane and chisel blades is a snap, the likes of which I could never have dreamt before
Thanks Rob, I think I'm at that same place myself, plus to be honest, I like the idea of being able to easily and accurately sharpen other tools besides my chisels and hand planes. Spoke shaves, Scissors, knives and carving tools would be some of these. I'm not sure about turning tools. Since they are HSS steel I usually just use them directly from my bench grinder except for my skew chisel which I hone after grinding. I would sure try them out on the Tormek though. I know they would be sharper and give a smoother cut, but I'm not too concerned about smoothness until I get to my final shape and then I can use the skew or a scraper depending on what I'm turning to get the final finish. My son lives in Sweden, so I may buy a Tormek there if we drive over to visit later this summer. They are cheaper there, about the same as you pay in the US or Canada. If you were buying now, which jigs would you find most useful?
Well....funny you should mention jigs.....and turning tools.
I found the Tormek to be first class with turning tools and I use mine daily. I've actually just built a sharpening station right next to my lathe which has the BGM-100 bolted to the table top aligned with a dry grinder. In case you're not familiar, the BGM is a Tormek universal support so it allows you to use your Tormek jigs on your dry grinder.
Now I touch up all my skews and round nose scrapers on that setup but do my gouges on the Tormek. So the T7 is setup for front grinding ie not on top ie wheel spinning away from you. I do all my bowl and spindle gouges on the T7 and either use the articulated gouge jig (which is brilliant by the way) or a custom spacer block per tool and the svs multi jig(as per Jeff's videos).
The dry grinder and the BGM is setup with the Torlok toolrest on all the time and for scrapers and skews I just adjust it by eye and match the existing grind.
That just leaves my parting tool which I freehand on the T7 because its easy to draw the temper of that fine edge on the dry wheel...and impossible on the T7.
Every one of my turning tools has a consistent single facet bevel and they are razor sharp....It never takes me more than a minute to put a new edge on any of them.....often considerably less. When roughing out between centre spindle stock, I leave the 3/4" roughing gouge attached to the jig for 10 second touch ups....it doesn't interfere with the toolrest as you only ever offer it to the work relatively straight on.
Tormek coined a marketing buzzword/phrase called touch n turn for their set of turning jigs and in my view it's the best value I've had from them.
Good to know Rob. I have had my Record lathe for about 17 years now and I've never even had to replace a pulley belt on it or anything else for that matter! There are better lathes, but I'm just glad it's still functioning as well as when I bought it. I have a Wolverine jig for my bench grinder with a special jig for fingernail grinds. It works real well, so I will probably stick with that instead of spending even more on Tormek jigs, since I'm not doing so much turning these days anyway. I love turning, but currently I'm hooked on marquetry work. I still do general woodworking and turning though. I guess I just like to try out new stuff all the time, as that is and always has been my main motivation besides my love for wood in general. Not a great recipe for mastering any particular skill, but lots of fun anyway.
One thing I would like to say is that I have great respect for English woodworking and the no nonsense way they go about it. I have acquired quite a few cherished skills from articles, videos and books by English woodworkers, although most of my woodworking education, such as it is, comes from the US.
That's very kind Mike.....you sound like a decent chap if you don't mind me saying. How odd...I have a Record Power lathe too :-)
I think we've come at it from different angles. I left manual oil stones and went to the Tormek because of sore fingers on planes and chisel blades, then got into turning (in probably much the same hunt for something new in wood that led you to marketry) and then I found the T7 had all these lovely turning jigs. That was some years after I bought it.
Than I discovered it was rubbish at shaping high speed steel with large surface areas, not sharpening but shaping ie lots of metal to remove. So I've reversed back into a dry grinder approach for those big metal removal jobs. But with the addition of all the control of the Tormek jigs due to the permanently mounted universal support.
It appears through other means you've already got that kind of setup...I twisted and turned (no pun intended) for years before I've arrived at my latest setup.
Marketry you say.......I can almost hear my wife groaning in the background :-)
I think there will always be room for the secondary bevel. For example if I'm experimenting with a sharper angle on a chisel whose edge just doesn't seem to be standing up, it's easy to put a secondary bevel on it to quickly increase the edge angle.
For me, though, under normal circumstances there doesn't seem to be much of an advantage to a secondary bevel. The Tormek makes easy work of grinding a precise angle across the entire width of the bevel.
I would agree with that in general Herman. But if I'm planing a quite forgiving wood I still try and avoid remounting it in the jig, instead just touch it up on the leather strop by hand. I've been quite impressed by how that can redress an edge that hasn't got too far gone.
Mind you it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference in having a micro bevel or not when you perform that step to be fair.
It's quite possible that my love of micro bevels goes all the way back to hand honing days and its a habit that just won't die.
A note to Mike who is contemplating buying a T7 -
When you buy one, you will either have instant success followed by sessions of pulling your hair out; or pulling your hair out from the start! You may even query why you have spent so much money and the results are disappointing. However, when you do get up the learning curve you will not be disappointed!
You have commented about plane blades. The first problem I expect you to experience is not getting a square edge on a plane blade when using the SE76 square edge jig. There are several minor factors (which have noticeable effects) that come into play, as detailed elsewhere. They can be readily overcome when you understand the causes.
I bought a T7 because my fingers could no linger take the strain of hours on the waterstones. I had issues with the SE76 in particular, but as I understood the causes, so the solutions and tweaks became effective.
Regarding chisels, I now do some of my chisels with 30 degree micro-bevel, and some I leave at 25 degrees for paring work. It is easy enough to just hone them up without the micro-bevel.
I have also made a couple of jigs, as posted elsewhere. One for handling small blades eg spokeshave blade which did not fit the SVM45, and another for ones so wide or short they do not fit the SE76.
Like most contributors I have developed my own processes about how to get the desired end result eg if and when to regrade the stone surface; grinding to or from the edge; if and when to use the honing wheel; if and when to use a waterstone. So be aware that you will have a learning curve to get up, but the end results are very good and your fingers will be fit to do other jobs! And most importantly, make sure that you always have a felt tip marker pan to hand as marking the surfaces of any tool (gouges/planes/chisels) gives instant feedback on how you are doing.
Quote from: Rob on June 30, 2013, 05:58:41 PM
I would agree with that in general Herman. But if I'm planing a quite forgiving wood I still try and avoid remounting it in the jig, instead just touch it up on the leather strop by hand. I've been quite impressed by how that can redress an edge that hasn't got too far gone.
Mind you it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference in having a micro bevel or not when you perform that step to be fair.
It's quite possible that my love of micro bevels goes all the way back to hand honing days and its a habit that just won't die.
It's been mentioned here before that freshening up an edge on the leather honing wheel is very much akin to creating a micro bevel.
aye you're right...I'd forgotten about that thread.
Thanks much Robin for that sound advice, although I had pretty much figured that out already from reading a lot of posts on this forum. I'm sure I will experience both the good and the bad, especially in the early days, just like when I learned hand honing. Once I get started, I will probably be searching for relevant posts and asking a lot of questions. I'm not getting any time in the shop right now due to work in the garden.
We lost almost all of our evergreens in the hard winter this year and we have had to cut down quite a few trees, about 18 altogether, not to mention numerous bushes and ground covers. I guess this is a kind of woodworking, at least according to my wife. I'm saving some of the larger ones for turning. I haven't tried Juniper before, so maybe it will be fun. At present I have assembled my T7 in the living room (lounge?) and I've been familiarizing myself with it by reading the manual, which by the way is in Swedish since I live in Norway. I can read and understand it, but i get a headache after awhile, so I've downloaded the English version. I wish I could get the booklet in English to take out to the shop. I guess I can print out the pages I'll be needing in the start and add to it as I go.
Now, I am interested in knowing why your wife groaned when you mentioned marquetry. If it's because she has done it using a knife and found it tiring, you can tell her that I am using a scroll saw and I have a special method which makes it easy and accurate and fun, even for the smallest pieces.
Hi Mike
No...you misunderstand, the notion of my wife groaning would be because of me contemplating yet another branch of woodwork (we have the concept of the workshop widow here in the UK) :-)
For me the main fun of woodworking is learning and trying new things. Maybe you are the same Rob. Just prior to buying the Tormek I told my wife that I didn't think I would be making any more large expenditures on tools in the future, but she wasn't surprised, but perhaps a bit dismayed, when the Tormek popped up. There just seems no end to it.
The wife of a cabinet maker I know commented about the time he was spending in his home workshop (not the one he operated his business from) to which he replied -
"Would you rather I spent time with my friends Black and Decker, or going off down the pub?"
No further comment!
Regarding more tools, there is always something you don't have, which would help the current job go easier.
wise man say that man without hobby is probably having an affair!
Yes, we are walking on a thin, if not always sharp edge, trying to balance home life with our time in the shop. Luckily, having tools and a wife need not be incompatible. It all depends on how much time you spend with the one or the other. Don't forget to include sleeping time if you are forced to make a comparison!
It helps (I find) if the time spent in the workshop is on building something the boss has specified....very difficult to be negative when ownership of the design is involved :-)
Very true Rob, nothing better than honey-do projects (once in awhile). I've just returned from dumping some cut down trees and it's raining pretty hard now, so it looks like I will be able to set up my Tormek in the shop today and hopefully give a test run. Now, if I just had a dull chisel, lol.
Actually I will have to resharpen all of my chisels and my plane irons too, except for the new planes because I have been using what most might think an unusual hand sharpening/honing technique. I learned it on the net from Paul Sellers, an english master woodworker with about 50 years experience. Instead of being concave, the bevel is convex. The method is very easy to do compared with the normal honing procedure and leaves a wonderful edge. You see his technique on Youtube if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ykVzL2VAM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ykVzL2VAM. I expect some folks will think his method is heresy, but believe me, it works!
Mike,
Thanks for posting the link to Paul Sellers' sharpening. I for one would certainly not call it heresy. It looks very straightforward and effective to me. Like many on this forum (probably including you) I used oil stones for many years and then water stones. Diamond stones seem a big step forward.
What he did not show was reforming an edge with a large nick. I'm sure he would have just spent more time sharpening. In my opinion, that's where the Tormek shines. I'm not certain how practical the Tormek is above 1000 grit. At that point, the hard work has been done. The polishing is just a few strokes, either on the leather honing wheel or a fine stone.
Ken
Paul Sellers seems to be basically doing the same thing the Tormek does, except he's doing it by hand.
I'm sure the chisel he started with was already sharp. He was just demonstrating.
Some of the old chisels I've found or inherited hadn't seen a proper sharpening in years, or in some cases decades. Each prior sharpener had simply created a new micro bevel, so a lot of steel had to be removed to restore the bevel to its proper angle. Without the Tormek, I would have had to use a dry grinder to get started before I could follow Seller's technique. And then it would take quite a bit of expertise to get the bevel at the correct angle. Fortunately, I do have a Tormek so I can do the whole thing in just a few minutes and get the edge angle where I want it, too.
Before getting the Tormek I repaired bevels on my 6" grinder which leaves a noticeable concave shape. When I switched to Seller's method I was surprised at how fast I got a convex bevel on my blades using
diamond plates with 600 grit first and then finishing with 1200 grit. The old chisel I sharpened on my Tormek still had a very good bevel on it and it didn't take very long to get the new bevel on the Tormek. I
think it would be easier to use the bench grinder for a first pass to grind away nicks, although I rarely get them and when I do it is because I ran into a knot. I never use my chiselsI as screw drivers or
paint can openers, probably because I have other tools that do the job better stored right beside them. I am fairly confident using my bench grinder after years of practice with my turning and other edge tools. I
do plan to use the Tormek to renew unclipped bevels though. I might change my mind on this after getting more experience with the Tormek. I tend to like whatever works best in practice, so I am changing my
mind quite frequently as I learn new things.