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Thanks Jeff.  I will try that.  How often do I need to use the stone grader?  It seems that my stone looses its smoothness rather quickly.  I can quickly get a burr and a nice  edge on the first 3 or 4 knives but after that it seems to take a bit of work.  If I grade the stone again it performs well.  I'm thinking that maybe because the stone is brand new that there is maybe a break-in period but that's just my guess. 

I've owned my T-7 for 1 month now and I am very satisfied with it.  I am new to sharpening and primarily sharpen knives and can say that the T-7 is simple to use and quite accurate.  I have never sharpened a knife before owning my Tormek so I have nothing to compare it to but it works well for me.  So far my friends and relatives have been pleased with my results.  One HUGE plus to owning the Tormek has got to be the support from this forum.  I've gotten so much good advise by just reading the Q & A's.  I will say that I think the Tormek is more for sharpening and not so much for grinding as I tried to re-condition a chisel which was badly beat up and ended up going to a modified buffer with a grinding wheel and a paper wheel for finishing.  I still think I might have been able to work the chisel on the T-7 but it would have taken a very long time.  It's all going to come down to you.  You can ask 100 people what they like or don't like and you'll get 100 different answers.  Try and figure out what's holding you back from making the purchase and work from there.  If it's price that's a key issue.  If it's whether the T-7 will perform for you then I'd say you've got no worries.  The machine will sharpen knives.  As for jigs, I find that I rely on my knife jig a lot.  It doesn't come with the basic machine but for me it was worth the extra $30.00.  I think in the future I'll be good enough to free-hand most knives but for now I like to know I'm giving the knives back accurately sharpened.  It's obviously slower this way but at this stage of my sharpening I'm not about speed.  Good luck.  Hope this helps.