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It could be that SJ inventories are too high. In other words, they made more than they can sell and now they're taking up valuable space in warehouses.

I've always considered them to be overkill. But I'm not a blade afficionado. I buy inexpensive knives and as far as I'm concerned I keep them sharp enough for use. To me they're tools, not show pieces. I could get my knives sharper and better looking with a SJ, but all that extra effort and expense is lost as soon as the knife is used a few times. That's what I think, anyway. I could be wrong.

So to correct my wheel, I would need to give more money to Tormek...

How so? If you don't have the truing tool, it's a necessity. Even if you had had great success out of the box, you would still need the truing tool very soon. As soon as a grindstone begins to show signs of being out of true, it needs to be immediately trued to minimize acceleration of the problem. In other words, continuing to use an out-of-true grindstone will make it much worse much faster.

Regardless of all that, contact Tormek about your problems. They will make it right. You will not have wasted your money.

I'm kinda confused. I bought the Tormek T-8 with the knife angle setter and the knife jigs. I follow the tuturials the same as on the YouTube videos.

But the thing is, their wheel is turning away from them and the knife edge. But my wheel is turning toward me toward the knife edge.

Many very experienced knife sharpeners will sharpen with the grindstone turning away from them. Personally, I find it better to grind with the grindstone turning towards me. It's faster, and with the homemade jig I use I get far better control. But it is a matter of preference.

So is there any way to reverse the spinning direction? Because obviously I can't sharpen knifes like this.

As others have pointed out, the way you do this is to turn the machine so that the opposite side faces you. Then you will have to mount the Universal Support Bar (USB) in the mounting hole on the side of the machine facing you. The USB will now be upright rather than horizontal.

The impedance is a complex number, containing both a real part and an imaginary part. For an ideal capacitor, the impedance is purely imaginary, with no real part.

But for a real capacitor, there is a real part. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"The magnitude of the impedance |Z| acts just like resistance, giving the drop in voltage amplitude across an impedance Z for a given current I."

My calculation gives the magnitude of the impedance as about 210 ohms.

That's why I said "loosely" speaking. I'm ignoring the imaginary part, which is, as you say, responsible for the phase shift.

Agreed, *but* you based your calculation on the capacitance only, meaning you assume an ideal capacitor.

Yes, you are correct about that. So is it correct to say that what I calculated is the magnitude of the ideal capacitor's impedance?

So you are not ignoring the imaginary part, you are dealing only with the imaginary part.

Yes. I did get that wrong.

The 210 ohms value you computed is a pure reactance, or said otherwise, no resistance at all.

To quote from the same wikipedia : "A pure reactance does not dissipate any power."

But, quoting from the same article:
"In electrical engineering, impedance is the opposition to alternating current presented by the combined effect of resistance and reactance in a circuit."

So it does offer 210 ohms of opposition to the current, plus whatever contribution is made by the (nonideal) resistance.

So, loosely speaking, the capacitor offers a resistance to the flow of electricity of about 210 ohms.

The capacitor offers no resistance to the flow of electricity at all, it essentially alters its phase by 90 degrees (and multiplies it by a factor that depends on frequency).
 The resistance is the real part of the impedance and the impedance of a capacitor is purely imaginary : all the energy is conserved in an electrical form, none is lost to Joule effect.

The impedance is a complex number, containing both a real part and an imaginary part. For an ideal capacitor, the impedance is purely imaginary, with no real part.

But for a real capacitor, there is a real part. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"The magnitude of the impedance |Z| acts just like resistance, giving the drop in voltage amplitude across an impedance Z for a given current I."

My calculation gives the magnitude of the impedance as about 210 ohms.

That's why I said "loosely" speaking. I'm ignoring the imaginary part, which is, as you say, responsible for the phase shift.

I once watched a marvelous VHS tape explaining Einstein's E=MC2. It gave the example of when a baseball is thrown at the speed of light squared, the baseball (matter) becomes Energy. for me, that was very informative. I would like to better understand the Tormek motors.

Yeah, you gotta be careful of those popular science publications and videos. What the formula really tells us is that the baseball has a rest energy of mc². So when at rest, it has an energy of about (0.145 kg)(300 000 000 m/s)², or about 13 000 000 000 000 000 joules. For comparison, if you heated 0.145 kg of water from room temperature to the boiling point (at sea level) it would take about 50 joules of energy. You could convert the energy of the baseball into, say, radiation by annihilating it, but unfortunately that would be very dangerous. Such things have to be done very carefully, using the correct materials (not baseballs) under carefully controlled conditions. We call such devices nuclear reactors.

The speed of the baseball has nothing to do with mc². In fact, c is a speed, whereas c² is not. It's just a conversion factor between units of mass and units of energy. Analogous to the conversion factor between inches and feet.

We all know that inches and feet are both measures of the same thing, distance. What Einstein taught us with mc² is that kilograms and joules are both measures of the same thing. Historically, we thought that mass was conserved, and energy was conserved. Two separate conservation laws. But Einstein taught us that that is just an approximation. There really is nothing special about nuclear reactions. When you light a match you are creating radiation, and that means the mass of the match and the smoke is decreased. It's just that the decrease is too small to measure. Nuclear reactions, though, are much more energetic, so the reduction in mass is quite measurable.

Sorry, Ken, to have to use a formula. The impedance, in ohms, of a capacitor is given by 1/(2*pi*f*C), where f is the frequency in hertz, and C is the capacitance in farads. So, for the T8 the capacitance is 25 microfarads, or 0.000 025 farads. If you're in North America the frequency is 60 hertz (in Europe it would be 50 hertz). That works out to about 210 ohms.

So, loosely speaking, the capacitor offers a resistance to the flow of electricity of about 210 ohms.

Impedance covering capacitance+inductance+resistance (Z=R+jLw+1/jCw), OP was correct...

Impedance is measured in ohms, capacitance is measure in farads. OP wanted to know the number of farads, so he was looking for capacitance, not impedance.

Nice work, MikeK. You've obviously put a lot of time, thought, and money into your sharpening. My set up pales in comparison.

Where does the 10 degrees come from? Is he assuming the scissor blade is a 10-degree wedge?

I also prefer the marker method.

Not only does the angle differ on each of the blades, I have sharpened scissors where the angle changes along the length of the blade. In that case I just use the angle at the center of the blade. But I'm not sharpening any special-use scissors, just kitchen scissors and scissors for cutting paper or cloth.

My daughter-in-law is a hair dresser. She won't let me near her very expensive scissors and I don't blame her. I've seen videos of how those are sharpened and a Tormek is not up to that task.

My grandson has been watching me use my Tormek since he was a little kid. Now an adult, he can sharpen a knife by hand with great skill. He still comes over to use my Tormek on occasion.

If the self-tapping screws won't penetrate then you do have to drill pilot holes. It sounds like your drill bit is dull. Small drill bits dull easily. Buy a new one.

Does the honing wheel wobble in sync with the grindstone? If so, it's likely a bent main shaft.

I redressed the wheel and checked for tool rest bar perpendicular to wheel, all looks good,

Not sure what's perpendicular to what? After truing, the cylindrical surface of the grindstone will be parallel to the horizontal portion of the universal support rod (USB).

however, when I ground the first blade the top is now ground dramatically out of square.

It's absolutely essential that the horizonal portion of the USB be parallel to the axis of rotation of the grindstone. They could have been knocked out of parallel if the USB was bent or if the two vertical portions of the USB are not parallel to each other. Or both! Less likely, but still possible, the frame is bent so that the main shaft no longer points in the same direction it used to. Perhaps before you ever acquired the machine it had fallen on the floor!

After removing the rust, I sanded the Tormek with abrasive fleece and then rubbed it with acetone. So far, no new rust has formed. The painter wanted to blast it with glass beads before powder coating. So actually, I could have saved myself the trouble of removing the rust and paint.

Yup. I didn't realize you had a professional doing the powder coating. You'll have a machine that will last the lifetime of your your descendants. The bearings are simple affairs that are easily replaced. In fact, every part is replaceable.

Mine is a unique handmade piece. I built the power supply almost 35 years ago during my first year of vocational training. In the vocational school we etched, drilled, and soldered the circuit boards ourselves. We also sawed, drilled, and filed the housing. We even screen-printed the front panel.

Impressive. I'm jealous of both your machine and your training background. When I was a secondary student in the 1970's I got slotted into the college-bound track so I received no vocational training or education.

Interesting that a up until a few decades prior to that every physics major had to receive formal vocational training to become a machinist. Somewhere along the way our society had lost the value it used to place on learning how to use tools and work with our hands. I see that changing a bit now, with a greater emphasis on hands-on education in the trades to prepare students for a career working with their hands. It's a great alternative to racking up huge debts from receiving degrees and advanced degrees that too often never get formally used, just because that kind of education is more respected in our society. I believe it's better for your physical, financial, and especially mental well-being to have a career working with your hands as opposed to working behind a desk.

As one person put it, in academia and many other careers the only purpose your body serves is to get your head to the next meeting.