Messages

Thanks Jeff,
                  I don't have the planer blade jig so I used the scissor jig instead feeling that it was similar in use and I only need to get the bevel angle set then it is just a matter have moving the jointer knives across the stone. They are only 4" knives so getting a very expensive jig that holds very long knives wasn't something I wanted to do. Is that the biggest problem that I used the wrong jig or is it possible to use the scissor jig in my hand tool kit to do my small jointer knives?

How many swipes across the stone is usually needed to get a fillet knife sharp? I understand there are varibles but in general with a knife that is relatively good condition how many times should I be moving each edge over the stone before it is ready for honing?

I have had a T7 for about a year now and frankly I am kind of frustrated and disappointed with it. I am hopeful that it is just me and not the machine. When I use the T7 to sharpen anything it seems like the wheel does not stay flat across it's surface for any length of time. I use the truing tool to get it flat across the face and then with in several swipes with a knife or jointer blade the corners are rounded off. This as you can imagine doesn't bode well for getting nice edges on anything. So what the heck am I doing wrong? I have watched the videos so many times I can almost recite them by memory. It would seem to me that the wheel should stay relatively flat across it's face for longer than a few 5-10 swipes across it. Also is it normal for the wheel to load up with material while sharpening? What I mean is there seems to be a significant amount of metal that gets imbedded into the middle part of the wheel mostly and I have to use the stone grader to attempt to remove that material so that I have clean stone facing the tool i am sharpening. My last question is about the OEm stone, is it capable of sharpening jointer knives adequately in a reasonable amount of time or should I be looking at getting the black stone to do the jointer knives? It seemed to take a very long time to sharpen 4" jointer knives on the T7 and when I was done I ended up with somewhat sharp knives but they were not square/flat across their length. If I put them on a flat cast iron table I could see light underneath the knives which is not good for getting a nice flat cut across a piece of stock obviously. I really want to be able to use this machine i paid a lot of money for but it is really causing me to feel beaten and broken. I have really screwed up some of our kitchen knives sharpening them as I kept sharpening them probably too long and ended up causing the blade to not be flat any longer or completely changing the blade profile altogether due to excessive grinding. I need help here please.

Jeff,
       My sincere apologies if I miss read your reply's concerning sharpening carbide tools. I know you said the T7 could sharpen them I just did not realize you were referring to a different stone than the one that came with my machine. I will have to look at the SB-250 and see if that will do what I need to do. Thanks for the response as always.

So after reading one of the threads regarding carbide sharpening with my T7 I told the boss I had the machine and i would be happy to sharpen his carbide scraper blade. Well contrary to what has been posted here the Sg-250 stone has little to NO affect on a carbide scraper blade. I was after a very long time able to get some of the blade polished shiny like a mirror but actually sharpening it back to factory new was an abyssmal failure. Who here has been successful sharpening carbide tools with this system??? Is this even possible??? I know Jeff had stated in another thread that it can sharpen carbide but I am here to tell you mine would not sharpen carbide. I even graded the stone time and time again to try and get the stone to cut the blade but to no avail.

That is what I was thinking but have not had a chance to torque the mounts on the top of the machine chassis. I will give this a whirl when I have a minute after i do some measuring and figure out where the misalignment is.

I just had a quick question about the wearing of my stone. It seems like it wears on the edges much more than the middle. Is this normal or am I doing something incorrectly to cause this to occur?? It seems that when I sharpen knives which is all I have sharpened so far and the majority of what I will always sharpen when I move the blade across the stone and get near the tip of the knife I move the handle up like Jeff shows in the video but this seems to cause abnormal wear on the edges of the stone making them round off. If I am doing something wrong I would love to hear what it is so I can change the way I am doing things to keep the stone more square for a longer period before having to true it often. Thanks!

As a followup I loosened the nuts that mount the vertical posts to the machine chassis tonight and the tool rest moves perfectly no binding at all. When I tighten one post up still smooth and easy as soon as I tighten both nuts on both posts it binds like crazy. So there is something amiss on this particular machine. I left one of the nuts just finger tight so I could keep the tool rest bar smooth moving up and down but this is not ideal as you know.

Jeff,
      I appreciate your time and attention to my issue. I checked it very closely last night after reading your original post and it is virtually brand new. There is no gumming or other type of obstruction in the mounting brackets for the vertical support. I inserted each leg individually into each support bracket and they both slide in and out perfectly. But when I insert both legs together they go in about 1" and then bind up. It seems that either the support brackets (tubes) or the universal support bracket legs are not square and parallel to each other and they interfere with each other as I can feel significant resistance while inserting the support into the vertical mounts. I am going to loosen the mounts and see if that has any effect on the situation. The Universal Support is perfectly clean and polished and the mounts on the machine are in the same condition. This is definitely an alignment problem with either the machine mounts/chassis or the Universal Support bar. The Uni Support does slip freely into the horizontal support bracket strangely enough but that kind of makes sense as that is a solid (connected) bracket so the alignment is perfect which as I think about this points to the chassis mounts as being the culprit of my problem.

Jeff,
        I will try your suggestion but it feels like it is physically binding not just "gummed up". Plus what would gum it up? This thing is virtually brand new.

Well I got pretty lucky and purchased a used T7 w/ Hand Tool Kit for very short money this week and received it yesterday. I have been following these threads and others researching the Tormek and was really excited when I got the chance to purchase this new T7 for less than $500. It is virtually brand new and other than having to true up the stone it was perfect.

The only problem and this may be my problem and not the machine is when I put the Universal Support in the vertical brackets it is very difficult to insert it into the two uprights? I was wondering if this is normal or do I have an issue with the housing that has caused the brackets to lose their geometry?

My other problem after sharpening several knives is that I am having a really hard time determining the edge angle to sharpen at. I am using the angle master and it just doesn't seem to be very intuitive to me. In the book and the instructions it says to lay the guage on the bevel of the knife to acquire the edge angle. Well none of the knives I have done so far have enough of a bevel for that to take place. So I have to set the angle master on the flat side of the blade to get an angle reading. I know this is not the actual edge angle so how do I interpret the reading so I set the angle correctly. In the book it says to sharpen the big butcher type knives to 40 deg. but I cannot seem to get the Universal Support to stand high enough to get this acute angle?

So far my newbie efforts on the first few knives are still light years better than anything I have been able to achieve in the past using much more crude sharpening techniques. What I am seeing is that I can get the edge angle pretty consistent across 90% of the blade but the tip is where I am having a little trouble. I would assume that this is normal as it seems that some practice is definitely in order. I am getting the tips very sharp but the bevel seems to be wider than the rest of the blade and I know this is due to my improper movement of the blade at the very end of the stroke across the stone.

So far I am really excited and impressed with this machine. I sharpened several of my wifes kitchen knives Farberware and Henckels and they are sharper now than they have ever been even when new. Thanks and I am psyched to be the new owner of a T7.