Messages

Ken S & Jeff
The main reason I choose the T7 over other bands was that in the UK it came with a free lifetime stone certificate from the dealer up to a maximum of three.

I was just curious on how long other members grindstones had lasted them.

Staysharp and have a merry Christmas & a Happy New Year everyone.

I should have explained that my work involves carpentry, joinery, and furniture making. On site work the larger chisels to get used a lot and renovation work soon takes the edges of the plane especially on old doors.

Admittedly I would never again sharpen up all the blades at the same time. The exercise was just to see how much of the grindstone was used up and then roughly work out how long the grindstone wheel could last, what made me curious about this was a sales person when asked how long would a stone last the answer was well how long is a piece of string.

I do hope the grindstone will last longer then my prediction of two years yes there is a lot of variables in the working out also the type of woodwork I will get to do in the future.
I do have a dry grindstone to take the worse nicks out of the blades first.

Sharpening has come a long way on since I first started 40years ago when we only had a two sided Indian stone or carborundum stone with a small oil can as an apprentice having to make a wooden box to house them in, then the Japanese flat wetstones, on to the diamond ones that personally I can never get a razor sharp edge on, but I am sure this method with the Tomrek wet sharpening results in the finest edge of all.

Michael

Thank you all for your replies in the topic Grindstone roughness & smoothness.
Now all that advice has been absorbed, I would like to know does anybody else keep a record of how long there Grindstone will last them. I have used up 6mm of the new stone sharpening 17 basic flat steel metal blades that includes Rough(fast) and Fine plus Stone Grading 34 times and just twice using the Diamond Dressing tool. The blades where 7 Hand Plane blades 60-40mm wide and 10 Chisels 30-3mm wide a total of 500mm steel blades, the time taken on average 4 minutes per blade including grading each time, total of 68 minutes.
So my conclusion would be, new Grindstone 250mm (10inches) to be replaced as advised at 175mm (7inches) 75mm of stone use. The work I do I would need to sharpen all 17 blades aprox 6 times a year using up 6mm of the grindstone each time total for one year 36mm two years 72mm, the wheel would only last two years maximum after sharpening aprox 6000mm (20 feet) of Steel and taken aprox six half hours. Why maximum is because as the grindstone wheel reduces its diameter there is less surface stone to sharpen on, I 'am not a mathematician to work that one out.

I would like to know if by sharpening on the fast grind 200g wheel after a few minutes of sharpening the grind wheel seems to become smooth again to the touch and needs the stone grader to roughen up the surface again is this possible that it does happen.
Look forward to a reply
Thanks