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Hi All - just wanted to update you on this issue. I did contact support@tormek.se and received no reply. I decided to use the truing device very lightly across the wheel on a couple of passes. The wheel was not out of round so I just wanted to make it courser, grazing over it to see if it would remove steel more like normal. Of all the many times I've trued one of these stones, I've never seen it turn into a slurry mess quite like this. See attached photos. Of course, this type of slurry will be in the trough after truing the stone or in my case, after sharpening a couple of hundred items on Saturday. But I've never seen it start coating the wheel with pasty clumps or completely covering the diamond truing point. Something is up with this stone. AND, I got a second complaint on Saturday on a couple of knives I sharpened. In the last 4 or 5 years of my sharpening biz, I've gotten one complaint. With this new stone, I received two in the last month. I will contact the the vendor about this and try tormek again. Please let me know if anyone experiences something similar.

Thanks all - This is my third SG250 stone. The other two were after the original stone that came with the T7 wore down to the nub. Over the course of that time I've sharpened thousands of knives and other things through my business. While I like to think I'm still improving, I don't think that's the answer to the more wear vs less wear. However, I haven't heard about what Rich brought up about replacing the grading stone. I thought the course side had a very long lifespan. I think I might put the truing tool across it and see what that does. I got a customer complaint the other week which is extremely rare for me. So I sharpened my own kitchen knives on this stone and I'm not that happy with them so I need to figure out what's going on.

I've purchased a couple of Tormek SG250 stones over the last few years. I've notice some differences between the two. Mainly, the 2nd one, which is what I am using now, does not wear down as quickly as the first one did, which is a good thing. Also, I am not having to true the stone constantly, also good.... However, I'm noticing that at the 250 grade, it doesn't appear to be removing steel as efficiently as the older one. I've been having some issues with getting a burr up and having to do a piece two or three times to get a really sharp edge. Has anyone experienced this situation or know about the consistency of the manufacturing process from stone to stone?? I've resurfaced the stone several times now with the 250 grader and I've been surprised at how smooth the surface feels against the metal. It feels more like the 1000 grit. Thoughts, suggestions???

Ken..... Thanks for the info. I will call them today. I also found a distributor about 60 miles from me (Woodworker's Supply). I'll call them as well to see if they do repairs.

Thanks Herman - I tried that both those things. I didn't have any grease handy so I put a little oil on the nylon parts figuring that would give me an indication, but no luck.... still very noisy.

Hi All

I have a T7 that is about a 1.5 years old, which I have used every Saturday for the last year sharpening knives and tools at a supermarket plus a summer farmer's market. So it has had some use. The grindstone is down to about 220mm so maybe a few hundred hours of use.

It just started making a weird noise. The sound has various features.... it starts with a scraping noise, then goes to a buzzing sound that's like one of those nasty industrial alarms and then sometimes works it's way to a higher pitch, which sounds like an electronic cricket. I worked with it for 4 hours on Saturday and the machine performed normally despite the noise. I also pulled the motor away from the drive shaft but the sound remains.

Any ideas?? Possibly the motor going out?? If it is the motor is that something I can replace myself or does the whole machine have to go in for repair.

Thx - AR

I'm experiencing the same (or similar) wheel wobble issue. I just started noticing it a few of weeks ago but I'm not sure if it has happened gradually and is now very obvious or it just happened one day. Very noticeable on the stone wheel and it appears the leather wheel is moving in sync with it, though not as noticeable. So what it looks like is if you watch the stone wheel pass by the measurement marks on the machine, the high spot of the stone hits at 230 and as the rotation continues, it comes back in towards maybe 228 or so. The leather wheel is in sync with that motion, i.e. hitting the high spot together.

I do move the machine every week to a sharpening location but I'm very careful with it so I doubt the shaft is bent. I'm going to try what Jeff suggested tomorrow and see if that helps and true the stone as well. I'm wondering if the weight at the bottom of a soaked stone could cause a slight warp while it is drying out. Seems doubtful but wondering if anyone has any thoughts about that aspect.

One other thing I seem to have noticed is that the machine makes more noise now than when new......it's less than one year old but gets a fair amount of use.

Nice Herman - That makes logical sense to me and seems like a good way to really drill down on the angle accuracy for the type of knife originally described. I agree with you that in most cases, the variance of the angle will not be that big of an issue. However, my concern was like yours....if I have an expensive knife that I want to be very precise and not remove more steel than needed.

Thanks Herman.... Just to be clear, the Angle Master in this scenario is always in contact with the grindstone, whether measuring from the mid section or the upper portion of the blade (closest to the spine). The third angle I referred to, the actual existing bevel, becomes irrelevant since it is the angle we are either recreating or modifying.

I like your idea of doing the math on what the tilt of the blade is relative to the center line, but how do we best and accurately determine what that tilt is??

I have a question regarding using a knife jig and the Angle Master on a knife that has 3 angles - 1. The most parallel section that starts from the spine and goes half way down the blade. 2. A mid area that starts a new angle that meets with the bevel. 3. the bevel forming the cutting edge. If I put the Angle Master on the top area closest to spine and set a 20 degree angle, that becomes a 23 - 25 degree angle when measured off the mid area (depending on the knife). So my confusion has been over what area to use and what angle am I really sharpening at. My thought was to use the most parallel surface to the center line which would be towards the top.

On a typical chef's knife that has a long tapering blade to a narrow bevel, is it best to measure the angle from the mid point of the blade??