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After a bit of advice from Tormek Support I've managed to get my jig sorted!

Did they tell you straighten it out? So you were no longer afraid you might break it?

That's correct Herman, Tormek said if it broke they would send me a replacement jig so I had the confidence to go ahead and bend it straight.

After a bit of advice from Tormek Support I've managed to get my jig sorted! It turns out it was bent when I received it and so the results were not as expected, but I have managed to gently knock it back straight and now it performs perfectly. I straightened it by eye, and to check it was going to be correctly set up I marked the stone with a pencil to see where the blade would touch on either side. The images show very minor deviation now and I imagine any difference in bevel angle will be insignificant. Thanks to Stig for the advice!




Before



After









The lines show negligible difference for each side of the blade

Thank you Ken

WolfY,

I am of two minds on this. I appreciate accuracy. I also realize that this sharpening was traditionally done by hand and without jigs. I tend to think that historically a couple degrees would not matter.

Ken

I think if you were sharpening knives by hand all day as a full time job you'd probably be able to get results as good as any of us using the jigs! I tried sharpening a couple of small knives by hand too, and I got reasonable results (for a novice!) - but I bought into the Tormek system for controlled accuracy of sharpening, and I'm delighted with the results for my gouges, it has to be said I'm obsessive about my knives!

Outstanding photography, carvingcat! I will have to clean up my act to keep up with the newer members. Out of curiosity, what lighting do you use?

Ken

Thank you Ken, here I'm using a couple of Elinchrom D-Lite strobes with some 66cm softboxes attached, set either side of the shot. It's my standard setup for photographing my carving work (www.perrylancaster.com if you're interested). I love them, but any good quality lights will give the same results...

Hi guys, I'm new here and this is my first reply

The problem you describe about the angle change as the jig is turned 180 dgrs is of little concern to me too.
But let say for the regular user with the standard jig that use it for years and never got into this measurements, is it a real problem? Let say the sharpening angle difference is 2~3 dgrs.
How much tolerance will you accept?

Carvingcat, Is your jig bent or was it so originally?

This is how it came from new, the original box was undamaged so there was no problem during transport, but to be honest I think it is bent, I'd be very interested to compare it against another one - I can't decide whether to try to straighten it, risking breaking it, or just leave it as it is and adjust the angle for each side.

   Welcome to the forum, Wolfy. As Stig (Stickan) has posted, it really is a cosmetic situation.

http://forum.tormek.com/index.php?topic=2577.msg13542#msg13542

I think it is more than a cosmetic issue, after the first run it was impossible to cut a thin slice of garlic as the knife would slip out sideways on the cut.
Having taken much more time I'm now able to get a superb edge, but I have to do 2 strokes on one side, then flip the knife jig over and completely re-set the desired angle and do 2 strokes on the other. After testing with the knife still in the jig, if it needs further refinement I repeat the process again. It takes time, and it is a pain re-setting the angle (requiring 3 to 4 turns of the adjustable stop) but the final results are impressive - I can slice garlic as thinly as I'd ever need

I'm very tempted to just knock this so that it runs straight, but I'm worried it might break - any thoughts on the alloy?

Welcome to the forum carvingcat. 

In this thread we have discussed mainly the Tormek knife jig SVM-45 and I am not quite sure if we can apply the conclusions also to your SVM-100 jig.

Based on Wootz experience the usage of the knife jig SVM-45 for thick knives (more than 3 mm) results in uneven bevel angles. He solved this problem by filling away 1 mm from the static clamp.

Based on my measurements the knife jig SVM-45 works perfectly symmetrically for 2 mm thick knife blade.

Because it is hardly imaginable that your knife is substantially thinner than 2 mm, it is probably necessary to look for the fault in the jig, or in the way the knife is mounted into the jig. When the blade is tapered and the jig grips only 2 or 3 mm of the knife's blade, than the knife is often not sufficiently firmly mounted in the jig.

Jan

Thanks Jan, the SVM-45 is identical to the SVM-100 apart from the width of the blade jaws which are 100mm on the SVM-100 and (I assume) 45MM on the SVM-45, they both function in exactly the same way. The knife I'm using here is exactly 2mm thick, and the more I look at the jig the more I think it could be a defective item.


In the first image you can see how the lower jaw deviates from the straight line at the arrow, the other images showing the angle refer to the blade angle (not the bevel), the anglemaster reading was taken from one side of the blade and not changed for the other - it is to illustrate the different angle of the blade resting against the stone, if the jig was accurate then surely the blade should be resting flat against the anglemaster (at 16 degrees) in both images, not just on one side.









Note the anglemaster is set to 16 degrees in both images;

Here's the jig holding my thinnest knife (kai shun 8" chef's), you can see the knife is not inline with the jig, even the larger cast part of the jig appears to bend away from the shaft...


,




And here it shows how much the angle changes when turning the jig over...






The only difference in the two images above is that the jig has been turned over, the angle has changed significantly

I had this exact same problem with the Tormek SVM-100 that came as part of a kit with my 1206 bought a few years ago, and after trying it out once (on one of my cheaper 8" chef's knifes) I found the results so bad (my knife sliced diagonally after!) I put the jig away until recently, putting it down to my novice sharpening skills. I use my Tormek almost exclusively for sharpening my carving gouges and so I forgot all about the SVM-100 until recently when I thought I'd have another go before selling it.

Looking at it again it is clearly offset, and the only option is to reset the angle for each side of the blade - it is a bit of a hassle but I've now had some reasonable results, I'll try to upload some images to illustrate.