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Glad it helped.  I'll get a couple of pics up tomorrow, but don't expect anything worthy of Chippendale - it was just a functional fix.

Dave

Hi Lou,

I had a similar experience of persistent water leakage with my new T8.  I tried a few things, including less water in the trough but got not result.

I noticed that there was a gap between the inner wall of the trough and the alloy face of the T8, varying from about 1mm to just under 2mm.  Looking at the trough on my machine, the inner edge is slightly bowed away from the face of the T8 in the centre area.  I got the trough swapped by the retailer.  Exactly the same as the original.  I also looked at another unit in the store and it was just the same.

In the end the solution that worked for me was simple, but a tad inelegant.  I removed the stone, cleaned up the face of the T8 with degreaser, fitted the trough at normal height (with the grinding wheel off) and applied some clear silicone sealant in a bead that followed the line of the inside edge of the trough.  The idea was that the bead forms a light, flexible seal against the top edge of the trough and pushes any falling water far enough out to avoid going down any remaining gaps between trough & machine.  I put a bit of grease on the edge of the trough to stop the sealant adhering to it and left it to set up.

The result is bone dry running every time, even with 2 3/4" plane blades, although I've not sharpened knives which I'd guess are the real test. In practice, you don't see the bead and I can't imagine it damaging the alloy casing.  The one drawback I can see is that that you'd need to redo the bead as the stone shrinks with usage over time, but I'd guess most people will get a lot of use before getting to that stage.

I'm away from home just now but could send photos if you need.

Hope this helps,
Dave

Thanks Ken.  That really makes sense now.  I'll give it a try.

Dave

Thanks Ken,

That's interesting and it'd be great if it fixes the problem.  I'll try running half an inch or so shy of the max line next time and I'll let you know.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Herman,

Good point! I really just wanted to check there was no problem with my machine.  What you say fits what the local dealer told me - i.e. it's a wet machine and things get wet ...

I'm going to add a paddling pool under my sharpening station with automatic water extraction, filtration and recycling directly back into the trough.

Dave

Hi Ken,

Thanks Ken - good ideas.  I talked to Axminster over here who sell a lot of these machine and they say this kind of leakage is normal and happened to a similar degree on the T7.  I'm going to have a crack at sticking a narrow strip of 1.5mm neoprene sheet to the inner face of the trough.  Should be enough give in the neoprene to allow it to form a rough seal.  I'll try a few other tricks and variations if that doesn't work.

I'm happy with tilting the T8: I already use a shim under the tray and it doesn't upset my eyes!

Cheers,
Dave

Hi Ken,

Thanks for getting back so quickly.  I missed a key point in my post.  The issue is that, as I move the plane blade over to the right-side of it's travel, it inevitably spills a few drops of water from the overhanging part of the blade onto the top of the housing.  This is to be expected, as the blade always carries a lip of water, pulled onto it by the rotating stone, which falls off when the blade overhangs the stone.  The reason I get no issues with sharpening chisels is that I get an overhang of no more than a couple of mm as I move across the stone, whereas with a plane blade, I get or 50mm 60mm, so more water inevitably falls onto the top of the housing.  The problem is that most of the water on top of the housing seems to make its way down the left side and run between the housing and the inner edge of the trough.

I'm careful not to overfill the trough and I've not seen any sign of water making its way directly out of the trough and I've not had spillage when removing the trough.  That bit works well.

Cheers
Dave

I'm wondering if anyone else with a T8 has experienced this.  When sharpening blades that are narrower than the width of the stone, there is no issue.  When sharpening wider hand plane blades, I get a significant amount of water making its way from the top of the alloy housing down to the base of the machine where, in my case, it fills up the RB180 and then spills onto the bench.  I took several steps to fix this problem, all of which either failed or were only partially successful:
1. Put the unit in a large rubber-lined food tray (same size as the Tormek one, but half the price)
2. Put shims under the right hand side of the tray to put a slight left-ward tilt on the unit: no change
3. Got a replacement water trough: no change
4. Bought a large cooking pipette to empty the tray: no fun

Per the promo video, there's a clever detail machined into the side face above the stone shaft that's designed to carry water away from the side face so it falls into the trough, rather than running between the trough and the casting.  In my case, with the stone off and the trough properly installed and pushed firmly against the casting, there's a 2mm gap between casting and inner trough edge at the front and a 1.5mm gap at the rear (with the stone is on the left).  I bought my machine from Axminster in the UK and they gladly sent me a new water trough, but the gap measurements where identical.  I'm moving the blade smoothly and not throwing excess water off the edges.  So I either have two identically defective water troughs, or the shape of the casting isn't doing its job.

I loose water at a significant rate, with the recess in the top side of the RB-180 filling in just a few minutes when grinding a plane blade.  Beyond that, the food tray starts filling up.  I've even resorted to using a big cooking pipette to save me lifting the machine and drying everything out every half hour or so.  Looking closely at the machine with the stone off and trough attached, I can see that the profile of the machine body below the shaft (or the inner face of the trough) may be the problem.  The tray just doesn't match the body profile closely enough and it's clear that water is going to run between body and trough.  If there was a gap of well under 1mm, I'd expect surface tension to do it's job, but 2mm is asking too much.

Has anyone else seen this problem with the T8?  I struggle to believe that there's an issue with the alloy body of the machine, but it feels like there is too much water making its way under the machine.  Axminster are offering to replace the whole machine, but that feels a bit drastic.

Thanks
Dave

Thanks Ken.

I was all set, with a design, to build a sharpening station with lots of drawer space.  I'm really short of storage space at the moment, so the drawer idea made sense.  Having read your post and looked at a other designs, I can see that I was about to build a station that would have been way too high at 800mm.  I've been using the T8 on my MFT3 so far (900mm high) and I thought that a 100mm (4-inch) drop from that would be fine, but I realise now that it all needs a bit more thought.

So no fancy workstation with drawers for now.  I'll just build a temporary table attached to the all and see how it goes.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks Rich,

Great advice re light.  I'm pretty close to your age and find I need loads of light and some magnification to work these days.  I fitted a LightCraft lamp & magnifier for my MFT-3.  I couldn't live without it now.  I'm planning on building a dedicated sharpening station, a bit lower than my MFT, and with plenty of drawer space for planes, Tormek stuff and other bits. This will be at the other side of the workshop and your comment makes me think I should get another magnifier lamp to dedicate to sharpening.

Don't worry, I'm not cutting myself up over having worked too hard too long.  I did some good things and a lot of them were good fun.  I think life has a knack of throwing curve balls at you at the right time (even if it doesn't feel so at the time) so I'm relaxed and philosophical about my situation.  It's also a great excuse to kick back and enjoy being in my workshop.

Ken, I meant to reply re your point about regular trueing.  I can see already that it makes sense to do that - taking fractions of a mm off at time, but always being sure of a good working surface that is absolutely parallel to the bar and the jig.  Makes perfect sense to me now.

Thanks,
Dave

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the support.  You're very humble about your abilities, but you've accelerated my learning curve no end.  I'm grateful for that and I'm very sure you've helped a a huge number of other people on this forum.

I've had some health challenges in the last couple of years.  I've always been very fit and active; into cycling, running etc. and then, out of nowhere, my body just broke suddenly and I had to have a heart bypass (at the age of 48).  I had a few complications and never got straight after the op.  So I've had to modify my outlook on life quite radically since then.  I don't yet have the stamina to work full time, so I have a bit of time on my hands, but much less money than I'm used to and only a tiny fraction of the stamina I used to have.  The T8 was quite a big outlay for me and I got to worrying if I'd done the right thing buying it, but your help has showed me that it was a great investment.

I've had a strong urge to get into woodworking for a few years, but always worked too long and hard to make time for it.  Now, I've kind of had a bit of a wakeup call and I attach a lot of value to whiling a way a few hours in my garage/workshop.  I makes me feel relaxed and happy.  My hands aren't what they were two years ago and I now have a bit of a tremor, but I can still make stuff.  I've realised recently that I'm probably not going to be able to get back into the fast corporate life I had before and I'm hoping to make a bit of income from woodworking somehow, even it it's part time and only supplements my living. So I have a huge amount to learn to get to that stage.

I wish I'd decided to do something like this 15 years ago instead of grinding out 16-hour days.  Sometimes it take a bit of a slap in the face to wake us up to what we're doing and why.

Re lighting, I'm lucky by UK standards in having a fairly large garage to work in and I converted it to a workshop fully a couple of years back.  The downside is that it has no natural light and my eyesight has fallen off a cliff-edge in the last two years.  I have a 35 year old Workmate, which I'm just about to make new jaws for, so I'll get outside a bit.

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic ramble.  Thanks for helping me out - I appreciate it more than you might guess.  I can work faster now and spend more time making stuff.  Glad I took a punt on buying the T8.  I no longer dread the feeling of my plane blade dulling ...

Dave

Hi Ken,

Thanks for this.  I did as you suggested.  Started with checking trueness of the stone, even though I trued it only a few days ago.  I was surprised to see it was a little out of square ref the universal support bar.  Either I did a poor job of truing first time round, or I knocked the stone out of true with grading stone (is that possible?).  Either way, user error 

So, I trued the stone, with a couple of light passes and then a fairly decisive one, which left me with clean stone and a surface perfectly parallel to the bar.  My bank cards are all a bit battered, so I used a quality 300mm steel rule, which was dead square across the tip.  I thought it'd be too narrow to get a decent reference, but it worked fine in the end.

I lowered the bar to within a hair of the wheel and drew a pencil line across the stone.  Took me three or four attempts to get a line I trusted as being parallel to the bar.  I mounted the rule against the fence in the SE-77, with 55mm of protrusion.  At first, the tip was a little out of square with the pencil line.  As in your case, I found the jig was a tad off neutral, so I reset it.  After that, the tip of the ruler was bang-on parallel with the line.  I used a fairly hairy-arsed magnifier to take a closer look (I have pretty bad eyes, even for my age).  I'd drawn the final line finely with a 0.5mm pencil and, looking at the underside edge of the rule tip, where it rested on the stone, it couldn't have been more parallel to the line if you'd used the rule to draw the line.

I then re-ground my low angle block plane blade, which came out spot-on square.  So I guess I just got lucky last time, as my stone was out and I didn't have the bade against the jig fence.

Ken, thanks for the superb advice.  So clear and simple and it taught me a real lesson but a great one.  As you say, I now have a repeatable reference, although I want to find something wider for future use.  I feel like I'm starting to understand the machine a bit better.

In the process of doing all this, I also realised that I'd been standing slightly offset to the left when standing in front of the T8.  Clearly just a habit, but I now make a point of standing square and central and that seems to help me get even pressure across the width of the stroke.

No doubt, much more to learn, but this feels good to me, as I really was worried a week or so back that I'd spent a lot of money on something that needed more skill and control than I have.  I guess it actually just requires more experience and skill than I yet have to get really consistent results.  But I like this kind of challenge: a bit like learning to dimension wood with a hand plane.

Dave

Hi Ken,

Thanks.  This sounds like a good idea.  I'll give it a crack tomorrow or Wednesday and see what comes up.  As you say, given the obviously excellent build quality for the T8 and the jigs, it feels unlikely that that's wrong.

Just to check I've understood you properly, are you saying that I should draw around the head of the reference piece to show the line of the side edges and the front edge.  Is that right? I assume the front edge should align with the line just dawn on the stone using the universal support bar.

So, if I now fit the reference piece into the SE-77, set against the fence, I'd be looking for the sides of the piece to be parallel to the side lines drawn on the stone, and for the front edge of the reference piece to align with the line drawn via the support bar.  Ideally, it'd match perfectly, but if not, is the idea that I then tweak the SE-77 using the fine adjusters to align with the marks on the stone?  I can see how that might give a one-time tune-up for the SE-77.

I think I've got a good reference tool, being a brand new blade for my Woodriver low angle block plane.  Untouched, ground as from the factory and a tad narrower than the stone, which will make it easier to mark lines down either side.  I'll check it's perfectly square.

Lots of geometry stuff going on here.  One minute, you think you've sort of got it and then you realise there's a load of stuff you don't understand :-(

Rich, glad to hear Tormekamada is looking out for me.  Think I might need a bit more help from her ...

Dave

Hi folks,

What a great forum! So many really helpful posts on every possible topic from woodworkers with long experience of Tormek machines.  Makes owning one feel all the better.

I just took the plunge after months of procrastination about whether I could justify the cost and bought a T8.  I've used a T3 in the past (at a woodworking school over here) and knew how much time it could save me.  I've been using Scary Sharpening, float glass, a Veritas honing jig  and a stropping block successfully for the last couple of years, mainly for plane blades, but a fair bit with chisels.  While I could get great results and shave whiskers off passing mosquitoes, I was going slowly mad and wearing my knuckles & wrists out every time I got a minor ding in one of my blades.  Re-grinding the primary bevel by hand is no fun and the process totally wears out a sheet of both 80u and 40u paper.  I make simple pieces of furniture, like bedside tables and laminated worktops, so I tend to do a lot of hand planning, often taking a blade from freshly honed to dulled in one long planning session.

I've had the T8 few days now and I'm generally very impressed.  As per the Tricks & Techniques thread, it's already obvious that using a Tormek is a bit of an art and I know I've a lot to learn and that it'll take a while.  I got off to a bit of a bad start in the first couple of days, as I just couldn't get a clean, straight edge on a bench plane blade at 90 degrees.  In fact, I couldn't even get a straight line, let alone 90 degrees.  I read everything three times and tore the last few tufts of my hair out, thinking I was just feckless and inept.  I made sure the blade was perfectly registered against the machined face in the jig and worked hard to control pressure at either side of the stroke.  No joy - just wonky, wavy bevels!  I spent quite a few hours practising, re-setting, repeating and adjusting the A & B knobs in the hope of getting straight.  It felt strange, with very inconstant responses to small adjustments on the A & B knobs.  I checked stone for alignment to the support, trued it up etc.  I was really mystified, as I'd found the T3 incredibly easy to use, with really consistent results  from the outset - easy to get a controlled camber perfectly centred on the blade etc.

Reading through the forum over the weekend, I found a great post (sorry, forgot whose it was) that suggested ensuring that the side edge of the blade is parallel to the side of the stone.  I realised that, as long as you have a blade that has parallel sides, this is the only sure-fire way of getting a 90 degree cut.  So I tried this approach today.  I reset the fine adjustment knobs to neutral, centred the blade in the jig (i.e. no contact with the machined reference face) and adjusted it so the right side was perfectly parallel with the outer edge of the stone.  I blinked a bit, as my small engineers square now showed that, over a short 45mm blade extension, there was a 2.5mm deviation top to bottom with the base of the square flat against the fixed body of the SE-77.  Anyway, I went ahead and started sharpening.

All of a sudden, the machine stopped fighting me and I was no longer chasing dips and high points.  I got a really straight bevel with a nice subtle camber.  Did it twice to be sure.  Everything suddenly felt like it was doing what I wanted instead of the opposite and it was really easy to control the amount of camber and to apex of the camber perfectly centred on the blade.  So that made me very happy and I know the T8 will be a great tool for me.

My question is, should a brand new SE-77 jig really be that far out of true of square reference the stone?  My universal support is spot-on parallel to the face of the stone and the stone turns smoothly, with no lateral movement.

Any thoughts gratefully received.  BTW no problems at all if you have to tell me I've been a tad gormless and missed something obvious ...

Thanks,
Dave