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That looks great,    Apparently I am going to have to beg my machinist friend out of another freebe.

Don't forget about sharpening all manner of other items.

My answer to your question is to think about your friends, associations, coworkers, etc and go where the money is if you want to make a few bucks sharpening.  My mom is big into quilting and sewing,  She recently got me access to a group of quilters making kids blankets for those affected by the hurricanes.   I went and stayed pretty busy sharpening scissors for 4-5 hours, put a healthy sum in my pocket, made a donation to the cause, and also felt like I did my small part for the blanket making/hurricane relief.   So while you are waiting to purchase/researching.   Look around your social sphere and get some ideas for where/what you can sharpen"_____________"  for a couple bucks here and there.

A friend of mine processes deer on the side,  I sharpened his knifes for cheap/free, and he spreads the word to hunters that I do a great job sharpening knives.  In the long run sharpening his knives for cheap/free gets me a good bit of business.

Woodworkers know other woodworkers in the area,   Foodies know other foodies,  gardeners other gardeners, etc.

Don't turn down 300 Euro just because you only sharpen knifes not scissors

No, he just left one of those we missed you stickers on the back door, which was a indicator to me that there was a package left.  I already knew where to look, if I found the sticker.  Which was a lot better than a box sitting on the front step  on a busy street until after midnight.

I have been pretty lucky overall with my package delivery folks.   For years we had a UPS man who would just knock and let himself in (if we were home) with the large boxes my parents had delivered for their home based business, so my mom would not have to move them herself.   I was on afternoon shift for a couple years and was at the end of the delivery route, and my ups driver gave me his cell number, so I could call and meet up with him along his route and get my high value packages such as computers so they weren't sitting out till after midnight.    If I hadn't met up with him he would stash them in the back yard under the cover of my grill and leave a note stuck to my back patio door.  He would even signed for a couple for me.

I have also dealt with a couple @$$holes, fortunately they were short lived.

That's the problem with them, a 5 pack of Olfa blades is $45 at joanns,  or$19 on Amazon.  There are harbor freight ones for a carpet cutter are probably $5.   At the event I was at was a bunch of ladies that can only use the $45 Olfa blades from Joann's, but then they all asked about resharpening them.  So lets say you could get $2 to sharpen a 45mm rotary blade, some online places get $3 you would have to sharpen 3-500 of them to recover your investment in the wolff setup.    If there was a tormek jig that cost the same as the drill bit sharpener, then you are looking at roughly 100-150 units to recover cost at the $2-3 price point.


I did get complements multiple complements on how quiet my sharpening was.    Others had been told not to come back because the noise from the scissor sharpening machine was too much for them to handle.   

I recently went to a Project Linus event in my are to sharpen scissors while blankets for hurricane victims were made.  Many of the women were quilters and ask if I could sharpen rotary cutter blades.    I just browsed the interwebs and found that wolff has a machine to do them but at $1K that is a whole lot of rotary blades to break even. and with the price of them under $5 each it would be hard to charge a whole to to sharpen a blade.   However if a tormek jig were available it could be cost effective.

You are allowed to bring back a certain amount of goods, tax free, which i believe varies by length of stay.   Check on customs website.  So you may be able to bring one back tax/duty free.

You may notice that I've labelled where each jig or accessory goes.  That is to be sure they go back to the right place after use.  Also, when my father passed on, I had quite the task to figure out what some of his tools were (and I had his brother to help me).  So I'm saving my sons that effort, but hopefully that is 30-40 years from now.

More important than identifying the tools, make sure they know how to use them.    Younger people knowing how to use tools seems to be a dying art these days.

I picked up a 4 drawer roll away tool chest, with a top box for $129 in a closeout deal at my local Menards ( a regional Lowes, Home Despot etc.) I use the lower for my tormek, and store the jigs, files, hones, stones, 4" grinder, etc in it. Items that I use frequently are in the top drawer, then as you move down larger items and less used.   I also found that a full sheet pan fits almost perfectly on top which catches any drips, spills and so forth and is easier to clean than the tool box top.  A roll of paper towel also fits nicely on the handle.   It is about 1-2 inches taller than the tormek work station which works great for me as I am 6'2" so many universal fit options are just a touch too short for my back.  The top box I put on my reloading bench and filled with reloading items.   So I killed 2 birds with one stone.

Remember the $975 does not include travel to and from the jamboree or spending money while there. 

I was fortunate to be in a troop that did really well at fund raising.   In my 5 or so years in Scouts we went to Canada for summer camp,  Eglin AFB for a week, and 2 weeks at Philmont, and went on a monthly weekend camping trip all that time.  Our fund raising efforts subsidized everyone's expenses so it was a reasonable expense for even those that not so easily afford the big trips.  When I went to Philmont in the early 90's I believe it was $675 per scout + travel and spending money.    Amtrack gave my troop a entire private car from St Louis to New Mexico.

Jan,

Do you still have access to the file you used to 3d print the jigs that you made?

I was browsing the Internet for a new manual, and found a good deal on one.  The store contacted me and said it was a older 6th edition manual not the current 10th ed that they had listed. Apparently the barcode on the manual is the same from one edition to the other.  Anyway I can cancel my order iff I don't want it. Is there any advantage or info in the older versions that I wouldn't get a n the newer version?  I realize there will be some upgrades and possibly jigs missing, but sometimes the older books have info that newer ones don't.

I liked that story, I worked with a guy who lost the lower portion of his leg to a land
mine in Vietnam.  When the plant implemented safety shoes, he insisted he only should have to buy 1 since it didn't matter what happened to the foot he already lost, he could just put a new one on.  The plant safety guy finally convinced him to buy a pair of steel toe cowboy type boots.  On the second day of wearing the new boots he came in and requested medical leave to get his leg repaired down in St. Louis. Apparently he tried to take his boots off when he got home and ripped the foot off of his artificial leg not thinking that you have to be able to bend your ankle to put cowboy boots on or off. And he obviously has no control over what the joint in his artificial leg does.

The plant safety guy got harassed about that until the day he retired.

I think it comes down to what is the intended delivery mechanism from the manufacturer to the final customer.

1. Mfg to importer/ distribution center   would be palletized  and shipped via truck/container/ship.
2. Distributor to store.  Generally also via truck shrink wrapped to a pallet
3. Store to end customer.   Walk in sales or mail (broad term not necessarily usps)

It seems to me that step 3 is where the problems most likely occur.    If the intended delivery mechanism is in store walk in sales, then the packaging is probably sufficient.  In the US at least however I would suspect that a large majority of sales have shifted to mail order in the last few years.   I don't even know where I could find a tormek product  in a store near me.  I have a regional big box store in town who I suspect could get one  from their warehouse  but they don't carry them in stock at any location in my immediate area, so its not like I can walk in and see a item or talk to someone knowledgeable in store about one.  Its 300 miles/500km round trip to my nearest Rockler or Woodcraft.   I'm guessing Tormek would prefer that we purchased our items in store and package items sufficiently for that purpose.  However, that may not be the newer and current reality for many of us.

Unfortunately the packaging problem, would go back to the manufacturer not the dealer.  Most items ship in the same packaging that they arrive from the manufacturer to the distributor in.  The manufacturer generally specifies the packaging requirements for any given item.  To many manufacturers this means sufficient to withstand being palletized and loaded on a truck/container for shipment to the distributor or store.  For the most part items are received in good condition at this point. The damage comes when it leaves the distributor or store and is handed off to UPS and FEDEX, USPS, or LTL carriers where the corners of boxes are exposed to bumps, dropped down chutes, and travel conveyors, and bounce around in trucks and in some cases tossed to your front door.  If you haven't seen it google UPS worldport, and watch a video of how packages are sorted, think about a up to 70 lbs package sliding down one of those chutes and hitting your package.

When shopping, I always check for the best "total cost" of the item.   Sometimes it's is with free shipping, sometimes it is without free shipping.   I am always amazed at the people who get hung up on "free" and head to it like moths to a bug zapper.