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Thanks for the reply, Ken. I'm always glad and grateful to see your replies

These are steel woodcarving gouges, typically around 58 Rockwell. For the gouges I use with mallets or hard woods they have a 20-25 degrees bevel angle and all the rest have 17.5.

I'm afraid I'm not sure which of the tools were sharpened by the WS and which by the T8; they are all the same mirror finish now.

Re chipping versus rounding I couldn't say which is happening for sure as my eyesight even with a 8x lens isn't amazing. What is clear, however, is that if I do the following process they will be astonishingly sharp but fragile and chip/round after a few cuts of end grain:

1) Shape with coarse
2) Finish with fine (ending with a very light touch to reduce scratches)
3) Remove burr and polish on leather wheel with PA-70

What's notable about the surface using that process is that the blade is continuous right up to the edge as if it were a perfect infinitely-sharp bevel. But weak. Doing some further stropping with the tool at about 1-2 degrees solves that but often results in an unexpected edge shape as this fragile region of material gets removed in unexpected ways - especially for curved gouges above a #5. If instead I go back and forth between the strop and the fine graded stone for a few minutes at the end I can ensure my edge is robust, sharp and the correct shape.

My ideal outcome would, of course, be that wonderful edge for without the fragility!

(Side note: I only use my own power strop with PA-70 because it's much faster than the Tormek wheel. The results are identical though)

Hi all.

After a couple of weeks with the Tormek T8 and the stock SG-250 wheel I'm finding there to be one frustration I didn't have with the Work Sharp 3000 and that's the wire edge.

On the T8 I sharpen my gouges with the direction of rotation which gives is a substantial (>0.5mm) edge that's super hard to detect by hand until I use the gouge and it chips within a few cuts. Looking at this http://bessex.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=372 amazing thread has helped me understand the problem much better, but I still have some questions.

Currently I'm finding that to finish a gouge I'm regularly alternating between fine metal removal with the 1000 grit and power stropping (with my homemade tool as the leather on the Tormek is too slow) the inside and outside edge at 1-2 degrees to get rid of that wire. This works well, but I feel I'm not gaining maximal sharpness here due to the very slight rounding of the edge you get with a strop.

On the WS 3000 my trick was to raise the blade at about 2 degrees and hone with a 3000 grit perpendicular to the direction of rotation. This achieved an extremely small but incredibly sharp micro-bevel that subsequently didn't need stropping with the leather and so kept its wedge profile. So I wonder:

• Could I (should I?) add this micro-bevel with the SJ-250 as my final finishing operation (as well as using it to polish the rest of the edge as the smoother the surface the better for carving gouges)
• would the DE-250 be an alternative or is it too coarse?

Drove me mad on my first day of my T8 so I did some sleuthing.

According to 3Ms technical documents, you have to press it fairly hard all round and hold for a couple of minutes. It's possible of course that it's worn out now though.

Thanks for the feedback, all. Very clear

I'm absolutely in love with my new T8 and jigs. My only wish is that I could go back a year and tell my past self to just spend the money and not waste my time with WorkSharp, bench stones, diamond plates and so-forth!

One thing I'm finding, however, is that I'm having to re-profile the SG-250 maybe once every 2-3 gouges when reshaping them e.g. due to chips. This is time-consuming and annoying. The material I'm removing isn't a lot - about 0.5-1mm depth along a 10mm bevel - but still I find myself needed to re-profile the stone due to dips in the surface otherwise I can't get a uniform 1000grit with the grader.

I assume this is operator error? Or is re-profiling just something that's a part of everyday life? Being lazy as I am, for this reason I'm tempted again to get one or two diamond stones...

That's good to know, thanks!

Hi again.

I've had some DMT bench stones for some time and I'm not super impressed by their longevity. It seems it is very easy to damage and wear the diamond coating even with the fairly light use you'd expect from sharpening gouges. Many other people have commented this over the years too.

I'm considering getting the Tormek diamond wheels but I'm worried that like the DMT they will wear fast and won't take kindly to setups where the blade is pointing facing into the rotation of the wheel.

Anyone had any experiences they can share in this regard?

Best
Jof

Quick question:

I note the TTS-100 has magnets on the back... but to what do I attach it? The sticky metal plate that comes with the Tormek T8 is taken up by the WM-200.

Got my T8 today as well as a boat load of jigs.

My thoughts? It's really really good. Everything I hoped for. Such a joy to use and the results are precise, repeatable and very sharp. The stock stone is actually much faster at removing material than I expected so right now I think that's what I'll use.

Naturally I went around the house sharpening everything I could find.... which explains why I now have big hairless patches on my arm, much to the surprise of my girlfriend 

Hello again.

I saw a video for the TTS-100 and it looks excellent for wood turning gouges. But I wonder; is there anything equivalent for wood carving gouges? I.e. it'd be fantastic to be able to set up a profile for a specific gouge quickly and repeatedly with just a few numbers. Ideally such a setup would give me the full range from small flat-ish #3 up to the biggest #9.

I have a suspicion this might be possible with the TTS-100 as-is but short of trying it, I can't quite bend my brain around all the possible shapes it could create!

Thanks!
Jof

Thank you again. Your words above and the links and videos have really helped me understand the available tools and where my needs fit in.

So in the end, I suspect the default wheels (leather and SG-250) are probably mostly sufficient for my needs. I can definitely see circumstances where the SJ could help - and I'll keep that option open - but for now I'll see how far the stock ones go. When I originally opened this thread I was expecting to discover that getting the diamond stones were borderline essential (giving the improvements) but it's good to know I don't have to budget for that

Thank you, Rich, for that reply and the amazing and generous information on your site!

I notice there's a bit of discussion on that thread between the SB and SG grindstone and I'm still a bit confused. If I read it correctly there's some people saying they've not had a positive experience from the SB (glazing) and additionally you mention below you personally use the SG. Is the SB more of a specialist stone that I shouldn't consider for my day-to-day activities in sharpening gouges?

It seems like the SJ creates an amazing surface - similar to my Work Sharp with the finer papers. Do you find you prefer the SJ to stropping or still do a fairly heavy strop with the leather wheel? I've experimented a fair amount on the WS with heavy strops following 600-1000 grit versus light strops following 3000 grit and I find the latter gives me the best edge if I have the patience!

Finally, what a "USB" as in "it spans the USB"?

Hi all. I'm new here and have lot of questions I hope you can help me with

I'm a wood carver and use gouges along with occasional planes. I currently have a Work Sharp 3000 with 120 to 3000 grit papers and with it I can do everything I want from rapidly shaping a new or blunt gouge or plane through to final polish. However, there's a few major things I don't like about it so I'm looking at a Tormek T8. Ultimately I'd like the T8 to replace the WS3000 completely but I have many questions first:

Shaping stage of gouges and planes
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How fast is the T8 at removing a lot of material for commissioning tools? For instance, with the 120grit on my WS3000 I can put an almost-final form to a factory or chipped gouge in just a few mins before 10mins or so of sharpening/polishing.

SVS-38
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Looking at the videos, it seems like this jig can't do the full 180 degrees left to right necessary to fully shape a U-gouge. So how are U gouges shaped on a Tormek?

SVD-186
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Is it possible to get non-fingernail profiles from this? For example, the cutting surface of a gouge is approximately conical but all the videos show long, swooping shapes like you'd want for turning and not carving.

Diamond wheels
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1) Will the diamond wheels take annealed (unhardened) O1 steel without gumming up? Or do they only work with harder steels?

2) How fast are they are removing material versus the stock stone wheel?

3) How robust are they? My experiences with DMT stones is they wear very fast.

Many thanks!

Jof