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This is what I bought yes, and also followed his advive, purchased the 1000 for the SJ250, I think he said actual grading would be higher than the plate numbers but my memory is a little rusty. The only advice I didnt follow was to buy heavy plates, mine where under £1 each on Ali, to be honest I didnt expect them to be any good but they are showing no sign of wear after multiple uses.

So, I ordered the SG-250 so I can sharpen scissors and it didn't come with the stone grader?

If it's true, and the SG-250 does not include the stone grader, I have to say I am incredibly disappointed in Tormek. Why on earth would I buy a stone who's main feature is that It can change grits from course to fine but they don't supply the tool to do it? I am regretting more and more in investing in this company. Not a happy person if this is true and I have to go and order the stone grader.

I bought a new stone grader because my old one was very worn on the fine side, I went for a clone though so it was much cheaper. However, I havent used it, I bought a few cheap diamond plates, 80, 240, 1000 and they are fantastic, I bought 2 of each thinking they would wear quick but they havent, I dont see me ever using the stone grader again. A bonus with the plates is you have to true the stone a lot less frequently.

I think less is deffinitely more. I can consistantly hit over 200 on the bess so I have total faith im not squeing the figures. The Enlan is probably my fave knife, I keep it by my side in the lounge for anything that needs cutting open. My wife picked it up and cut some zip ties with it chipping the hell out of it, I know 15 is not a good angle for this knife but thats not whats its for! I ground the chips out on the SG set to coarse then made 2 passes per side on the SJ, I normally polish this one and im about to mirror the entire blade but im happy with the quick sharpen result. Main improvement I think is following OUTDOORS55 recommendation of de burring in the opposite direction, I sharpened heel to tip then de burred tip to heel. I did the ARC on the SG fine then used 1 micron stroppy stuff on the Tormek leather wheel, same principle.

Great numbers, thanks for the website link, Ive started reading it. I know exactly how important it is to remove the burr because I havent managed to do it yet using my T8. I bought a Spiderco Endura 4 in K390 just because I read it was easy to de-burr, Ive had to grind stop down as the point of the blade was sticking out when closed due to me shapening so much, I think I aged the knife about 10 years  So ive dropped down another rabbit hole and purchased a Work Sharp Pro Elite system and now Im getting these numbers, Ive been experimenting with diamond strop compounds and I think Stroppy Stuff is great.

I also like K390 a lot. 👍



Speaking of Stroppy Stuff, he has a great video about checking, deburring and verifying with BESS at every step along the way, using a K390 Delica. You may have seen it?

It opened my eyes at the time. Not specifically Tormek related, but many of these techniques are easy and useful to incorporate. The deburring principles are universal and also applies to the Tormek.

       Yeah Ive watched that vid thanks. I think I prefer 8Cr13MoV, its easier to polish and for what i use it for is plenty hard enough even on my old Enlan EL-01 which cost me about £10 many moons ago!

Yes I am convinced that you still have a burr at 200 BESS.

I started to test my edges after I read Vadim's opinion about lingering burrs over 100 BESS. In my experience he was spot on.

I also like and use his very simple Rizla cigarette paper cutting test to detect a burr. In my experience, if a fresh edge (finished at 1000+ grit and stropped to remove the burr) does not cleanly slice thin Rizla paper from heel to tip, I know I still have a burr. This burr is small enough that I cannot see it under bright light or feel it. A sub-1000 grit edge or even a tiny burr does not cut Rizla paper cleanly.





I sharpened the Umnumzaan above on the Edge Pro, but the Tormek is no slouch... At the moment I feel I can get sharper edges with the diamond wheels than the SG. This was on the DE-250 diamond wheel and stropped.



I was always a "coarse/toothy edge" kinda guy, until I read this article. These incredible micrographs made me more aware of persistent burrs, and made me pay much more attention to deburring. This whole site is a gold mine of knowledge.

https://scienceofsharp.com/2024/02/03/seven-misconceptions-about-knife-burrs/

Great numbers, thanks for the website link, Ive started reading it. I know exactly how important it is to remove the burr because I havent managed to do it yet using my T8. I bought a Spiderco Endura 4 in K390 just because I read it was easy to de-burr, Ive had to grind stop down as the point of the blade was sticking out when closed due to me shapening so much, I think I aged the knife about 10 years  So ive dropped down another rabbit hole and purchased a Work Sharp Pro Elite system and now Im getting these numbers, Ive been experimenting with diamond strop compounds and I think Stroppy Stuff is great.

Thanks for link Ken, I have seen all his vids over the years and you just forget don't you. I was fixated on speed and when the composite wheel came out he did a vid going from CBN 160 (amongst a couple of other options) straight to composite. That was was probably when I stopped looking for improvement and I just stuck with it. He did also move onto green chromium oxide on the leather wheel, I never really tried that until I bought the Bess tester which is quite a few years later. I will have to go over the Globals at some point.

Thought I would update,after trying lots of methods, including forking out on a DE-250, best method so far gave me a 79, havent tried to repeat it yet. This was on my Enlan EL-01, SG-250 graded with an 80G diamond plate then straight onto the leather honing wheel at exact angle. One thing I did earlier was remove the green Bacher honing compound from it and applied the old PA-70, this improved all my tests. 6 wheels that wont be getting used as much, was going to replace my SJ wheel as I had to true damage from it but I think its about £100 more expensive than when it first came out, (or thats what my memory is telling me) Im wrapping that one in cotten wool!

If I can confirm burr removal with the Bess I will keep an eye on retention. I keep a huge roll of cling film in my kitchen drawer from costco and its the best thing I have in the house for keeping an eye on my knife edges. I slice it every day to wrap my sarnie and it tells me when the edge has gone. I will do a test next time it doesnt glide through the cling film.

It's not so much the spine thickness as it is the "thickness behind the edge".

Of course, knives with a thicker spine will - generally speaking - be thicker close to the edge. And if the knife is twice as wide close to the edge, the bevel will be twice as high.

This is not true with some japanese knives (honesukis for instance), that have a thick spine and a very thin edge.

Ah yes thank you that makes perfect sense.

I'm kinda confused. I bought the Tormek T-8 with the knife angle setter and the knife jigs. I follow the tuturials the same as on the YouTube videos.

But the thing is, their wheel is turning away from them and the knife edge. But my wheel is turning toward me toward the knife edge.

I have the 600 grit diamond wheel. But that wheel will get damaged if I sharpen with the wheel grinding toward the edge.

So is there any way to reverse the spinning direction? Because obviously I can't sharpen knifes like this.

Its quite awkward "just flipping the machine round" I dont mean hard to do without the spinning base I mean unless you have the multi base, MB-102 and move the bar to the other side its a steeper angle because of the bar position. I just tried it. Not to mention if you have the new KJ-45 the pivot parts hit the welds on the bar due to the angle. Google AI just told me its fine to do edge leading on the diamond wheels and I couldnt see any info on the product page to the contrary. Ive been using CBN wheels the same way for 5 years and they still cut like new, just dont use lots of pressure as others have said.

Hi everyone,

I've developed a retrofit for the KJ-45 to bring back the adjustable attribute of the SVM-45 - there's a link to a video at the end of this post.

Update (5/7/2024): the kit  is now available on our website:
https://magnoliaknife.com/products/tormek-kj-45-adjustable-retrofit

Oh I really hope this is still a thing, I hate the stop on the new KJ-45, off to your website now!

It is!!! Thanks for doing this and for making it avail. to the UK. Just ordered mine.

Just curious to know, not the best picture but size wise, the top knife has a 1mm bevel and the bottom one is double that. Is it because the Global on the bottom has a much thicker spine? Both knives have been grinded using eactly the same knife jig and setter.

"The sub 50 journey" seems like our version of climbing Mount Everest, "Because it is there". I don't mean to seem sarcastic. We all benefit from the work of pioneers pushing back the sharpness frontiers. Using BESS to make sure that burr is completely removed benefits day to day sharpening, long after the sub fifty reading is gone.

Ken

Im way to lazy to try and get sub 50, once I reach 100 I'm done, its getting tedious just re stringing the Bess tester! Once the method is proven i will use it less and less, its not a competition for me, just looking for longevity. 

Hello Alan,

as "Quick Reply" does not allow to upload picture files from the PC you should use "REPLY" instead. At the bottom line you will see the possibility to upload picture files from the PC. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Drilon

Ah thank you Drilon, I was hoping to do it using the "quote" button but I guess I can use copy/paste to do that and use Reply.

The highly experienced Tormek Design Committee spent years designing and perfecting the KS-123. It's fine if you prefer software and measuring. I do suggest you spent more time evaluating the KS-123 before making an informed decision about it. i encourage you to stay the course and keep us posted.

I put the SJ on and put my Shanzu knife back in a jig to see if i could improve it, I used the KS-123 to set it up again from scratch and with 1 pass it wipped 99% of the sharpie off the edge, I will give it a 100% score to allow for user error in starting the pass, a second pass totally cleaned the edge of ink so I know its very accurate.  I wont be going back to software any time soon.  1 pass the the other side completely cleaned the ink off.