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Ken was right about the fact that electricity costs are of small consequence. Turns out, running the Tormek in my shop costs me a whopping $.0259 cents per hour.

Still going to be a great addition to the marketing story I'm telling.

Thank you all for the watts rating. Pardon my ignorance, but when you say "200 Watts" (for example), do you mean per hour, per minute, per second, something else? I'm not familiar with the nomenclature so if you can spell it out that would help a ton!

Ken,

The math I'm doing is for rehabilitation of chipped items, such as drill bits, wood chisels, and so on, that require a crapload of grinding time. I've got the diamond stones, and have invented ways to let the machine run by itself during the rehabilitation process, with me doing other things in close proximity so I can monitor what's going on.

For example, this 5/8" bit took two hours and 15 minutes to rehab. All but about 10 minutes of that was the machine just doing its own thing in the background while I was building a cabinet.

What I'm assessing is the total costs of that rehab -- electricity, wear and tear on the machine's life and the stone's life, etc. Now I'm working on inventions to speed up the process -- ways to apply just a bit more gravitational pressure to the bit vice so the grinding speeds up a tad and the time reduces.

Only by having the exact numbers can I decide whether it's worth doing, or if so, at what time point it becomes worth it. After all, if the client can toss the item and buy a new one for less than I'll need to charge to rehab it, there's no point.

And from a sales perspective, explaining the calculations to people provides the kind of transparency that engenders trust and creates clients. People like to know why things cost what they cost. So it's also an interesting marketing story.

As for the various costs you mentioned, they're already sunk, as I'll be in the shop working on other projects while the Tormek runs.

Does anyone have the electrical specs on the Tormek T8? I'd like to calculate the electricity costs for the machine to run for an hour.

Basically, putting together an annual budget for professional sharpening services -- stone wear and tear, electricity costs, etc.

Thanks!

For knives where the spine is thicker than about 2-3 mm, the center axis of the knife blade is not in line with the center axis of the SVM-45 jig shaft, resulting in asymmetric bevels.

How do you avoid this? (I don't want to have to reset the angle for each side of the knife.)

Using the coarse diamond stone the first chisel I had to rehab took me 1.5 hours. While there was some zen-like enjoyment to the first one, facing more of them was daunting.

Then I remembered the Tormek video describing how the diamond stones never change shape and don't really wear out -- their grit simply gets finer and finer over time. And I invented a solution that lets the Tormek do its thing for a couple hours, without me having to stand there helping it.

It worked great. However, there are experts in this forum who know things I don't, so I'm sharing this video and asking everyone whether there's a reason I shouldn't be doing this -- something I'm doing that will damage the machine or stone.

Note: The actual pressure is still very light. This chisel had less material to remove than my first one and took about 45 minutes longer. And I stayed near the machine the entire time, checking it and the water level consistently, and moving the chisel back and forth. I also adjusted the stops so the blade shifted all the way to the edges of the stone instead of falling slightly short.

https://www.facebook.com/100042629257420/videos/3070887879893648/

Open to all feedback (no ... really). ;-)

Never mind! Right after I hit <Post> I realized I could check a parts diagram and I saw that the stainless steel washer was missing. I headed down to the shop and looked around. Turns out it must have stuck to the diamond stone when I removed it from the shaft and then dropped off shortly after. I stand on a rubber mat, and the darn thing must have caught the beveled edge of the mat exactly right because it had rolled almost 15 feet away.

At least it ended well!

Today I was rehabilitating some chisels and switching back and forth from the coarse diamond stone to the 1,000 grit of the SG-250. As I was putting on the 250 during one switch-over I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the honing wheel seemed to shift ever so slightly to the left -- like the shaft had moved a bit. I didn't think anything of it until I turned on the machine.

The SG-250 stone didn't turn. The honing wheel, shaft and locking nut all spun, but the stone was flat up against the case and couldn't move.

I took off the 250 and assessed things and sure enough I can easily move the entire shaft left and right (it seems like I could completely pull it out of the machine if I wanted to). I'm wondering if I've lost a locking ring or something.

I took a photo of the shaft on the grinding wheel side and have attached it. Does anyone see anything wrong or missing?

Help!

Thanks! Not bad for having my machine only one week.

Loved the Diamond stone. Of course as my SG-250 wears down I'll either need to reset my angle after I switch stones, or suck it up and buy the 1,200 grit Diamond. (That's when my lack of patience will cost me money. ;-)

I am having a ball learning this thing. Can't wait to buy my knife and scissors jigs (but gotta wait until after Christmas because I put those jigs on my list.)

My angle-setting trick worked! (See PDF.)

Took me 1.5 hours of grind time on the DC-250 (Diamond Coarse), but I followed everyone's advice and used virtually no pressure. Actually held the jig by the tightening knobs with only VERY slight downward pressure. Moved back and forth at about 30 repetitions per minute. Finished it on the SG-250 at 1,000 grit (since it's also a new stone I didn't need to change angles after changing stones).

The first hour was rather Zen like. But I admit that as I started getting close, time slowed to a crawl!

I would NOT recommend anyone put this much time and energy into a simple wood chisel. I did it for the experience only. I have a few of Dad's old chisels that need some significant rehab, so the sentimental value of doing them will make the investment worthwhile.

Good to know. Thanks for the heads-up.

My fear on using a grinder is the heat issue. I have the coarse diamond stone arriving tomorrow, so I won't have to worry about wear and tear on it. I'll track grinding time and share it here -- and let everyone know whether my trick for setting the angle works!

Thanks, Ken.

If I understand you correctly, there's still a lot of guesswork going on, at least while getting the chisel close. I came up with a way I think will work. Hard to explain in text so I took some photos. See the steps and photos in the pdf.

Am I missing something, or should this work?

Gill

I have a chisel that someone ground from the back side, so I must remove about 3 mm of metal before I get back to the flat on the back of the blade (photo attached). As I grind that much metal the edge angle will change in relation to the stone. So if I start at 30 degrees and grind off 3 mm I'll be at a sharper angle when done. Then I'll have to reset and grind off even more.

Is there a trick or technique for setting the "finished edge angle" from the start when you're rehabilitating a chisel, so that once all the bad material has been ground away I'll be at the 30 degrees I need?

I have a chisel that someone ground from the back side, so I must remove about 3 mm of metal before I get back to the flat on the back of the blade. As I grind the metal the edge angle will change. So if I start at 30 degrees and grind it all off I'll be at a much sharper angle when done.

Is there a trick or technique for setting the "finished edge angle" from the start, so that once all the bad material has been ground away I'll be at the 30 degrees I need?

Edit: Sorry -- when I saw the category of "planer blade" I thought of my carpenter's plane, which is a chisel blade. (I'll ask the question in the chisel category if I can find one.)