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... and I am struggling to get knives really sharp.

I am sharpening to 15 degrees, and that seems okay. But when I use the composite wheel I must be doing it wrong.

Basic questions. Should I use the tool jig or hold freehand? And should I have the knife flat on the wheel to remove the burr or should I try to also place it at 15 degrees, which is really hard when handholding.

Looks Jim already got answers (15 degree while honing and precission via FVB) for his problem but there can be more problems that prevents from having "really sharp".


For example: Jim got Black so was using diamond wheel 600 and natural tendency with new machine is to try cheap knives first, just in case   But diamonds do not work well with soft steel - instead of sharpening diamonds tear off parts of metal so nice edge is not forming and no sharpness in progress.


Dimonds need period of breaking before getting it's own default grit and are more coarse before that. I'm not sure in what unit Tormek names dimonds - grit, mesh, microns or EU/JP/US standard but "if you want just one grit then take 600" ("...get 1000 in Japan" ) do not work for good sharpness, IMO. So 600 with 2000 honing can be not ideal, especially on unprofiled knives.


And is there "really sharp" standard ? Tomato slicing perfection is usually good indicator of sharpness   But Tormek have grit progression like: black stone 220, DC 360, SG ~220 - ~1000 (but ~600 natural ?), DF 600, DE 1000, compound honing 2000, leather honing 3000 and JS 4000. So 8000 is missing for "razor sharp". And 8k is usually max for good cutting edge, 10k and 16k can have problems with starting slice on tomatoes


I personally like compound honing (2000) becouse it allows to sharpen more then SG or diamonds but it is less then traditional leather can do. Not to mention JS.


HTH

Hi !

Me too agree that SG are best for start and not only. But for harder steels or carbide tools dimonds or CBN wheels are a must. I wish Tormek have CBN wheels...

But SG have few small problems:

- more mess in water tank

- diameter is changing

- grit 220 is quite coarse and 1000 is quite fine


Diamond on Black is 600 which probably is common grit for quick re-sharpening without edge redoing. Maybe Tormek could do 400-600-800 grit changing tool ?

But SG is a lot of fun


As for "50 is not worth it": I heard about "drill using sharpeners" probably in 80's from my grandfather. And this year (2023) I was looking for sharpeners and found Tormek but prices for 250 mm machines was CRAZY !   So if not 50 years of warranty I probably would not get one... But SG-250 probably would be good learning gadget. Also maybe I would be a grandfathr some day too ?

Forming/shaping/polishing - depends on rock hardness of course. I saw stone, ruby probably, done on flat dimond sharpener(s) by hand so in that regard Tormek can be used.

Standard stone has grit ~220 and ~1000 after using added stone tool. Tormek dimonds are 360, 600 and 1200 so answer is: maybe, probably can be used. Just correct grit need to be used. And stones are all about removing material as less as possible

As for technique it will be a lot of work becouse steel tools are usually sharpened in some form of line, up to few mm wide and stones shaping need a kind of "plane", surface.

Stones need a lot of visual inspection and changing surfaces and angles so semi-automatic tools like jigs have limited application.

Are Tormek sharpeners right tool for this job ? Look like it is step up from hand shaping surfaces on plain diamond pad. IMO machines will help in artisanal/hobby stone work.