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This looks interesting to me... in Germany app. €28,-

https://www.metabo.com/com/en/accessories/sanding-grinding-and-polishing/accessories-for-bench-grinders/grinding-wheels-aluminium-oxide/grinding-wheel-200-x-32-x-32-mm-60-n-nk-dgs-630635000.html

Width 32 mm, grit 60. Don't know if this stone can be in the water.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for your help. The Norton wheel is 'just' a normal workbench grinder wheel? And you keep it flat with a truing-tool?

I don't know what the material of the core in a Norton grinding wheel is, but I prefer to leave it as it is and design a spacer..

Cheers!

Thank Ken for clarifying that the SB wheel is not available for the T4 and for providing more detail about using a Norton 3X grinding wheel.  I don't know if all traditional grinding wheels are water resistant/proof, but the Norton 3X and the no-name ones I used in water on my T8 had to be as they never degraded or fell apart after years of use. 

I think you're on to a good solution for the bushing.  You will also need some wide flange washers to make up the difference in wheel width, as the Norton 3X are 1" wide.  I machined my bushing from stainless steel and flange washers from aluminum.  Most grinding wheels in the US come with a 1" bore, which needs to be filled with bushings.  Many come with several nested sleeves for mating with different diameters of grinder shafts, just not 12mm. 

Rick

Hi Rick,

I saw here in The Netherlands an interesting stone:

https://www.vynckier.biz/be-nl/743107207-743107207

It's a white edelkorund 80 grit and it costs only 15 euros. It worth the try I guess... is suitable for use in water as well. What do you think?

Nested spacers are not ideal in my opinion, especially when it comes to concentric alignment of the stone. The original stone of the T4 is 40 mm in width. What's the width of the Norton stone? I'd like to use as much width as possible with the DBS... so 25 mm width is quite small..

Edit: I see now that the white stone only weighs 0,75 [kg]... that's verly little and I guess the quality of the stone is not so good.. (rubbish?)

Gr. Kees

Kees,

As I was getting ready topost this, I noticed Rick's reply. Rick, he has a T4, so no SB option is possible. However, keep reading:

Here is what I did to solve a very similar problem: (It works very well with the T4) You need a Norton 3X grinding wheel, either 46 or 80 grit. It costs around $60US. For heavy drill bit grinding, I might favor the 46 grit, although either grit will work. You will want the eight inch diameter. It comes with a one inch bore and step down reducers to 5/8". I used a short piece of 5/8" OD plastic pipe.
The ID is 7/16". You need to bore this out with either a 12mm or 31/64" drill bit.You may have to enlarge the hole slightly by drilling slightly off straight. Get a three pack of fender washers with 12mm inside diameter. (The 3X wheel in only one inch thick.

This is a somewhat primitive, but adequate fix. Rick Kruger had a much more elegant fix. He machined a bushing. You might want to talk with a local machinist. This neither complicated nor time consuming.

Use the 3X wheel with water. I used a diamond T dressing tool. Rick has used his TT-50.

Two untried ideas: You might try a dremel with a carbide cut off cutter. I would think a 3D printed bushing might work well.

Keep us posted.

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for your help. The Norton wheel is 'just' a normal workbench grinder wheel? And you keep it flat with a truing-tool?

I don't know what the material of the core in a Norton grinding wheel is, but I prefer to leave it as it is and design a spacer..

Cheers!

Have you read much of the historical posts in this forum?  There has been quite a bit of discussion on this.  First off, the SG stone is not great for sharpening drill bits, which is part of the reason for the SB stone.  Drill bits are typically High Speed Steel, which the SB stone is designed to do a better job of grinding.  But, my experience has been that even the SB stone is not adequate.  I went through a wide range of possible solutions for more aggressive metal removal for some of the reasons you have. 

1) traditional high speed bench grinder,
2) traditional high speed grinding wheel fitted for the Tormek shaft,
3) belt grinder (I outfitted it to work with Tormek jigs, but not necessary),
4) slow speed bench grinder with white matrix grinding wheels,
5) Tormek diamond wheels (all three),
6) 180 grit CBN wheel on a Tormek (10" wheel for my T87),
7) 80 grit CBN wheel on the slow speed bench grinder. 

#1 works quite well except one had to be careful about heat management

#2 works very well and preserves the dust free, water grinding system of the Tormek.  A bushing with a 12mm bore must be bought or made to mate the traditional grinding wheel with the Tormek shaft.  This is a bit slower than the higher speed alternatives, but is one of the easiest and least expensive alternatives. 

#3 works well and belt grinders are very useful around a shop for a variety of task. 

#4 works well and the white matrix wheels are better for heat management.  I outfitted mine with the Tormek BGM-100 for use with Tormek jigs, but found that the dry grinding grit gets in the sliding surfaces of the drill jig and I no longer use it this way.

#5 is better than the SB but even with the DC (coarse) wheel, I found it still too slow,

#6 is much faster and I use this in nearly all sharpening tasks

#7 still has the problem of throwing dry grinding grit into the DBS-22 sliding surfaces and I no longer us this method for drills in that jig.  I do use it for most non-Tormek grinding tasks. 

Good luck.  Do some reading on the forum. 

Rick

Hi Rick,

Thank you for your reply. I scrolled through the list with topics regarding drill-bit grinding, but unfortunately, didn't find anything interesting..

I have a T4. The backside of a Tormek are the costs.. especially as a hobby user. I don't want to buy many Tormek grinding wheels for the quantity of drill bits that I have to grind.

I don't own a workbench grinder yet (instead I bought a T4 )... but I can do if that's the way. But in the very cheap options I won't be happy about the quality of the grinders.
I read also a topic of someone who used the DBS-22 with a bench grinder and got some scratch marks on the DBS while the rotating direction is opposite to the Tormek... pity. That's definately not the way to go!

I mounted my angle-grinder in the vise with a flat deburr-disk, maybe that's an option as well to grind very roughly (like free-handed grinding on a workbench grinder).

Your second option sounds most interesting to me. I'm a machine designer, so I can make a model/drawing of a spacer to fit a 'normal' grinding wheel to the T4. I guess that the wheel has to be resistant to use in water (maybe they are all?).

The Tormek Diamond wheels (DC) are not so good for this job? (grinding much material). SB wheels are not available for the T4..

CBN-wheels can be interesting as well, but I think they are expensive too..

Hi all!

Merry Christmas in the first place! 

I have a question about using the DBS-22 with a Tormek sharpener (in my case the T4). At some drill bits, I have to remove a lot of material. Some drills are abused and some drills are 'sharpened' by hand, so that the geometry is totally out of shape. I used the TT-50 for the first time (removed a couple of tenth's), while there were some light grooves in the stone (I sharpened about 25 drill-bits I guess).

But for now, I feel that I have to be a little careful to save my stone when I have to remove a lot of material. I don't have a workbench grinder for now (I can buy one of course  ).

What do you use to grind a lot of material from the drill-bits? A workbench grinder? An angle grinder? Or a diamond stone?

I had an idea to make a drill bit diameter 20 to 22 (with a 13 mm shaft) as a countersunk drill (I know that it only has 2 cutting sides instead of 3). Therefore, I need to change the top-corner from 118 deg to 90 deg (and remove a lot of material). I guess I don't want to do that on the SG-200..

Kind regards,

Kees

The late Leonard Lee, founder of Lee Valley and Veritas, wrote an excellent book on sharpening. It should be part of every sharpener's library. His advice for sharpening drill bits was to only buy top quality US made high speed steel bits. That eliminates many sharpening problems.

Ken

With the purpose to sharpen less drillbits, or no need at all to sharpen bits?

You mean that this is normal? Or that's a warning that I'm doing it wrong?

What I mean is some sharpening can cause more splashing than others. But I always get water drippage, sometimes more than others.

I didn't read that I need a different stone for grinding drill-bits...

Need, depends on how much drill sharpening you do. I do a lot and also have HSS planner blades and some higher hardness chisels and plane blades so went out and bought the diamond wheels. If you are only sharpening the occasional drill bit then probably not. Just re-true the stone prior to sharpening and you should be good to go.

In the end, I will need the TT-50 truing tool... sooner or later..

If the wheel is glazed then you will find it difficult to fix with just the grader.

Used the stone grader a couple of times... it makes a difference...

So I need to get some experience with grinding drill-bits, and then find out what works for me... I dont drill so much, but now, I have 2 sets of dull drills from 3 to 10 [mm]. So in the beginning, I will sharpen more drills that later I guess. Maybe I buy an diamond stone too, but thats for the future..

I also habe a Bosch (green DIY) drill-set, with TiN coated drills. What about them? For that price, they couldn't be that good...

I use my DBS-22 very infrequently. As a warmup, I always watch Alan Holtham's video linked here:

https://youtu.be/fSUa1iFUzkM?si=vy3VkykP1bvgw75h

I try to watch all of the Tormek related videos. I have found Alan's DBS-22 the best hands down.

Ken

Alan is using the original stone too..

Also the water spray is a constant hazard - again depending on what you are doing.

You mean that this is normal? Or that's a warning that I'm doing it wrong?

Drills I find to be problematic on the original stone, depending on the drill material. Drills for wood are often carbon steel and pose no issue. However most drill bits are high speed steel (HSS) and are of the same approximate hardness as Aluminium Oxide, which is the material of the original stone wheel. This means that the wheel can easily become glazed, especially when sharpening large drills, either for the first time where you have to establish the new bevels, or damaged drills. When it glazes it forms a hard outer layer that is difficult to remove and regrade and you need to use the TT-50 trueing tool to re-surface the wheel.

I don't have an issue with the magnifier. It did take some getting used to so maybe with practice it will become easier.

I didn't read that I need a different stone for grinding drill-bits... Maybe I have to apply the stone grader another time, but then a little longer (I also had the DBS-22 on the T4 when I useds the stone grader, while I wasn't finished with a drill-bit, so not ideal).

In the end, I will need the TT-50 truing tool... sooner or later..

So.... started off with grinding drill-bits on my T4 with the DBS-22.... Began with a almost new drill-bit 12 mm to get some experience..

Now, I did app. 8 drill-bits in different sizes and have some questions. At 1 drill-bit, the sound was rather noisy, and the water was spraying from the wheel. It was a Phantom PCD 8 mm drill-bit (with 5% Cobalt). Should this be a problem for the original Tormek stone? Or is the sound a coincidence maybe getting close to the base frequency causing resonance (due to the shape and the length it's sticking out of the holder..)?

After grinding 8 drill-bits, and one grinding some more due to some damage, I have the feel the wheel doesn't grind well at anymore. Sharpening the second facets was during ages on the last bit (9,5 mm diameter). I used the SP-650 stone grader on the coarse side for app. 10 seconds.. Some people with good advices? 

Oh and the magnifier is hard to use. It seems that I can only focus when the drill is sticking exactly the right length out of the holder... focusing doesn't have any effect while the focus is turned one way fully. Extruding the drill some more out of the holder wouldn't work, while the 'beam' in the magnifier (with Tormek on it) touches then the drillbit...

Kind regards!

I have a SuperGrind 2000 & a T-8.  On both, I use the full width when using the DBS-22.

So you slide with the drill bit completely beyond the outer edge of the grinding stone?

I don't see it.. 

Don't see the video, or that he's using the whole width?

Here's the direct link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSUa1iFUzkM&t=578s

No.. I saw the video, but it isn't clear to me that he uses the whole width..

...
I was wondering if the whole width of the stone can be used during grinding. So can you get with the drill bit beyond the side edges of the grinding stone while grinding? If yes, I should say that the stone will remain more flat for a longer time, while the man on the video doesn't use the whole width.

2nd question. Can I use normal water, out of the tap? I live in Holland, the quality of the drinking water is quite good. What use the most people on their Tormek?
...

This video might be worth a watch...

...around 9:00 he sharpens a drill bit, and looks like he uses the whole width.

Tap water is fine... I use it, and my water is definitely not "good". 

Thanks for your answer. TO be honest, I don't see on the video that he's using the whole width of the stone... 

I read somewhere also about a magnet in the water tray. That seems to be an good idea to catch metal chips..

Kess, (or is it Keesh? I like to spell people's names correctly.)

Danny makes a good point about avoiding wheel freezing. One of the outstanding features of the T4 is its light weight. As a senior citizen, the T8 can be a bit much for me to carry. The T4 is no problem. Either is easier to carry with the grinding wheel removed.

My suggestion with a shed is to carry your grinding wheel into your house during colder weather and put it in a good place to dry.

A plastic container for your grinding wheel would be useful. I would check in the local grocery store.

Ken

Its Kees, typical Dutch name .

Maybe I make a fixed stud bolt on the wall to store the wheel, so the machine is less high so that I can store it elsewhere..

Kess,
Be aware that the stone will stay wet for some time (as Ken says) so you need to make sure that the temperature in your shed will remain above freezing!! Not sure if it is heated or not but the tone may crack if the temperature gets too low.
Danny

Good point! My shed is isolated (and made of bricks/concrete) so I guess it will work out.