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Do you always sharpen in one direction from the heel to the tip or do you sharpen back and forth? Sharpening in two directions would over-grind the middle part of the knife.

Good point. I will try sharpening one direction only, from heel to tip and see how that goes.

I had my MB-102 a fair way out horizontal, which lowers the vertical guide bar. But that shouldn't make any difference as the stone is round.
Just to clarify.
On both tests, the KS-123 was adjusted for the knife/holder setup and then the vertical bar was adjusted to 15 degrees.
I am going to re-test it tomorrow.

When you get yours guys, can you do a check for me with a practise knife?
Try setting it up trailing...
So, using the MB-102 Multibase and setting it up for trailing type grinding on the stone, try setting the angle to lets say 15 degree and put a grind on it.
Mine without a doubt creates a far more shallow grind then 15 degrees.
Grinding it the traditional way, so with the stone turning towards the edge while grinding, the angle is spot on.

With knife sharpening, there was another potential issue. If the middle of the knife curve was overground, a low spot was produced. This was often called "the green onion effect" when the low spot prevented clean cutting. This low spot was man made trouble, caused by inadvertently grinding the middle of the curve. It was frequently done by earlier sharpeners. It is easily detected by rocking the knife gently over a flat surface. I agree that this is best corrected before actual sharpening. Checking and correcting this should be a standard part of good knife sharpening. This and the related bolster reducing should be "part of your custom" and go a long way with customer satisfaction.

Yes
It's clear I used the wrong terminology, my bad.
It is the over-grinding of the middle section that is causing me all the problems.
We replaced a middle range quality long blade carving knife with a new high quality unit.
The old one is going to my youngest son who has (finally) moved out and with his girlfriend have started their own household.
It's the medium quality carving knife that had the issue with micro chipping that I simply was unable to remove with other sharpening methods. It just alluded me. Other knifes from the same manufacturer and same steel did not show this problem...go figure.
So with the T8, I was finally able to get rid of all the micro chips...hurray..and created a whole new problem. As the blade steel is a lot harder, the over grinding of the middle section is minor, but still noticeable if you look at it closely. So this knife has a 200mm blade length and a very long straight section which is at least 80% between the heel and the start of the curvature towards the tip.
So setting the knife vertical with its edge down, you can see light through at the middle section.

This is when I grabbed my "practise knife". This is a simple straight blade 100mm blade length knife used by Linesman and electricians. Soft stamped steel, designed to be roughly sharpened with a file or similar.
I can for the life of me not stop the over grind in the middle section 
The T8 original stone is trued and the edges have been rounded. Despite all this, even being super careful and controlled slow with light pressure, it still happens.
When I get to the middle section, I can feel the stone "bite" suddenly.
By the way, this doesn't happen with the Chefs knife or any other knife that has at least some curvature across the length of the blade.

...... fix my hollow grind in the middle section?....NO..
Lots and lots more practise needed.

It's better to fix the hollow grind before sharpening.  If you're trying to sharpen and make the repair at the same time, you'll mostly likely just chase the problem.

If you want to fix it on the Tormek, (and don't want to freehand it), try setting the angle as high as you can, that should make it easier to repair.  Once the repair is made, you can lower the angle and sharpen in a new bevel/edge.

You can also use the flat-side of the wheel freehand (again at a higher angle) to fix it.

Great tips...thanks
Good thing is that I am trialling all this on a cheap practise knife.

So having now tested grinding a knife using the trailing method.
The main reason for trying that, was to overcome the hollow grind in the middle of the dead straight edge practise knife.

Trail grinding without a doubt gave a larger burr, but gave me (at this) stage more control. This burr was easily reduced to the same level as leading edge grinding by giving the knife edge 2 ~ 3 very light final swipes per side on the Grind stone. From there normal honing on the honing wheel gave the same edge/look sharpness with no left over burr.
Did the trail grinding fix my hollow grind in the middle section?....NO..
Lots and lots more practise needed.

Two remarks AFAIAC :
- The difference between a T8 and edge pro is bigger as the blade gets longer.
- The mirror polish hair splitting finish you get when finely polishing the blade does not translate in kitchen-world edge retention and perceived cutting performance. A SG with honing on leather wheel is sufficient for most applications, as is the Edge Pro with the 600 stone and leather strop.

Yes, absolutely...:-)
My wife knows how to use the knifes, to the point where I barely need to give them a touch up every couple of months.
Hair popping sharpness is just an exercise in ability, proving that I can do it, but has no practical application in the real world of usage in kitchen or other general usage. One cutting session and that extreme sharpness is gone.
In the real world, on the Edge Pro, even on higher quality knifes, 220 grid and sometimes going to 300 grid is more then good enough to shave the hair of you arms or cut paper with ease.

Just finding my feet on the T8. I have a few cheaper general purpose and kitchen knifes to get practise on. Just like the Edge Pro, the T8 requires its own skill set and they can not be gained by just watching videos.
I have already done a trouble some 8 inch carving knife with very good results on the T8 that has given me years of trouble on the Edge Pro, for what ever reason.
This knife would micro chip, no matter what method or stone used.
With the T8 I finally got the micro chips out and back to a factory edge, while at the same time causing a hollow grind in the middle section.....grrhh. 
Lots more practise needed.....

Got mine a few days ago.

Where did you get yours from? All of the listings I saw were OOS or pre-order.

Got mine from "Wood Tamer" https://www.woodtamer.com.au/collections/tormek-tool-sharpening-system-and-accessories/products/ks-123-knife-angle-setter
It was a little bit more expensive due to their postage costs, but I would say that I got mine as one of the very first here in OZ>

If 6 to 8 minutes are only 10% of the time needed on other devices, then either those devices are very ill-suited to knife-sharpening, or maybe you're only using the #6000 grit belt/stone 

Remember that I do this for personal use and family & friends.
Also, the Edge Pro stone usage is normally 220 > 300, if the knife needed "re-setting of the edge, then you would start with 120 > 220 > 300. If using a high quality knife for an even better edge...220 > 300 > 600. Even higher finish...add the 1000 stone.....mirror hair popping finish..now add the tapes on glass ..polish tapes 2000 and 3000.
Also they use their own type of grading. They have a chart where as an example, the Edge Pro 600 stone is 3000 > 5000 grade with anybody else and I can confirm that as I have other sharpening stones.

So the Edge Pro will give you ultimate precision but can be tedious and time consuming. It still requires its own skill set (so you can still mess things up until you have got a bit of experience).
The T8 is a lot quicker as you can achieve faster results with the same stone by varying its grading and using different pressures.

With the little time I have got on the T8, I can see that I will use it 80% of the time and use the Edge Pro on very expensive knifes as I have a lot more experience on the Edge Pro and it gives me that bit more control for more extreme cases.

I wonder if it should be sharpened trailing edge instead into the grinding stone, as it doesn't create a burr.

This made sense, so I tried it this a.m., but got an unexpected result.  Sharpening edge trailing left the edge rough with little chips all along the edge (not visible, but I could feel running a fingernail down the edge, and cutting thru ad paper.)  I went back to edge leading and it cleaned it up.

Don't know why, maybe someone can explain?  Wasn't expecting that.    (Or maybe a fluke?)

Thanks for testing and letting us know.
I have a very expensive Boker Ceramic/Titanium folding knife that I need to get sharp again. I tried with my Edge Pro Professional and their diamond stone multiple times over the years and had less then satisfactory results. Any other stone had zero effect on it.
I will have to get a bit more experience with my T8 before trying it on that knife.

I wonder if it should be sharpened trailing edge instead into the grinding stone, as it doesn't create a burr.

Just ordered mine from one of my favourite Australian Tormek dealers from eBay. Just appeared as a new listing today so their stocks must have just arrived. Funny twist, the listing is AU$95 which appears to be the RRP with $10 shipping. But the listing has a $10 discount voucher. So in effect free shipping!

Can't wait to try it out. Our kitchen knives need re-sharpening so it will do overtime when it arrives.

Got mine a few days ago.
You will love it. Absolute child's play to set up.
Like others said, add 1/2 to 1 degree for the honing and you have a close to perfect result in double quick time.
Despite that I have my T8 just a month at most and just sharpened less then a dozen knifes, the ease of use for the combo KS-123 & MB102 gives very precise results, spatially for guys like me that are new to the Tormek/Grinder experience.

Surprisingly the price differences are minuscule between them

 I got over $100 off some of my diamond wheels.

Did you get that of original Tormek diamond wheels ?

Hi all,

I rarely do scissors......read alot on facebook about stylist and grooming shears, but not alot out there on Industrial Shears....

Today I did 27 pairs of shears for a Composite Company......for cutting fiberglass, carbon fiber, and Kevlar.

I could cut the fiberglass, and the carbon, but none of my work was "stellar" when it came to the kevlar.   I was told to set the edge at 25 degrees by someone, but found the best for these was actually less than 15 degrees ( which my tormek gauge cant even measure, because the plastic bulge on the angle indicator actually touches the wheel....look for yourself!)

Does anyone have insight to what would work best for the kevlar??

Also, after doing about 15 pairs, I noticed my SB-250 Wheel was totally chattered.....like little waves running across the face of the wheel.....is this normal?....I have to resurface the wheel a few times to gring them out!

Thanks,

Sam

I used to do a fair bit of Fibre Optic cable joining in my job as a Comms Tech (recently retired).
Every pair of Kevlar Scissors I have seen and used have got very strong serrated edges.
I can not see a way of anybody being able to replicate such serration with any sharpening device that I have ever seen.
When ours started to get blunt...they went straight into the bin.
Despite their costs, we always saw them as a consumable item and always had a spare "new" set on hand.
Even a "slightly" blunt Kevlar Shear was an absolute pain to work with and not worth the hassle.
 

Grinding into using the Jig.
I might be new to Tormek but not new to sharpening (as a User not business).
With the Tormek T8 I can sharpen a knife to hair-shaving sharpness in 10% of the time that I need to use with other devices. And I have done only 5 or 6 knifes, since I just got the T8 last week.
All knifes with Rockwell 56 ~ 60 have taken no more then 3 minutes to sharpen and then about 3 ~ 5 minutes to hone on the leather wheel.