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Hiya Ken- I'm a little confused by this. I was under the impression that this forum was made to further knowledge of sharping and to refine techniques, using the Tormek system as a starting point. There are many other non tormek parts, techniques, and systems discussed on this forum. Why draw the line here, and potentially limit others from learning about new ideas and techniques that might work better than what Tormek has to offer? I'm not saying that the above would (no idea what it is) but it seems to be needlessly restrictive. I'm not trying to poke the bear here and mean no offense, and am asking this in the spirit of genuine curiosity and a desire to learn more. Would be happy to continue this convo via DM.

Thank you.

As a sidenote- I think that might be zinc, which is what most of the tormek jigs are made of (I believe.)

This may be an exceedingly dumb question- will all these interesting new techniques work with the self centering jig?

@tgbto

An interesting video! In my experience I've actually found the opposite to be true. My setup is a T8 with SG and SJ. I use heavy pressure on the SG for heavily worn chisel edges that I need to clean up fast, fine tune and square the edge, and then move on to the SJ. The whole process probably takes me about eight minutes from beater demolition chisel full of dents, rolls, and nicks to razor sharp mirror polish. I've found this (for me at least) results in less swarf buildup, and actually erodes the stone a bit too, revealing fresh, sharper cutting grains in the stone. That's my theory at least.

And this is what I love about this forum- the differing ideas! That's where the learning starts.

Cheers and happy sharpening!

I'd like to preface this by saying I love and have used the SJ-250 stone for the past three years, not without issue, but at least with an acceptable level of annoyance. When I first recieved my T8 after upgrading from the t4 to support a growing sharpening business, I had to send one t8 and a different SJ-250 stone back to tormek due to absolutely atrocious wobbling of both the drive shaft and a warped stone. Customer service was stellar- Stig was almost instantaneous with replies and very helpful throughout the whole return process. My current stone still wobbles, but far less then the previous one. I've made use of Tormek's (and I believe I've seen it mentioned somewhere on the forum, not sure who to credit with that one) process of marking a line on the shaft, lock nut, and marking the stone into four quadrants to help align everything and remove as many variables as possible. I have to fiddle around with it for 3-5 or so minutes each time I set it up to get it running as smoothly as I can.

Now, onto my gripe.
The damn thing still wobbles. I've been assured by Stig that "The SG stones should run nicely and within the tolerances, see handbook page 162. The Japanese stone has almost twice as much [wobble] since they are made in a different way and the hole is slightly larger." I feel like this should not be the case for an almost FIVE HUNDRED dollar piece of equipment. If I'm paying this much for something, I think it should have at least the same tolerances as the relatively cheaper SG-250. Again, I'm not complaining about the level of the finish it leaves- that part is superb, no problems there. In addition, for no good reason, the SJ-250 stone will seemingly randomly (to me at least) go back out of true at random intervals, no matter if I've lined everything up identically to my previous settings. As a result, I have to go back and painstakingly true it up with the stone truer- at first a pucker inducing maneuver but as time went on it's gotten less stressful. Yay I guess. Each pass of the truer is money lost down the drain, in far greater quantities than just normal wear and tear would ever do, no matter how light the passes are.

In summary: the more expensive stone has almost 2x the wobble and 2x sloppier tolerances, resulting in increased sharpening time, increased stone wear (due to occasional truings), and general annoyance each time I switch stones. I feel like this shouldn't be a problem for an almost 500 dollar piece of equipment.

I'd be curious to hear other ideas/input.

If you can figure out the thread pitch/size, mcmaster carr has EVERYTHING.

The fellow insists he's following protocols, and mentioned that he's been in correspondence with the BESS team as well. Interesting.

Wait, there are two Kens now?? Jokes aside this is excellent news. Thanks to both of you for keeping this place running smoothly!

Talked with the guy- he says that the BESS scale would round down if it reads under .5. I still find this number to be troubling- he states he uses a freehanded belt system.

Excellent, good to know. Thanks for doing the legwork 3d Anvil. I might in fact question Burrbender's integrity- while they show some frankly incredible results with corks, carrots, etc, I feel they should stick to that, and not manipulate a well respected platform to gain more views/fake results. That feels ethically unsound to me. I'm curious as to how others feel about this, now that we know the results to be, shall we say, fishy.

Midterms.

[removed, not sure how to delete post entirely. Apologies Ken.]

Excellent idea cbwx34, and thank you Rick for the contact info. I'll send an email to the BESS folks after things calm down over here.

Yes! Spot on. Thank you Rick!

Somewhere on this site there's a picture of the truing tool with a zip tie wrapped around the parts- I did that to mine and it was an absolute gamechanger. No more harmonic ridges, exponentially less chipping of the edges, and the truing tool doesn't bounce around as much. My advice for truing the SJ- whatever the depth of cut you're setting, halve it. Whatever the speed you're thinking of going at- quarter that. I'm no expert here but when truing mine that's what I've found to work. Could somebody more experienced help me track down that zip tie photo?