Hello everyone, sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it.
This is my first forum post
. I aquired a T-8 before christmas because I couldn't deal anymore with hand sharpening my collection of hand tools. It's already much bigger than I imagined and it keeps growing... Insanity! Oh, that and also because I wore down to the bare steel a full set of 220-600-1200-8000 DMT diamond coated plates in 3 to 6 months depending on grain size. True story, I swear that T10 steel eats diamonds for breakfast 
(Rust is its kryptonite, though).
So, the Tormek sounded like the most reasonable solution for dealing with those stubborn alloys, and I am oh so happy to say that this machine truly delivers. I don't think I could be any more satisfied with my purchase. It took me quite a while to decide and, living in a very corrupt and underdeveloped country, surely you can understand why I was hesitant on such a relatively-high investment. All my fears were forever dismissed after a couple of hours operating the T-8. Worth every single penny/cent.
I couldn't help but to soon notice a particular need/convenience, maybe. At this moment in time, most of my work is done with hand planes, mainly bevel-down planes. When I sharpen my planes by hand, I usually rectify the main bevel with a very aggresive/coarse abrasive, let's say 220 or under, at 25 degrees. Then I work my way up with very few passes on progressively finer stones, to establish a 30 deg. microbevel.
And here comes my observation: In my neverending quest to optimize workflow/time, wouldn't it make sense for my particular case to buy a secondary universal support and leave both "fixed", one at 25 deg for the stone and the other at 30 deg for the leather wheel? Or even, regardless of the micro-bevel, just leave both at the same recommended anglefinder setting? Since the stone and the wheel have different diameters, setting the precise micro-adjust setting when switching between stone and wheel, taking out the bar and inserting it in the other postion, etc. is what I spend most of my time while working with my T-8. Wouldn't the results be instantly repeatable if I set always the same projection of the blades out of the SE-77 jig? In my mind it sounds like a considerable time saving every time I need to resharpen a blade... which is all the time
Thought I should ask before purchasing anything else, because I am often quite obtuse in my thinking and surely more experienced users will identify the flaws in my logic. Thanks!
This is my first forum post
. I aquired a T-8 before christmas because I couldn't deal anymore with hand sharpening my collection of hand tools. It's already much bigger than I imagined and it keeps growing... Insanity! Oh, that and also because I wore down to the bare steel a full set of 220-600-1200-8000 DMT diamond coated plates in 3 to 6 months depending on grain size. True story, I swear that T10 steel eats diamonds for breakfast (Rust is its kryptonite, though).So, the Tormek sounded like the most reasonable solution for dealing with those stubborn alloys, and I am oh so happy to say that this machine truly delivers. I don't think I could be any more satisfied with my purchase. It took me quite a while to decide and, living in a very corrupt and underdeveloped country, surely you can understand why I was hesitant on such a relatively-high investment. All my fears were forever dismissed after a couple of hours operating the T-8. Worth every single penny/cent.
I couldn't help but to soon notice a particular need/convenience, maybe. At this moment in time, most of my work is done with hand planes, mainly bevel-down planes. When I sharpen my planes by hand, I usually rectify the main bevel with a very aggresive/coarse abrasive, let's say 220 or under, at 25 degrees. Then I work my way up with very few passes on progressively finer stones, to establish a 30 deg. microbevel.
And here comes my observation: In my neverending quest to optimize workflow/time, wouldn't it make sense for my particular case to buy a secondary universal support and leave both "fixed", one at 25 deg for the stone and the other at 30 deg for the leather wheel? Or even, regardless of the micro-bevel, just leave both at the same recommended anglefinder setting? Since the stone and the wheel have different diameters, setting the precise micro-adjust setting when switching between stone and wheel, taking out the bar and inserting it in the other postion, etc. is what I spend most of my time while working with my T-8. Wouldn't the results be instantly repeatable if I set always the same projection of the blades out of the SE-77 jig? In my mind it sounds like a considerable time saving every time I need to resharpen a blade... which is all the time
Thought I should ask before purchasing anything else, because I am often quite obtuse in my thinking and surely more experienced users will identify the flaws in my logic. Thanks!