News:

Welcome to the Tormek Community. If you previously registered for the discussion board but had not made any posts, your membership may have been purged. Secure your membership in this community by joining in the conversations.

www.tormek.com

Main Menu
Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Topics - RodC

#1
I got a T-4 recently and have been using it to sharpen woodcarving chisels.  My T-4 has the SG-200 stone.  I am using the SVS-38 jig.  I am sharpening Pfeil flat woodcarving chisels (#1 x 18 mm).  It has been taking me a long time to sharpen a chisel - about 40 minutes or so.  Note that a woodcarving chisel has a double bevel - the same bevel on each side.  So you are doing twice the sharpening work when compared to a regular wood chisel.  After reading on the forum, I see that there is a learning curve and I am trying get the process right.

When I see the various videos demonstrating the Tormek sharpening process, I hardly see any swarf at all on the wheel.  In contrast here's what I see: First I clean the wheel of swarf if needed by using the coarse side of the stone grader for as long as it takes - a lot longer than the 30 seconds that the manual says - I probably take at least 60 seconds, applying heavy pressure.  Then I set the grinding angle using the magic marker method.  Next, I proceed to grind the bevel angle with the coarse grit.  The wheel almost immediately starts showing streaks of swarf.  These build up as I keep sharpening with the coarse grit.  It takes around 5 - 10 minutes per side to get the coarse sharpening done.  Is this normal?  Should I stop and periodically remove the swarf with the stone grader?  You are supposed to use the horizontal USB position with the SVS-38, but the recommendation is to use the vertical position for the stone grader - I guess to deliver more pressure onto the stone.  Does this matter?  I can't see moving the USB when in the middle of a sharpening session.

When I transition to fine sharpening, I use the stone grader long enough to remove the swarf - as already said, this is a lot longer than 30 seconds of heavy pressure.  The fine sharpening takes awhile, too - maybe 5 minutes per side, but I do not usually see any swarf on the stone during this step.

Note that I complete one face of the chisel, doing the coarse and fine sharpening, before removing it from the SVS-38 to do the opposite.  So I am using the stone grader 4 times per chisel.

I have tried some things to minimize the swarf problem, since I suspect that it is slowing down the sharpening process. I move the chisel across the stone when sharpening to try to use the whole stone and possibly distribute the swarf.  I try to keep the water reservoir clean.  I empty it when I am done sharpening and I clean it out when moving from coarse to fine sharpening.  These things may have helped some in reducing the time it takes to sharpen, but I still wonder what is going on and what I can do to improve things.

Any insights would be appreciated.