Messages

Happy Easter!
If you look at the opening of the sleeves, the one next to the honing wheel has an oval shape. The one next to the stone is round. The sleeve size on the T-8 and T-4 are improved in size compared to the T-7/T-3 and precision is much better. The oval-shaped hole makes the support bar run down and up more freely than if both holes had the same diameter. The "drawer" effect is minimal.
In the search for the perfect edge, there are many ideas and sometimes I do think that practice and get experience is left out. The extra sleeve is a good idea and seems to work even If I personally never felt I needed it.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
The spring is not original on a T-7/2000. We used to have a spring on the discontinued Tormek 4000 machine. I had a talk with Mats at our factory and we get these questions sometimes.
We recommend removing the spring since it generates extra heat on the rubber wheel when the machine is running idle. If there was an issue with a slippery drive-wheel it would have been better to use coarse sandpaper on the rubber to get it to grip instead than using a spring to get a better grip.

Best,
Stig

I have a story to share, told to me by the main importer of high-end Japanese knives in Sweden.

A father calls and complains about some knifes he bought. For a Christmas present, he purchased two Global G-2 knives and gave one each to his two twin daughters.
At a visit, he found that one knife was very dull and had some chip out in the blade and when he visited the other daughter, her knife was as new, sharp, and in great shape. So obviously there was something wrong with one of them, he thought. He calls the importer and explains the situation and wants a new knife on warranty but during the call, my friend/importer asks about how the knives has been used and how they were cleaned. During this discussion, the father starts to understand that his two daughters use the knives differently and even more so, one daughter had always been taking care of her belongings and kept things in nice shape whilst the other one was always doing things in a hurry and did not take care of her belongings and always broke things. I think we can guess who had the dull knife?

And this is why its hard to say how long a knife will stay sharp. The user determines how long a knife stary sharp. For kitchen knives, the importer I just wrote about, uses Tormek T-8 for service jobs and also T-2 and T-4 when doing demons in stores. A edge last long if you have the correct angle for what its used for. Even if you get a hollow gring on a 2 mm edgeline on a kitchen knife, its imposible to feel any different to an flat scandi grind. Also have in mind that the amount of steel behind a 30 degree hollow grind its the same as on a scandi grind. It's just measured close to the edge and not in the hollow.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
There is no limitation that you cant sharpen over 35 degree angle. Sharpening scissors means that you are up around 60 degrees.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
A little heads up for you guys!

Live sharpening class - Part 2 - Axes and scissors 🪓✂️
Tormek goes live tomorrow at 8:30AM US CST, tune in to see the second part of our live sharpening classes with Sébastien and Wolfgang.
We will go through the sharpening of axes and scissors. We will also be answering your questions during the live stream. 📽

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8egnFfY57_c&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2sa8XnoKpGBTM84pq-9td7-pVCVO2gQvou0ejVeeSN_Fe6KDQ4iwNN-FU

Cb,
thanks for sharing this, some will find it useful for sure.
Another solution is to remove material on the angle setter, not on the side that touches the stone. By shortening down the length of the angle setter that touches the tool, it gives better access to more hollow-grinded primary bevels. I would not recommend that to other than users with these specific blades since it makes it more difficult to find the angle on some woodworking tools with a long flat surface.

Best,
Stig

cb,
The knife you presented will likely have issues since it looks like the angle-setter doesn't fit on the primary grind surface. The design of the blade, with a thick back/spine, with a relatively small blade and with a, what it looks like, a hollow-grind primary bevel before the secondary bevel makes it difficult to use the WM-200.

What is important when sharpening a knife like this is to sharpen at the same edge angle every time once you have created an angle that is suitable for the use of it. And it is easy to repeat that angle with the marker method.

I will say it again, the WM-200 works on most common blades, I agree that it doesn't work on 100% of all the thousands of blades that are out there. There is no quick-fix to compensate for all of the knife blade designs in the world.
But also have in mind that the design of the WM-200 is for most common edge tools that we can sharpen with the system.

Best,
Stig

Good morning,
I am not a fan of these "prove me wrong" discussions. There are many sides of an issue and as I explained in my earlier post, it is not only the WM-200 that is the reason behind finding a correct way to sharpen a blade as you want to.

Knife sharpening can get tricky when we start to look outside the common blade styles, because of all the different models of blades. If you want to get good at it, it takes time and practice. Even with Tormek and the support bar and jigs, you can use it in so many ways to actually find a way of sharpening a blade. It is as much in your hands as in the settings. But as I have stated earlier, there are blades that are very difficult to find the right angle on. I guess there are other systems available for those knives, I have not checked because I have not had a need to. It's no secret that many knife sharpeners have different systems to be able to sharpen different knives.

But certainly, I can add a video of sharpening tapered blades to our list of videos we need to make. It is not a prio but will be on the list.

I do think you miss a valuable point here and that is that Tormek has tried and worked hard for years to make a system that hopefully, anyone can use, on as many tools as possible. To be able to do that and to be able to use the same Angle setter on so many different tools, it has the design it has. The lastest change we have on it is the angle settings for flat sharpening for the side on the diamond wheels.

I did a search online and found a video I liked that shows the correct techniques, search for " Sharpening a Spyderco with Tormek" by Pavol Sandor. I don't know this user, it is not in English, and it's probably not the blade you would like to see sharpened, but note how he tilts the blade so he follows the original edge line. He starts with using the VM-200 and also uses a marker to be sure he had the correct edge line. Note also where ha had mounted the jig, close to the bolster. It is a nice video to see since he also shows close-ups of the VG-10 steel.
I also did a search on how many models of knives Spyderco have and I found out that they have over 200 models so I think it's fair to say that I would probably have problems with some of them.

Best,
Stig

I never left Tormek, I did work with another company too for a while, but back full-time a year ago. I am proud of doing my 10th year at Tormek.

I have no problem to agree that it doesn't work on 100% of all knives but that it's hard to use the angle master on EDC (Everyday carry knives) is something I can't agree on. On every demo I have done, I sharpen a large number of knives. I can agree that pocket knives are difficult, simply because most of the blades are smaller than the jig kan accept. But most folding knives, an example would be like a Spyderco or similar, are easy to set or find the angle on.
For those who sharpen kitchen knives or like a regular Mora knife or knives in that style, it works well too.
The most difficult knives I sharpen are often handmade, they have a very un-common blade thickness or blade design and are designed to not look like most common knives. Then I need to mount the jig on different places of the knife blade or use different technics when moving the jig on the support-bar.
When it comes to knives, and as you write, the edge is almost always a little off-center, not being in the middle of the blade. On most knives I find this to be so little that it doesn't need to be corrected or I eyeball it, which comes with experience.

I don't agree with your statement that we are denying that the VM-200 does not work on all knives. There are several other factors that can make it difficult to sharpen some knives. Also, have in mind that the knife-jig itself has a limit of blade thickness so if the back of the blade is to thick, the WM-200 and jig combined make it hard to get the edge centered. With all the different blade designs I would say it is normal that we can't cover all the designs with on jig or one angle setter. 

You mentioned a FB post and if the user only checked the angle on one side, I can only guess since I don't follow all forums, he probably sharpened the edge more out of the center. If he had checked both sides he would have noticed that the angle did not match on both sides. I am surprised if he did not get an answer, which I can address to my colleagues in Sweden.

We are well aware of the growing knife sharpening interest and I and my colleagues that work on our other markets talk to sharpening business customers on a monthly basis which don't have the same experience as you describe, but that is from their use and needs.

I am aware that for some of the enthusiasts, collectors and "knife-nerds" the VM-200 and even knife jigs are not exact enough and they make their own systems and jigs. But have in mind that most users are still woodworkers, hobbyists, and DYI which find the system to work as expected for their needs. Most customers appreciate the easy set-up and for their needs, it is advanced enough as it is. It is easy to complicate things and make set-up and use to advanced.

With all of this said, we do listen to all users and try to make as many customers as possible satisfied with the system. Some things get rejected, some things we can make better. Some things are an easy fix and some things take years to make.  That's the daily life of any manufacturer.
In general, most things have limitations and tolerances. It is very hard to make a system that works for everything. We try and we make changes when its time and fits to do so.

Best,
Stig





 

cbvx34,
As I wrote, most angles. There are thousands of different knife-blades offered and I agree on the fact that it can't be used on all of them. It is the same with a jig, its made to fit the most common tools. Making jigs is always a compromise of what it can accept.
I have sharpened some thousand knives and when I cant use the WM-200, I will replicate the original angle using a marker.
But it is correct that it can be tricky to find the correct angle on some hunting knives, especially knives that are custom-made since the designs many times are more for show than actually of use.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
Happy to see the follow-up from cbwx34.
The WM-200 is an exact way to find most angles on knives, chisels, planer blades and so on.
I understand that we have members that are using other methods which is fine, but for most Tormek users, the original attachments will help set up the correct angles perfectly.

Best,
Stig

Hi all,
When Ken and I talked, we talked about file knives. That's when I use my fingers on the blade if I don't use the SVM-140.
For Tanto knives, I have done some different solutions. From combining both SVM-45 and SE-77 and to eyeball it with the SVM-45. Even freehand. As usual, there are many ways of sharpening and Tormek has no specific solution to sharpen Tanto blades.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
The suggested heights are just an easy guideline. It depends on the individual height of the person sharpening. Normally I like to have it at a low setting unless I am sharpening with the DBS-22, then I like to have it higher.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
I am a bassist and guitarist too, the first 6-7 years I worked at Tormek I had gigs more or less every weekend.
I was never concerned regarding the sharpening process since the Tormek sharpening process is very gentle. As Ken wrote, don't stress. Its not the tormek products that would be the isue, its how you work with the tools.

Best,
Stig

Hi,
Following up a little here.
Never use a metal bond dressing stick on CBN or Diamond wheels. They are ok to use on bench grinder wheels, they do work on SG and Blackstones but are not precise as the TT-50. In general, they work on low-speed bench grinder wheels.
There are rubber cleaning sticks that can be used on diamond and CBN which works very good. I have tried a pencil rubber just for fun which also removed metal.
But I just want it to be 100% clear that there should not be used a metal bonded dressing stick!

Best,
Stig