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I better start a new thread or nobody will see this.

cbwx34 recently wrote to me over a different subject quoted in the following book:

(...)"Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" (which you can now get for free HERE)(...)

John Juranich writes in this book on p.56 that they use two "hones" as they call them, a "fast cutting" abrasive which he calls "fine" in the order of #100 and a "finishing" abrasive in the order of #400 to #600.

Now sharpening with two stones is basically coincident with today´s common agreements, but in the lights of today´s ever higher grit stones into the #10.000´s I wonder what grit gauging standard he is referring to; because #100 appears a pretty rough brick and #600 not very fine.

The reason I ask is because it interests me what he has to say on what he calls the "relief" (tapering the knife behind the edge, as discussed here). He does the relief with the coarse stone without further refinement, and only does the edge with the fine stone.
[he also does not mention about removing the pesky burr...]

I would guess (from the optics) that the book was printed in the 70ies. What standard may he refer to?
I doubt that back then Japanese waterstone sharpening was en vogue the way it is today.

Maybe somebody knows.
Thanks
-Helmut

No its for the Tormek.
You don´t have a big choice hereabouts.
I took a 3cm wheel.

This is very interesting.
Before I start, I am confused about the nomenclature, primary, secondary...

Are you referring to the same thing (relief) as quoted here?

Others have talked about it.  For example in the "Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" (which you can now get for free HERE,) they talk about the "relief" of the blade...

please elaborate.
-Helmut

This did not leave me alone.

Today I received two cheapish kitchen knifes. Both had a bold ricasso, which is a PITA. I routinely remove them on the bench grinder.

Those knifes tend to have a secondary bevel, and I just had to undo my previous attempts to touch this up. I did both of them on the side of my SG. This worked well, never had such a beautiful compound bevel before. Needless to say, it left a fair groove in the outer perimeter of the stone.
As I expected. I looked into my planned method again for truing the side with the diamond, but this failed. This does not work. There is always an obstacle.

I tried to fix the stone with a very coarse (F40?) SiC dressing whetstone (not unlike the rough side of the Tormek dressing stone), by holding its corner onto the side, but this did nothing in a reasonable time.

Then I remembered that I had spoiled a Corundum wheel on my bench grinder by grinding down some stainless steel stock. It was eating away material like hell. I had a nice stick there, 12mm, half a meter long, and lo and behold, holding this to the side by its corner and slowly proceeding inwards, you could see how the removed material would build up on the stick. At first I tried it with water, but then I did it without. The wheel was still moist of course. This works well. In 5 minutes, using a straight edge to check, my wheel was workable again. A touch-up with the corner of the dressing stone and bob...

I think the key is corner.

Back to the knives, the secondary bevel´s optics were less than perfect. I don´t know if this matters, but I polished them with whetstones. Took a J1000 whetstone that made it better fast, and then some polishing with a J3000 whetstone. NB: I polished the secondary bevel, not the edge.

I then made a proper 18 dps edge with the SG on 1000 and leather wheel.
The knives are, hum, very acceptable.

-Helmut

Thanks Ken.

Ahh, time is so short, and so many alleys to explore

I noticed that the web page of late KG shows slim felt wheels, although in his videos he uses thicker ones.
Other videos on felt wheels I did not find, except maybe Hanns in Germany, and he uses an even thicker wheel.5cm for the T3... I dont know. Even 4 pushes the envelope hard. But they are currently unavailable anyways.

A different german seller has 3cm wheels, 0.9 density, I think I go for this, hardness or not.

I had the suspicion that a fat wheel is deemed some kind of phallus symbol, just like a fat rear wheel on your motorbike...

What was supporting this notion further was the fact that all paper wheels are slim.
I looked into that too, but I think this is a realm beyond me.
Paper at high speed behaves probably no different than a naked MDF board... wood in a different state of matter. And I think I fear those things too.

Your opinion helped, thanks. Sometimes you need to hear a different opinion.

-Helmut

I want to get me a felt wheel too.
I am confused about this matter. I have been reading all messages here and what they offer in Germany, too many diverging opinions. Vadim writes that those glue bonded wheels are inferior. They may have false high densities. (most certainly the German wheels are not manufactured in Germany).
I have seen written somewhere that there is a technological limit to how thick a felt wheel can be made without using adhesive.

The durofelt company delivers overseas I see, but they only have 8"x1" wheels (2.5cm); everybody rants about far thicker wheels like 3-4, even 5cm (Letting alone the fact that even a 4" wheel is pushing the limit hard for the small Tormeks mount).

Is there any merit using a thicker wheel for honing?
What is your experience after years of experience?

Would you go for a 3cm 0.9g "rock hard" wheel from local dealers (wherever the wheel / wool may come from), which according to Vadim´s grading is already "flint-hard",or for the durofelt 2.5cm 0.8g rock hard?

Thanks.

Yes...

I stumbled over this jig already. It appears quite logical to me.
I have plans to make a version of it using the DBS-22 platform. (more to come)

One has to see how hollow it gets.

re: grinding on the side:
I have tried grinding on the upper part of the stone (towards the highest point of the stone, but on its circumerence, to a depth of approx. 1cm). I used the newly acquired MB-100, folded outwards and the USB. This way you have the USB´s long arm resting right over your working area.
Edit: removed ambiguousity.

The MB-100 has to stick out fairly far, but it still holds securely. I had to dial the knob on the SVM-140 in as much was possible (I don´t have the small jig). Since the angle is so shallow, the distance to the stone does not need to be big. In fact I would have appreciated to shorten it even more with some spacer (or collar). But it worked.

I had the knife only so much down that the jig was not in the way, which was much more than I planned for the relief anyway (5-6mm). This setup clearly exposes the imbalance of the SVM-140. (I must read again how this is fixed. I saw it somewhere.)

This worked well. The secondary facet grew pretty rough. I used the dressing stone to make the grit finest. Much better. I then swapped supports and ground the edge the traditional way on the circumference.
It turned out that this would probably benefit from a higher than normal edge angle. I could not easily get rid of the burr.

The real snag about this method is that it is hard on the stone. I think if I did another knife like this, I would need to true the side. I devised a method to do this (more to come).

That said, I did a total overhaul of the secondary bevel. An occational touch-up would be less hard on the stone. But since this is a consumable...so be it.

[This is not everyone's cup of tea, but if you accept the need for this, you will enjoy the services of a wonderfully quick-working stone.]

May I contribute my humble opinion.

King and Sun Tiger are both brands by Masanuga, Japan.
For whetstones: the following is known:

King stones are relatively soft and pleasant to use, because one can see and feel how the stone cuts the surface. This type of soft stone must be flattened relatively frequently, however, as it quickly becomes dished.

The 240 grit whetstone from Sun Tiger is also quite soft and will also become dished fairly quickly.
(Source)

The softer the stone, the more it needs to be watched, and the more frequently it needs to be flattened. This is not everyone's cup of tea, but if you accept the need for this, you will enjoy the services of a wonderfully quick-working stone. The Sun Tiger 240 also needs much less pressure than, say, the Shapton 120. The softer stone simply grips and starts cutting from the first stroke.

(Highlighting by me)

For whetstones, I personally never got on with those soft ones. I hate the sludge. I prefer hard-bonded (is this the term?) Silicon carbide or similar.

I have reasons to believe that this applies for the wheels too. They are not to everybody´s taste...

don't think you can say that because Vadim's research didn't include this it doesn't have worth... the simplest answer being it may have been something he hadn't studied yet. 

I do not think that he is (was) the end of all wisdom. I thought that if all those customers never missed anything, it might not be worth exploring the alley.

That said, maybe he just did not find a practical "machine" method for it.
Although I think he may have been close... I mean that video where he sharpens a knife on the side of the wheel. You are right that you will run into the jig with that shallow an angle, but not if you have the jig above the stone. I will try this and see.

I think your reference and what Murray Carter did are similar... it's just that your reference uses a "2-3°" angle, vs. laying it flat on the stone?

Exact. Thinning the whole knife appears tedious and counterproductive for me. But a portion...
I think with that shallow an angle we cannot set anything by measuring degrees. We would have to work with marker pen and see what portion is affected and choose a sensible setting. My reference speaks of 1/3 to 1/2 of the knife heigth IIRC.

Others have talked about it.  For example in the "Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" (which you can now get for free HERE,) they talk about the "relief" of the blade...

Thats a great resource, I will look into that. As I said, it´s all about knowing the right key words...
Edit: Hah! What a great book. Yes this guy´s really into "relief". What a relief for me ;-) He does it basically on everything, knives, axes...  I think this demands more investigation.

Thanks.

I suspected that thinning and microbevel are not the same. The second bevel is not micro I agree. Sometimes those drawings are exaggerated to better show the effect, and the terms are somewhat misleading.

Also, the guy you mention seems to do something different.

What really gets me is that nobody else seems to talk about the claimed necessity of thinning. I did a lot of research on the web, but if you don´t know the right buzz words to begin with, you are lost. I initially assigned the failure to find support for my theory to this circumstance.

However, I found Vadim´s site with all this research, and I received the impression that he would surely use this method if it had any worth. He said that customers felt his knives were the most long lasting and sharp knives, without thinning.

So maybe I should drop this notion, because it creates a lot of hassle without evidence of a noteworthy merit (at least I cannot find it). What is your personal opinion, from your past experience?

I appreciate any other view because I am guaranteed biased, having used this German guy´s guidelines as my sole reference.

["The Arato [course grit whetstone] is good for re-creating the original shape of the blade and blade bevel. (...)Professionals and experienced users often use a super-fine grit whetstone when sharpening [shiageto]. However, I normally recommend that home cooks use juse a Nakato [medium grit whetstone] because this will provide good edge sharpness and edge durability."]

In fairness to Tormek, the traditional Tormek philosophy was that one grinding wheel should handle the entire sharpening process.

Thanks Ken,

actually,Tormek chose the stones quite well.

I found a video by Master Nagao: Sharpening with Arato
in which he basically says:
"The Arato [course grit whetstone] is good for re-creating the original shape of the blade and blade bevel. (...)Professionals and experienced users often use a super-fine grit whetstone when sharpening [shiageto]. However, I normally recommend that home cooks use juse a Nakato [medium grit whetstone] because this will provide good edge sharpness and edge durability."

This translates to grit values of

    coarse: < 400 JIS ≡ ca. F240
    medium: 800-2000 JIS ≡ ca. F360 to F600
    fine: > 3000 JIS ≡ F1000

So Tormek is spot on. (Note: Tormek uses JIS grid values a dealer told me...)

I have written a post 10 years ago (my first and only post) where I have found a coarse stone like the one you mention, so I don´t have any needs, but thanks for the tip. Others will profit from it.

BTW I have done some 3d-printed adaptors for my old bench grinder. For these, the wheels must be mounted as precise as possible. I bought grinding wheels from BSW, who are a respectable manufacturer. It seems it is not easy to make an exact adaptor for coarse wheels.
The adaptor is not exposed to dramatic forces, since respectable bench grinders have decent mounting flanges.

That said, the fine SG grit should allow for a much preciser bore than the wheel I have has. The SiC wheel is very exact...
I see no easy method of permanently fixing this. What helps is a layer of thin tape on the axle.

This is now obsolete. See here:
https://forum.tormek.com/index.php/topic,5220.0.html

(Don´t know which forum this fits. Move if necessary.)

I always was annoyed that Tormek does not sell a 200mm stone equvalent to their Silicon Blackstone.

I found a german guy who sells such a thing:  http://msc-handel.com/#produkte
It is a SiC wheel, grit F320 (=J600). He also has a stone called "Edelkorund weiss" (probably "white fused corundum" or "white fused alumina").
Note: Tormek gauges their grinding wheels according to JIS (I was told by a distributor).
This is a custom job done on special order for him by a well known local maker for abrasives (BSW). The wheel has the same cut-out as is customary for Tormek wheels.
Unfortunately the site is done quite simple and you probably would never find it.

You find him on ebay too.
https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/schleifscheibe-siliciumkarbit-f-tormek-t3-t4-200-hartes-mat-/1908645684-84-7639

Use deepl.com to translate it to English if needed.

This stone would need to be treated akin to the SB. Vadim made a nice video about trueing and grading the SB. The dressing stone would not work because it is made from the same material, however the diamond works of course. (I must get some diamond plates as he suggested...)

I sharpened some drills with it and this was a real joy. The SG did not really cope with big HSS drills. BTW I ran into the same problem with the drill jig as everyone, and I landed with the same solution intuitively...

The stone is made very precise, it fits the 12 axle much tighter than the SG that was on the T3, which has play. I have to open and fasten the SG several times to stop it from wobbling side-ways every time I change stones - not on the SiC wheel! The T3´s flanges (if you can speak of such...) are really lousy and don´t guide the stone wheel enough. A fast running wheel with such lousy side support would blow into your face upon turning on the first time.

Have fun
-Helmut

Greetings,

this is my second post...
I just recently stumbled over Vadim´s Work and bought the deburring booklet.
I wrote to him, not knowing that he has left this planet... (the web site says nothing about that...)

So you guys may know the answer.

Hereabouts (Austria/Germany) there is a guy well known, Friedrich Kollenrott, who is kind of gold standard on sharpening. He and some other guys recommend "thinning" the blade region close to the edge, up to about 1/3 of the blade height or thereabouts, particularly after it has been re-sharpened times and times, which lets the secondary facet become larger and larger due to the edge gradially approaching the back of the knife.

He wrote a document which has become a kind of "sharpeners bible":
https://www.feinewerkzeuge.de/pdf/Schaerfen_von_Messern_211207.pdf
Pictures #4 and #5 show what I mean.
The supporters of that method say the knife cuts easier this way. (This is all about kitchen knives). But this might be another myth.

I read nothing about this here, at least I did not recognize it.
in this thread https://forum.tormek.com/index.php/topic,3419.0.html a "microbevel" is mentioned and the pictures here https://forum.tormek.com/index.php/topic,3437.0.html suggest that it would be a compound bevel. I am not quite sure, if this is the same thing.

I have tried grinding that flat with the jigs, but had the stone collide with the jig.
I was uncertain as what angle we are speaking about.
Apart from that, this would produce a hollow secondary bevel (is this the right term for it?), which may be counterproductive.

I have tried several ways of doing this free style on the tormek, but the result left a lot to be desired...

The only way I can imagine is doing it on the side of the stone, much like Vadim tried it on a single bevel knife. I have bought the MB-100 to give that a shot.

I have a T-3 and use stones only. I thought up a method for trueing the side.

So I would appreciate to hear your thoughts on this subject, folks. I may toss the subject in one second if you say this does not pay. It certainly causes head ache.

Thanks,
-Helmut

(This subject probably affects only readers in Austria and Germany, but this is the place to post it anyway.)

Just recently I bought a T3 model and sharpened a few chisels to perfection.
Sobering, when I put my Stanley hand planer´s blade on the machine, which is obviously HSS.
After half an hour I gave up, when only half of the blade was done.

I looked in the web for rougher stones, but you only seem to get finer stones, at least for the T3.
A diamond wheel might be the solution, but this is another investment. But a cheap workaround is at hand.

I happened to have a wet/dry grinder machine that is ubiquitous in home-department shops in Austria and Germany similar to the one shown here:
http://www.walter-service.at/index.php?page=product&info=1669

I suspect this is a chinese machine which is sold by a couple of tool traders under different names.

It consists of two grinding stones, one high speed dry and one low speed wet grind both mounted at a 90 degree angle.  The machine comes at a price of about 50 Euros. Maybe the stone can be obtained as a spare on its own..

It turns out that they use the same dimension grind stone (200 mm * 40mm) as the T3 although with a different bore. However, their machine uses the same axle and they use an adaptor. The stone appears much rougher, I guess a 120 grit from the information on the website. The wet stone they sell as compatible article has 80 grit and a ridiculously low price.
I used their adaptor and lo and behold, the grindstone fits perfectly albeit with a small wobble which does not hurt.

It ground the planer blade into shape in one minute flat. A little touch-up with the SG stone in 1000 grit mode and that was it - razor sharp HSS planer blade with a perfect angle.

A different solution would be to use their bench grinder mounting set BGM-100 with some makeshift holder on the cheap machine, but the prior solution is more elegant and maintains the correct angle as long as the stones have the same diameter.

I consider this workaround not financially detrimental to the Tormek series of articles, because such a stone is simply not available. In the contrary, this should encourage you to get a T3 folks!

-helmut