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I should add, that I've tried to sharpen, so far, over 20 1/4" chisels, so I'm confident I can rule out a wonky chisel as being the problem.
I'm still absolutely fed up, but I'm nowhere near the workshop so can't be tempted to tinker further today.

On my drive home, I've been thinking about the problem, and I have come up with the following thoughts about the problems I have encountered so far.

I cannot get over the fact that tightening and loosening the screws on the SE-76 can only introduce a fractional difference of a few thousandths of an inch to the alignment of the chisel, whereas comparatively, the play on the Universal support legs where they fit into the top of the machine is massive.  Personally the fact that  this level of tolerance is considered acceptable on a commercial product where accurate results depend upon accurate alignment, troubles me greatly.  I mean, when the screws are loosened, it's possible to rattle it.

Further thoughts are that I have not been able to determine how much pressure is required on the back of the tool when sharpening.  For all I know I could be putting far too much pressure on.

My initial instinct regarding the design of the SE-76 still stands.  the gutter, as somebody called it, must be causing at least some of the problems.  As there is no way to reference whether the back of the chisel is firmly against the top edge of the SE-76 other than visually, and that gutter can cause the chisel to twist in the jig, then the design is flawed.  Yes it will work for plane blades and 1 inch chisels, but. the curved clamp against the top of the chisel means that there is very little to hold the chisel firmly in the correct place.


I'll be honest here, I'm really unhappy.  I've taken up a LOT of work time on this, and  I think I could have got more accurate results with Japanese Waterstones.   
I spent several  hours on a Clifton No 7 plane blade  correcting the 1mm skew that I accidentally introduced on the first attempt.


On a separate note, I had quiet misgivings about the stone grader from the outset, and my fears have been realised.  All the stone grader has succeeded in doing is curve the stone surface so rather than flat it's convex - necessitating a further half dozen passes with the truing tool.  My stone is now at 240 mm after 6 months of very little use - it's lost 5mm in the last few weeks.  (It lost 5mm when I first got the machine, and then the machine sat idle for 3 months, with very light use until the last couple of weeks)     Again I feel a victim of vague instructions - how much pressure is too much? how much is not enough?.   Holding a stone freehand against the wheel is bound to negate any accuracy from the truing tool, so I'm feeling that it's another sales gimmick that doesn't do what the sales hype says.

Guys I'm really sorry that this is so negative but I'm just not feeling any love for the Tormek System any more.  The only thing that I actually like is the leather honing wheel.

I've just had another frustrating try.

The ONLY thing that is making any difference to the skew is whether the support is 'torqued' or not.    In complete contrast, I'm finding the variance is massive, as opposed to your 'quite small'.  I'm talking at least 0.5mm of skew over a 6mm chisel.

further I've ended up with the inner clamp screw very tight and the outer one very loose with no further possibility of tightening, and it's still skewed.   

I'm going to pick it up again tomorrow when I'm not feeling quite so utterly fed up with the whole thing.   It shouldn't be this difficult to get a square edge.

kennyk - you have now  introduced a comment about usb movement. I have just been out to mine, and to deflect the end of the bar I really need to apply a heavy load. The machine moves first.

I would suggest as per KenS you practice with 3/4" chisels and get up the learning curve. Then for narrow chisels, if a problem in the corner of the SE-76, move the chisel away from the edge, and use marker pen and a small square to check squareness.

Keep up posted.

Perhaps I'm not explaining myself properly, the play is not when the support is tightend.  What I mean is it is possible to lock the support in such a position that the bar is out of parallel to the wheel by 1.5mm at one end.   To my way of thinking, this has setup implications, because to use the truing tool the bar must be moved, and I have no way to guarantee that it is in exactly the same plane as it was before.



I'd be interested to see what someone who is more experienced with the machine can determine by deliberately introducing this error ( By that I mean how much is it physically skewing the chisel) , so that I might be able to find an easily repeatable and foolproof method of setup that completely eliminates it. Is it possible that I have a faulty part somewhere?

Moving back to the original 1/4" chisel issue,  it's clear to me that the SE-76 is of little use for 1/4"and smaller bevel edged chisels.  Not only due to the notch I've previously mentioned, but also because of the tightening mechanism only grips the top of the chisel at the back of the SE-76.  it seems what is happening is that the chisel is being clamped by a very small area in one point  and it's causing it to swivel.   


The options are to try tighten it further and cause it to twist in the jig because of the front to back notch at the registration edge, or to allow it to be able to swivel.  Both are causing a bevel that is out of square.

A further difficulty is that my SE-76 has a small, ragged bead most of the way along the front edge, left over from the manufacturing process, and I am having trouble using a square on this edge to check whether the chisel is in the jig correctly if I mount it away from the registration edge.

Hi Guys

I seem to have opened up a can of worms...

From what I can tell, the issue with 1/4" chisels (6mm) is caused by the notch at the registration edge of the SE-76.  it means that there is less that 4mm of the back of the chisel against the top edge, and 2mm overhanging into that front-to-back channel.  I have a picture but no way to upload it here at work.  The top of the chisel is narrow too, so it means that there is very little to hold the chisel firmly in place.

I've found a work around of sorts, but it is very hit and miss - moving the chisel away from the edge and eyeballing it square.  or just going for it freehand against the support.   Neither is ideal, but it's preferable to >10 degree skews. which have taken me a fair amount of time to correct.  I've had to go back to the old Viceroy Sharpedge flatstone grinder to re-grind primary bevels.


I do think that some sort of in depth instructional video covering the setup of the tools in the jig is what is required.  Given that there seems to be a concensus that the instructions are currently inadequate, it is a relief to know I'm not alone.
The DVD gives very little in the way of useful information.  I think my comment earlier stands.  I don't need sales pitch on a DVD included in something I've already purchased.  Although I'm in two minds whether watching the DVD when in the depths of frustration at poor results is meant as a panacea or a further red rag!

Anyway, I can feasibly see that a video of at least 1 hr would be required on setting up the T-7 / SE-76 alone to include all the pitfalls and  errors that we seem to be encountering.

I do  still think that the play in the legs of the Universal Support is also an issue, given that it causes the outer extremity of the support to move by over 1.5mm  (1/16").  I still have no way of knowing that it is correctly set to be honest and this is causing me some annoyance too.

After numerous attempts to sharpen over a dozen 1/4" Bevel Edge chisels,  it is now my considered opinion that the SE-76 jig is fundamentally flawed.

my experience has been that it is far easier to incorrectly mount the chisel  so that the back edge is not flush to the top of the jig than it is to mount it correctly.
Secondly, even with the knobs tightened it is very  easy to twist the chisel in the jig as well, as well as skewing it.

I have managed to get one chisel with a completely square edge, and that was more by luck.
If you can't guess,  I'm fairly fed up with my whole Tormek experience so far.  At this cost level the thing should work out of the box without all these issues.  Yes, the T-7 can get a razor sharp edge very fast, but I've had very poor success rate with getting the edge parallel.

The problem, in my experience, seems to stem from the instructions being far to vague to be meaningful.  There are far too many steps in the setup of the system where it is very easy to get the setup wrong and be completely unaware that it IS wrong.  And by the time I've got a skewed edge, it can be caused by a number of factors.  In my view, the videos on the accompanying DVD aren't much help - they concentrate too much on 'look how shiny a bevel we can get'.  What is needed are in-depth tutorials to point out the common user errors, rather than what is effectively Sales Pitch.

Sorry if this comes across as negative, but in addition to the 200 chisels, I've got somewhere in the region of 120 No 4 and No 5 Bench Plane blades to do as well and I can't afford to be wasting time trying to figure out why I'm getting consistently bad results.

As I've got a LOT of chisels to sharpen (and plane irons),  I'm finding it a drag to constantly remove the universal support to use the leather honing wheel.  Ideally I'd get another support and set it for the correct angle for honing.  However I've been practising doing the final honing freehand and seem to be getting  better at it.  Is this something many of you do?

As I've got somewhere in the region of 200 chisels of various sizes to sharpen, I'm coming up with ways to speed up my setup.  For example  I've marked the leg of the support without the micro-adjust with a fine sharpie to give me the correct height when using the shortest stop on the TTS-100 for mounting my chisels in the SE-76.  With this I don't need to use the anglemaster to check my angle.  I still use the sharpie on the bevel when I'm doing a chisel I've not done before on the tormek to give me an idea of what the previous angle was.  However I'm looking for a consistent 25 (ish) degree angle across all the chisels anyway and this seems to be the easiest way to achieve this without having to micro adjust every single time.

I don't think 3000 rpm would be beneficial.  Probably it would generate too much heat.  I'd be surprised if the adhesive between the leather and the wheel would cope with it.     Have you, by any chance, been looking at polishing mops and the results they give,  and thinking that the leather wheel might do similar if you cranked the rpm up? 

Just a further update;  I seem to be getting more consistent results now.   

I've come to the conclusion that the amount of finger pressure required to skew a blade is far less than I'd originally thought, unless anyone can give me evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) to the contrary. But by varying the pressure seems to be working.   

Out of interest, do most people put a very tiny (a few thousandths of an inch) curve on their plane blades by putting a bit of pressure at the outer corners of the blade?

Hi Herman

Thanks,  I wondered if that was the case.  I don't use a corner chisel very often anyway, so it's not a major worry.

Hi All

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to use a Tormek to sharpen a 90 degree corner chisel?   

I've just measured the gap at the outer edge of the wheel with the US touching the inner edge. 15 thou or 0.4mm is the gap if the leg without the micro-adjust is pressed and locked with the screws first.   

Are you tightening one of the set screws, applying the force, and then tightening the other set screw?  Just to be clear, that's not the right way to do it.

Another area where I'm unsure if I'm getting things right is the clamping of the blade in the SE-76.  Can anyone explain a simple way of ensuring that I've not over-tightened one side and inadvertantly bent the jig, which I've read about somewhere.

Do you have the newer SE-76 Square Edge Jig or the older SVH-60 Straight Edge Jig?  If you have the former it'll be clearly labeled as such on the jig itself.

Hi Herman

Not quite, it was more a simple way to exaggerate the aligment issue to find a way to overcome it. Although I've been applying pressure to the non micro adjustable leg and locking that first, then tightening the microadjust leg without applying further pressure just for the purposes of testing.    At the moment I'm just trying to find a procedure that will work for me given the sheer number of blades I've got piling up...

I have the SE-76 Jig.  The machine is brand new.



But I feel like I'm getting somewhere.  I re-ground the primary bevel of my Clifton Blade on the old Viceroy Sharpedge flatstone grinder, and managed to get an edge without a skew using the T-7.  However I'm unsure at the moment what I did differently... 

I've just measured the gap at the outer edge of the wheel with the US touching the inner edge. 15 thou or 0.4mm is the gap if the leg without the micro-adjust is pressed and locked with the screws first.   

over a 2 3/8 blade width, I'd be surprised if a misalignment of the US wasn't at least partly responsible for the skew I've been experiencing.

(Presumably it would be possible to true the wheel with the US misaligned as well and induce the same gap on the inner edge  by not pressing down on the leg when adjusting the support, thus reversing the direction of the skew.)

Another area where I'm unsure if I'm getting things right is the clamping of the blade in the SE-76.  Can anyone explain a simple way of ensuring that I've not over-tightened one side and inadvertantly bent the jig, which I've read about somewhere.

Hi again all, thanks for the welcome.

I just want to clarify my findings regarding the tool support:  The legs are of a smaller diameter than the mounting holes in the top of the T-7, to the extent that when using the micro adjust it is very easy to set the support out of square, which is where I suspect at least some of my difficulties are arising.

If I loosen the locking screws on the tool support and allow it to rest on the micro-adust, there is play on the other leg in the mounting hole. To exaggerate this, if I put pressure on the outer overhang of the support above the grinding wheel it is highly possible to lock the support squint, or for that matter if I put pressure above the micro-adjust leg.    I'm wondering if this play is within specification.  To clarify, there is no play when the support is locked with the two screws.

It's possible that I've trued the wheel using the truing tool with the support squint as described above.  However it should be possible to replicate the squint  accurately (for want of a better word) every time when locking the support, I think.  Although since I have no way of truing the wheel and leaving the support untouched before sharpening a plane blade, it's difficult to rule this line of enquiry either in or out.

Any comments or thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi all, just registered here.

I've recently taken delivery of a T-7 in a school for sharpening all the chisels, plane blades etc.   However I'm having issues with it when using the SE-76.  I simply cannot get a straight bevel on my own Clifton Plane iron (the Plane is a No.7 Jointer) .  when looking at the blade front on (bevel towards me), the right hand side is always shorter  than the left.  I've tried a number of times to true the stone but that hasn't made any difference to the results.    the difference along the length is over 1mm ( around 1/32").

My observations so far: 
1.  there is play on the universal support leg that does NOT have the micro adjust, meaning that it is possible to knock the support out of parallel to the stone when adjusting the height after trueing the stone. I've tried truing after setting the support in all three possible 'positions' - first locking with pressure on the micro-adjust leg, then locking with pressure on the other leg, and finally with pressure on both legs, but all yield the same result.  which would you recommend as being the most consistent for acceptable results?

2.  with a 2" square on the front edge of the SE-76, the protruding blade is not square to the front edge of the jig.  is this critical or a red herring?

I re-ground a primary bevel using an ageing Viceroy Sharpedge flatstone grinder (just fitted with a new wheel) and even with play in the tool-holder due to wear on the height adjustment thread, I'm getting more accurate bevels, although there is a slight skew the other way.  So midway through the process it's hard to determine how bad the skew is going to be, as the edge looks convex.

I'm now starting to lose patience with the thing as I've got somewhere in the region of 200 chisels and 100 plane blades to sharpen for the various classrooms in the department!

Can anyone point me in the right direction?