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... schleifjunkies ...

Noooooooooooooo ! What have you done ? Yet another substantial amount of my money that unexpectly got spent on a leisure some would at the very least dub "suspicious". Because they also have strops, and laser holders, and wheels, and sprays, and...

Sigh. I can't wait to receive all of this.

Thank you for your welcome ! And as you might have noticed, I have no issue with long posts And yes, moisture definitely seems to be an issue. I'll fiddle around with the rack jvh pointed to and see...

I was wondering, as there seems to be an agreement that the area close to the edge will always somehow be convex (due to the play in the jigs, the misalignments, the out-of-squareness and out-of-roundness of the wheels,  the imperfections in handling, the softness of the honing wheel, etc.), if anyone had ever been able to actually observe or measure said convexity ?

It would probably show on one of wootz's awesome SEM scans, but maybe a "simpler" interferometer would allow to quantify the convexity (or concavity for larger bevels) that we *actually* get from using a wheel as opposed to the one we would get if the surface of the bevel was geometrically identical to that of a wheel model. It would also be fun to be compare an edge sharpened by a tormek guru who would obviously be much more consistent than a newbie such as I, not only in terms of sharpness, but also in terms of overall geometry.

Yeah, I felt kinda dumb yesterday night when sharpening a 300mm suji...

Sorry if this has been covered extensively, but a question comes to my mind every time I remove the grinding wheel, put the white piece of tubing back on the axle etc. before I switch to the honing wheel :

Why on earth is the honing wheel not 250mm ? Would save the hassle of resetting the US, just flip it and you're done. OK, it might not be EXACTLY 250mm but still, make it 248 mm and you hone at a slightly higher angle.


Gone too would be the issue with the 250mm stone getting in the way when you hone. And if the stone diameter decreases significantly ? Well you're back to today's process except I am sure there are more people with stones in the 235-250mm range than below this. With diamond wheels more than ever.

I made the assumption that the few additional cents on leather length and plastic would not put too heavy a burden on the buyer. Am I missing something ?

And the not-that-inexpensive LION-SABATIER which was supposedly the pinnacle of french knife-making is down the toilet...

Nice, I just ordered one I guess they can also fit inside milk cartons for transportation...

Rick, thank you!

I didn't think of the right keywords for the post you referenced (I'm French), it has everything I was looking for and more. I remember quite well the SJ-250 following the folding-table incident from another post though (yikes).

I will probably explore two ideas:
- One based on IKEA legs such as https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/adils-leg-white-90217972/ . I'll try to screw them to the back of a thick enough plywood board and ram an A2 (A4?) M8 bolt through the board with a large plastic washer to avoid direct contact with the board, throw in a bit of silicon to avoid sippage to the backside.
- The other based on your milk cartons, but with separators and short rods so I can take one out easily. I'll probably 3d print the rods with an integrated flange or use two plastic washers, and Il make separators out of plywood cut in half. But if I could weld stainless it would look like this...

Many thanks!

Good day to you all.

First of all, let me say how impressed and thankful I am to all those of you who contributed to this forum. I'm still overwhelmed by the quantity of information, the neat ideas, and the strife for constant improvement.

I'm mainly a knife sharpener. I've been using wetstones and (let's not give names) some sliding-rod jigs that have given me more than satisfactory results for many years. Of course there's the issue with the sharpening of the tip on those jigs, but one of the most prolific topic on here has been with whether/how to pivot to achieve satisfactory results with the tormek.

To be honest, I don't need a Tormek but I like well engineered stuff and I'm very curious. So I went for the T-8 + SJ-250, SB250 (probably should have gone with the DC250 but hey, I had not read enough of the forum) DF 250, DE-250, just received my FVB, purchased the KG angle setter for windows (should have waited till I ordered the FVB but again, I've been too hasty), and use the TormekCalc2 with delight. It's a brilliant piece of Excel file and not only does it fulfill my needs, it gave me ideas I was able to apply at once.

So I'm obviously very early in the learning curve. I've sharpened some junk knives a LOT before I moved on to higher-quality ones and those have come out cutting better and longer than ever before. Probably not the level you guys would expect but in terms of time spent and result, still the best compromise yet.

I've even tried sharpening a ginsan-ko yo-deba with the FVB as per the KG video, and it came out scary sharp. I've sticked to the wetstone for the backside though, which saved a lot of time as I *only* have one machine ^^. I still think the wetstones are better suited to maintain the original shape for that kind of knife but it was worth trying. In the same spirit, I'll probably stick to the sliding-rod style jigs with narrow stones for whatever few recurve blades I sharpen.

But all-in-all, my usual job being putting a bulk friends' or family's knives back in shape quickly, and those guys usually have standard kitchen knives, I think the Tormek will serve me well, and most importantly... I'll be having fun. I couldn't thank enough Ken, Wootz, jvh and many others who have saved me tremendous time spent in trial and errors, although I still have my share of those ahead of me. I've seldom seen a forum where collective creative thinking was so pervasive.

Now I hope I won't discover this issue has been discussed numerous time, if so I sincerely apologize but I couldn't seem to find any topic on this: How do you guys store your stones ? I've seen (I think of KG youtube videos) that some used stainless steel drainer-style racks. I also saw the Tormek guys with their nifty cart and stones hanging on the side. I bought a cart for my T8 to sit on top of, and I padded the drawers with shadowfoam to hold the tools and some stones. I've also seen some stone holders on thingiverse ready for 3D-printing. Still none seems completely satisfactory:
- The stainless steel racks look that I would easily nick the stones, or should I say nick the SJ-250, which seems like it would chip if I glared at it a bit to openly.
- I wouldn't dare hang a stone on the side of the cart for fear it would drop one way or another
- Storing the stones flat in the drawers takes up a lot of space, and I'm wondering if I won't end up with a wet and/or rusty mess at some point.
- The 3D-printed ones I would have to secure on some countertop to avoid dropping. And as they seem quite bulky, and I don't personally own a 3D-printer, I don't want to end up costing my friend $100+ in filament.

I also briefly thought of a thick, non-vertical wooden board with 10mm bolts protruding, but the drainage will probably be an issue, along with the overall size of the thingamajig. So...

My lawn mower blade is now the only use I have for the tiny belt grinder manufactured by another brand, supposedly with the help of a U.S. chef. It works a charm. Eveything else on Tormek or a linear jig.