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Can you post a picture? Where did you get it? Could it be the honing wheel?

Interesting video. I use sound a lot when cooking to make sure I am doing it right.

Also, I notice that the sound of the paper test also tells you about sharpness. The sharper a knife is the more silky the sound is. A sharper knife will also make less sound in the paper test.

A local (to me) knife sharpener was asked if he could sharpen a round blade from a pizza cutter by his local pizza shop. Here is the result of his investigations. Interesting.

https://youtu.be/CELSYmNsnXM

Also - you don't know in what way the bleach may react with the rust inhibitor. I bought A 5L of AC2 non-glycol coolant additive from my loacal automotiver store and it works out about 1/1`0th the price of the Tormek and the ratio is pretty much the same. I *think* that it is pretty much the same stuff but with a dye added to identify it. There are several types and the one I got I think has the same active ingredient.

Mine did not smell but it was getting fouled by the rust, grease et al form the knives and tools I was sharpening. It still worked fine but was quite discoloured and was not a lot left so decided to throw it out and start again.

I looked around at the local resellers here and can get quite a bit off the wheels and accessories. I do a search in google then look at the various prices then on eBay and Amazon and then compare the prices + shipping. All of the resellers in Australia I use are reputable so have a high level of confidence in them. I did need a shaft and ordered one off Amazon for a really good price and discovered that it shipped from the US. It went missing in transit and Amazon refunded me - but that was the only instance of not using a reputable Australian supplier. I cannot speak for other countries but I would imagine that the same would apply elsewhere.

Saw that come through. On my watch list for tonight

If the drive wheel is slipping then as other have said it may be some contamination on the drive wheel. Remove the honing wheel and inspect the motor shaft as well as the drive wheel. My Tormek was second hand and I had to give the motor shaft a through clean with Mineral Turps since it had a lot of gunk on it. Yaou may also need to clean the drive wheel. Use Turps for that as well if needed. If the rubber on the drive wheel is glazed then Tormek recomend you use a coarse sand paper against the wheel when running to roughen up the wheel and remove the glazing. This did not do much for me and although the rubber was not perished it was still glazed and slipping. I used some belt grip compound which you can get from automotive stores. Make sure you place a paper town underneath to catch any overspray and drips.

Finally if the drive wheel is cracked or the rubber cracked and perished then you will need to buy a new drive wheel. But they do last a LONG time.

I don't bother filtering it but I sometimes decant after it has been sitting for a day or two if there is sediment in the bottom. If you are careful you can get most of the water out without the sediment if you leave it for a bit before pouring it out. You don't loose much that way. I have a cocoa container from Costco that is the perfect size. It takes almost 2L of water plus 1/2 a bottle of ACC-150 which does me for quite a while.  The last lot was getting pretty manky and only had about 1/4 left so I threw it out and made up a fresh batch. Not sure how long I had it but it was a LOT of sharpening.

You should have no issues polishing rocks on the Tormek. Being a wet grinder it would probably be ideal. As for hardness the four wheel types are standard SG-250 which is Aluminium Oxide, black SB-250 which is Silicon Carbide, Diamond Dx-250 where the x is C-coarse, F-fine and E-extra fine, and lastly the SJ-250 Japanese which I *think* is Aluminium Oxode, a finer grade (more pure), hence the white colour, than the SG. The Hardnessess are Aluminium Oxide - depending on its purity and origin from 3-9, Silicon Carbide 9 and Diamond 10.

As I understand it most gem grinding is done using silicon carbide sine it tends to be harder than aluminium oxide and harder than most other rocks. Depending on the finish you need you may wish to get the diamond stones which an be more agressive but will take you up to 1200 grit. You probably don't want the Japanese stone since that will be too soft so after that you will either need to go to third party wheels or hand burnish.

Don't trim. As Ken says it is an artifact of the molding process. It is harmless. You only need to sand if the rubber becomes glazed over use and begins to slip. I bought a quite old machine and the wheel had become quite glazed and was slipping under load. I use a non-slip belt compound from our local automotive store since sanding did not quite do the job.

Interestingly I was watching a video last night from a Japanese master craftsman who was talking about sharpening. He said that it was a mistake to take a knife to 10,000 or higher since it - as you say - removes the tooth from the knife and makes cutting thinks with an outer skin such as tomatoes harder.

Leave it. It dies not harm and trimming may damage the rubber if you slip.

Interesting discussion. The hardness of CBN and diamond is quite close and both are much harder than would you are sharpening so I don't think that this is really and issue. However the article linked here https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/cubic-boron-nitride#:~:text=Abrasives%20and%20abrasive%20tools&text=The%20popularity%20of%20CBN%20is,grinding%20high%20quality%20tool%20steels.

indicates that "...Due to chemical–thermal degradation, CBN wears five times more rapidly than diamond..." when water cooled. This is due to the layer of boron oxide that is formed is water soluble. So maybe that is why some manufacturers do not recommend wet grinding for CBN.

To be brutally honest for most of us either is perfectly fine, depending on your requirements. My last diamond wheel I got $130 off the odds which made it nearly on par with the cheap Chinese CBN so a no brainer for me.

Darita,

In my opinion, the fastest, most repeatably accurate way to set up chisels (and plane blades) is with the Tormek TTS-100, shown in this link:

...

Ken

Just tried this and works a treat. I have a rule with a stop on it. I set each angle them measured the protrusion. Once I know that I can record it. To set up a blade for sharpening I simply set the stop on the rule then set the protrusion using that.