Distilled water

[iggie zawicki]

I recently purchased a Tormek sharpening system, used. The previous owner is adamant that distilled water be used in the trough. Is that a requirement, or is it not necessary?

[Herman Trivilino]

Under normal circumstances, it's not necessary.  Perhaps the previous owner had really bad tap water, so bad in fact that it left iron and mineral deposits in the trough and on the wheel.

I remember when I first got my Tormek, I used the bottled drinking water the first time.  That was years ago when I had bottled drinking water in the house.  Since then I've had filters and a softener installed.

Enjoy your new Tormek, and happy sharpening!

[Jeff Farris]

It is completely unnecessary, no matter how hard your water is.

[65BAJA]

I just use tap water. I did watch a video on You Tube once where someone used a 50/50 mix of tap water and car antifreeze.

[Jeff Farris]

If he did, you witnessed someone ruining his stone. Antifreeze contains anti-friction compounds that are designed to infiltrate very tiny crevices. Not something you want in a grindstone.

[PGB1]

I certainly know very little about sharpening tools the Tormek way (so far), but do have a comment about hard water and grinding stones to share. Please forgive me if this is not applicable to sharpening with the Tormek system, but it may be helpful when deciding about using distilled water.

About 30 or more years ago, I was visiting my father, a very old-school German engineer, in his hobby lapidary & gem cutting shop. I noticed his elaborate water feed system for the grinding and cutting tools was fed with fresh well water.

His water had so much calcium it one could see it floating in a freshly drawn glass. So much that it would routinely clog the well's pressure switch. Interestingly he, as well as my mother, never suffered from osteoporosis even though neither one drank milk nor ate supplements.

I inquired about the calcium floaties and the stones. His explanation was that, even though we call calcium filled water 'hard', calcium actually acts as a lubricant in this situation. He said it also would help carry away the stone debris  (and prevent it from being re-deposited on the workpiece or in the stone's pores, if one were to recirculate the cooling water).

He also stressed to always run any stone & let it absorb as much water as it could before introducing work. He said if you recirculate, never reuse the same water between sessions not to let any stone sit unused in a water bath. (His system did not recirculate except for the saw. It sent the water to the garden, laundry or other grey-water use after it passed the stones or diamond wheels.)

In the world of tool sharpening, I wonder if these lubricating properties would be beneficial or detrimental. I also don't know if the excess calcium would clog the Tormek stone. I use Detroit water, so it is very calcium free from the tap, but I've always followed his stone care advice for all of my grinders.

Just some thoughts to pass along...
Paul

[Rhino]

As soon as you sharpen, iron will be introduced into the trough.  Then, rust will develop.  Iron oxide and iron ions will be in the water.  Also, the grinding stone is probably some sort of calcium magnesium silica type compound (complexed in different ways and different hardness than a pure compound) and each of these elements will be introduced into water.

Our water is basically sitting on stone (reservoir, lake, stream, underground) before we drink it.  If you drink from an underground aquifer, the water has been sitting on stone for a million years. 

So I doubt any drinkable water can hurt the grinding properties of the stone.  All bets are off if you use orange juice or milk.