tormek any black wheel user out there

[Martin Rock]

hi all

I am seeking some objective information for the black wheel from tormek (sb 250)

anyone out there have experience with it

is it much faster?
does it wear better?
How does the stone grader works with it?

I would like to use this stone for my high carbon steel and A2 steel. Is this wheel suited for that


thanks
Martin

[Jon McElwain]

Might try this in the general woodworking and power tools forum.

[Jim Sebring]

I've had one for about a year. I haven't seen any great benefit of using it over the standard gray stone. It still gets grooved when sharpening bowl gouges and needs to be trued about as often as the gray stone. BTW, I wore the original gray stone down to about 8 inches before I bought the black stone. I probably wore the original stone out trying to 'shape' turning tools. That process takes a long time and a real toll on the stone. I don't do that any more - I stick with sharpening my gouges on the Tormek. If I have to shape a new tool, I use the setup on the dry grinder using the Wolverine.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I have one, it seems to cut the Powdered Metal PM tools much faster than the normal one. Dunno about A-2.

It seems to wear better, but it still wears.

Stone grader works the same, although it SEEMS to me, that the stock grey wheel leaves a better (finer) finish on your tools.

Is it worth the investment? I think so. If you have lots of PM tools, it the way to go. If you don't have much PM tools, maybe not so much.

[Jack Mincey]

I've use one for a couple of years and think that they do last a little longer. The edge one gets from the black wheel cuts just fine for me. The black wheel will sharpen carbide and I've used it to put a sharp edge on masonry bits so that I can use them to drill thru old planner blades to make cutters for my hollowing tool. As other said the truing tool works fine on them as well. I will probably buy another one when this one wears out.
Jack