something to try with Tormek CBN wheel

[Pat Scott]

I stumbled onto something the other day with my 320 grit CBN wheel from Woodturning Wonders that I have on my Tormek. With the original Tormek wheel you have a water bath to collect the metal filings. You can use a water bath with the CBN, but don't make the mistake that I did and forget about it or else the wheel will start rusting. The rust doesn't seem to affect the wheel in use, but it doesn't look as pretty as it used to. Using the wheel dry does present a new problem though, in that the metal filings becoming magnetized and stick to the edge of the tool. Kind of a pain and makes it somewhat hard to see the edge. You can demagnetize the edge but I'm lazy and gave up on that after a few times.

Anyway I was thinking could I use something else besides water to contain the filings and prevent them from sticking to the edge of the tool. Oil came to mind. Oil won't rust the wheel and I don't know why I couldn't leave oil in the trough all the time. I'd need enough oil to fill the trough, and the only oil that I had enough of on hand was a bottle of motor oil. Don't use it! Motor oil is too thick and the wheel will pick it up out of the trough and dribble/sling it onto your bench. It makes a BIG mess.

I added oil to the trough with the machine turned on, and when it started slopping oil all over I wasn't smart enough to simply turn off the Tormek. I immediately realized it was too thick and needed to be thinned down. So while it's still on and slopping oil all over, I started to add Mineral Spirits to the trough to thin the motor oil. That didn't work either and just made more of a mess. It took a whole bunch of paper towels to clean up and clean the oil out of the trough.

Here comes the good part. After I got everything cleaned up and the trough emptied, I still needed to sharpen my gouges. A thin layer of oil remained on the wheel but it wasn't slinging anywhere so I left it. I sharpened my gouge and viola!, no more metal filings on the edge of the tool.

If anyone wants to try this, I would use a thin oil that is more the consistency of water. Mineral oil comes to mind. Or with the machine turned off, you could use motor oil and apply a thin layer to the wheel. You don't have to cover every inch of the wheel because the oil is fluid and will eventually flow around. A cap full or two might be all you need. I would still put some towels or drop cloth under your machine before you turn it on - just in case.

Even though I initially made a big mess, I'm glad I experimented and stumbled across a fix for metal filings building up.

[Reed Gray]

I believe most of Ken's wheels are aluminum, so I would expect the rust you found on them to be from metal dust rather than the wheel rusting. He does suggest a bath in kerosene to clean them up, but I don't know how that would work in a trough. My D Way wheels so seem to magnetize my tools as well, and if I put them down next to the grinder, they come up fuzzy. Most of the time, just a tap on some thing else that is metal knocks it off. Not sure if that de-magnetizes the tools or not. The CBN wheels used dry do generate a surprising amount of very fine dust.

robo hippy

[Jim Seyfried]

Perhaps a water soluble oil like used in machining would work. Pat, how do you like the finish the 320 grit CBN wheel gives? Or how does it compare to the original wheel?

[Pat Scott]

Perhaps a water soluble oil like used in machining would work. Pat, how do you like the finish the 320 grit CBN wheel gives? Or how does it compare to the original wheel?

I like it! I sharpened a gouge on my worn out Tormek wheel and looked at the scratch pattern. Then I installed the 320 grit CBN and sharpened the same gouge. Granted I was only using my naked eye, but I couldn't tell a difference. I got the 320 CBN thinking that it would be comparable to the 220 grit Tormek Blackstone, and I think it is. I was concerned about the 600 grit CBN being too fine, and I was wanting something that was as fast of touching up an edge as the Blackstone 220. Others have commented how fast the 600 grit removes metal, so my 320 must be faster yet. One pass swinging the gouge in each direction and I'm back to cutting.

What I really like is not ever having to worry about flattening or truing up the wheel, or taking time to fill the trough with water. It's acts like a dry grinder now in that I can just walk up to it and grind and I'm done. Definitely worth the money in that respect. Plus I wore out two Tormek wheels before this so no more buying wheels.

[John K Jordan]

My D Way wheels so seem to magnetize my tools as well,

I use the aluminum wheels from Ken Rizza, a 600 grit wheel on my Tormek. All my tools get magnetized and I don't think it is from the wheels. Nearly any ferromagnetic object can become magnetized just by sitting undisturbed in the Earth's magnetic field for a extended time. (When I was a kid we would use a compass to test things from appliances to steel cans on the shelf) The lathe tools get magnetized a lot quicker that I expected. My theory is the tools in use at the lathe are often held in a consistent orientation in the Earth's field and the vibration from turning accelerates the magnetizing. Over 50 years ago I read that hammering a piece of steel in a magnetic field can cause it to become magnetized quicker. (My pre-teen fascination with magnets led me to some dangerous experiments with electricity but that's another story...)

Looking around a bit with Google, I found this guy who must have read the same book I did:
"The steel is inside Earth's magnetic field. Jarring a piece of metal will allow for a slight realignment of the atoms - with each sharp impact in the same direction, the object becomes slightly more magnetized. I had a book with some science experiments in it - the one thing said that if you hold an iron spike, face north, and hit the end of it with a metal hammer a few times, the spike will become slightly magnetic."

The trail of black powdered steel dust bothers me so my sharpening procedure now includes 10 seconds of demagnetizing the tool with an old bulk tape demagnetizer from the '70s. I never throw anything away.

JKJ