Grinder or wet-grinder?

[Hilel Salomon]

Hi Folks,

I have a variable speed grinder which-even though I balanced it-seems to shake a lot. I still use it to sharpen my bowl gouges, but thought... since I have Tormeks I might as well use them. My question is How many of you use a Tormek type grinder to sharpen your tools? I did, and the ones where I used the existing profiles or something close to them came out really nice looking. Truth is that I can't see an enormous difference in the cutting. Maybe it's me. Also it takes forever to change a profile. They certainly do come out looking shiny.
Hope everyone is well,
Hilel.

[earl timmons]

I have both a Tormek and a low speed grinder. I used the Tormek for quite some time when I first started turning. I primarily was putting a fresh edge on whatever grind it was I happened to purchase. The Tormek does a fine job of this. As you stated it does take forever to change a grind. The biggest issue I had with it was that I needed to re-true the wheel a lot and I felt it was wearing faster than I was willing to live with. Of course as it gets smaller it also gets slower. I guess a real argument could be made that you may have to buy Tormek wheels more often but it is no worse than buying tools whose life is shortened by removing excess material on a low speed grinder. I finally purchased a low speed grinder and use it exclusively now for all my turning tools. I have never been particularly good with a skew chisel. I am making a point of getting better at it. I may fire up the Tormek for that as it is the one turning tool where I suspect honing and fine sharpening could make a significant difference in tool performance. I continue to use the Tormek for all of my flat work chisels planes etc.

[earl timmons]

Sorry about the additional post here but if you tried to read my last post you have to be wondering if the guy ever heard of paragraphs. Believe me I tried to make paragraphs but every time I previewed the post - no paragraphs. How the heck do you make paragraphs.

[Wilbur Pan]

FWIW, I bought a Tormek specifically for turning tools. I find the set up time to be really no different than with a Wolverine/grinder set up, especially using the turning tool setup jig. You can make your own turning tool setup jig as well.

The Tormek does take longer to reshape a profile on a turning tool, but then again, this is an operation that should only be done once. If you are constantly reshaping the profile of your gouge, you should probably buy another gouge. In any case, the times I've reshaped a gouge profile, it took about 15 minutes, as opposed to about 3 minutes on a grinder. A 12 minute difference for a one time operation I can live with.

The benefits of the Tormek as I see them are:

1. Don't have to worry about grinder wheel/metal dust floating around in my shop.
2. Don't have to worry about stray sparks and the potential for a fire.
3. I feel that I have a lot more control over the edge and how much I am grinding with a Tormek than with a grinder.
4. Turning tools last longer with a Tormek, since the jigs help minimize the amount of metal you remove during sharpening.
5. The edge seems to last longer than the one that you get with a grinder.

Of course, cost is an issue. I got lucky because my brother gave me a gift certificate so that the difference in price wasn't really an issue for me.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hilel I bought the Tormek and got it with the turning kit along with the hand tool kit. So far I haven't been sorry and after doing the LOML's scissors plus her kitchen knives she is happy.

I did several of my gouges on the unit and honed them both the bevel and the flute. I did notice a difference in the cutting and the tools seem to last longer. I did two bowls and never went to the grinder. These were dry bowls and still got nice curlies. I also noticed when I did a vertical shear cut (as Bill Grumbine calls it) I had the nicest angel hair curlies with a nice smooth surface. I will use my slow speed grinder if I want to change the profiles of my gouges then go to the Tormek. Truth be known I have used my grinder since I got the Tormek.

I also have to agree with Wilbur on 1 thru 5.