Tormek guilt and doubt

[Dan Karachio]

After struggling with stones, worksharp, granite slabs, glass plates, sticky sand paper, leather, angle jigs and a grinder (with more jigs), I made a somewhat impulsive move and ordered a Tormek T-7 with the hand tool kit. My rationale - I have spent the price of a Tormek to date and and am not happy or getting the results I want. I know, I know I could devote more time and training to this, but I just want sharp tools. I have tried hard, I get okay results, but I want much better results with less time (I have limited shop time as it is).

It will probably be here Wednesday and I find myself thinking, "What in God's name did you do? For that much money you could buy almost every Lie Nielsen bench and mortise chisel there is!" or "If you put it in Apple stock it would be worth $20,000 in 2025!" and so on.

Those of you with a Tormek and like it, did you experience similar guilt and remorse? If so, did it disappear the moment your freshly sharpened bench chisels took (with great ease) gossamer shavings from purple heart end grain?

[Gary Curtis]

Until a person learns it, sharpening is hard. My machinist dad taught me how in the '50s, but I couldn't even manage to hone a Buck 5" knife when I reached adulthood.

Without mentioning names or brands, I was told by perhaps the leading maker of plane irons in North America that whatever sharpening method you learn, stick with it. Stop looking at your neighbor's newer and better gadget.

If you got the Tormek, learn to use it. I've got a competing machine, and as slick as it is, I can't really sharpen kitchen knives easily. Let alone an axe. I believe a Tormek will do both. So, boo-hoo.

I lived and worked in Japan as a foreign correspondent for years. I was assigned once to visit a swordmaker who was designated as a Living National Treasure. Over a weekend staying at his farmhouse, he told me it took him 3 months to sharpen new sword.

Westerners don't have that level of patience. So turn on your machine, sharpen away and consider yourself lucky.

Gary Curtis

[Carl Carew]

Get over that guilt!!! life is too short, if that is what you wanted enjoy it when it comes. I have had one for about 3 years, don't expect to get instant super sharp tools, there is a learning curve. Read the manual and you will soon have some very sharp tools. I use 3 methods for sharpening, water stones, plate glass with wet dry automotive sanding sheets from 220 grit to 1500 and my Tormek. I like the Tormek for chisels and lathe tools and adz, do my plane irons on the glass block and my carving knives on the stones.
Enjoy

Carl

[Sean Hughto]

The tormek is a nice tool. It is a tool for sharpening other tools, but think of it as though you bought a decent table saw or bandsaw or drill press. It does a great job of sharpening, will get plenty of use, will last a loooong time, and will make your woodworking better (sharp tools do better work and are a joy to use - a hppy woodworker does more and better work - it's a feedback loop). Don't feel remorse. Feel delight and get ready to make some great stuff.

[John Coloccia]

I use my Tormek to establish bevels, and then do final honing on a stone and a strop. With a hollow grind from the Tormek, even a monkey like me could sharpen freehand if I want to, and a stupid monkey could do it with a honing guide. I'll be perfectly honest that I was never happy with the final edge from the Tormek, and I found the grading stone to be inconvenient to use, hence the honing on a regular stone, but I think you'll find it's much easier than other methods and you'll be happy.

[george wilson]

The very first thing I ever taught my new apprentices to do was to sharpen tools. It immediately opened the door to them to start doing better work. I was known for sharpening in Williamsburg,and was asked to come to some other shops to teach sharpening to them also.

The old Dutch cabinet maker,Jan Heuvel,who was there when I first arrived,had one technique only: He had an irregular shaped Belgian stone. Woodcraft Supply used to sell them in the 60's(and before,I guess). He used to SPIT on it,and sharpen his Swedish chisel,and that was it!

The guy who became the Master Bookbinder told me that he started out as an interpreter in the cabinet shop. He called the back saw a BICK SAW for months,until he found out from someone who did not have a heavy Dutch accent that it was a BACK saw.

[Dan Karachio]

Thanks everyone. I was being a little tongue and cheek about the guilt, because it is such a hit on the wallet. I realize I will need to work with this and it won't give me perfection out of the box. I also like the idea of know sparks and metal shavings flying around.

[Gary Hodgin]

Yes, I did experience significant guilt when I got my SuperGrind 2000 a long with a whole bunch of accessories a few years ago. Not as much as with a boat I purchased. I've eventually sold the boat but kept the tormek.

It's a nice machine, but I still hone my chisels and plane irons on waterstones. I grind them when needed on the tormek. It also good for sharpening kitchen knives, scissors, and turning tools. I'm not a big lathe user but I have the jigs if I ever need to sharpen a turning tool. BTW, there is a bit of a learning curve with some of the jigs. It's slow, but I don't blue my tools and I'm just having fun anyway.

I am also a register member of the the tormek users group on yahoo. There's some experienced users in the group that can help if you have questions, as I'm sure there are on this forum.

[Brian Yates]

I've had a Tormek for eight years or so and I use it for all of my sharpening, bench chisels, plane irons, carving chisels, turning tools,... I do sometimes use a very fine stone for final honing, but if you use the leather strop wheel and honing compound you'll be shaving hairs off the back of your hand in no time.

The Tormek advanced my woodworking by leaps and bounds, but even after using it for years I found there was still room for me to improve. The epiphany that I had was when I got a new plane from Lee Valley with a honed and polished blade that was "really" sharp and able to leave a glass like surface on Maple I saw that even though my blade were "sharp" there was room for improvement. I read somewhere that it's hard to learn to sharpen until you see and feel what a truly sharp edge feels like. Keep working at it and you'll get to a point where you can take shavings from the end grain of pine, if you do that you've got yourself a sharp edge there! Enjoy it!

Also check out their forum, most any problem or question you'll have has probably been addressed at some point.http://www.tormek.com/forum/

[David Keller NC]

I have and use a Tormek (the older model - they added a graduated adjustment to the support bar a couple of years back that I don't have).

A Tormek can be used to hone and put the final edge on carving tools (and I use it for this purpose). However, in my opinion it is not capable of putting the final edge on a plane or bench chisel blade. The reason is that the leather wheel strop tends to round the edge slightly unless used very, very carefully and with a high degree of skill.

Rounding the bevel slightly on a carving tool is actually desirable, but generally not on a bench chisel or plane blade. For that reason, I use the grinding wheel to hollow-grind these tools, and then go directly to an 8000 grit waterstone to put the final edge on.

While in some sense you might be dissappointed that your new $700 tool won't give you the final edge, hollow-grinding with the Tormek followed by 5 strokes on an 8000 grit waterstone will be a revelation - it's far, far faster than a totally manual method on flat abrasive surfaces (i.e., sharpening a straight bevel rather than hollow-grinding).

Ultimately, an even faster method is with a dry grinder and a final polishing stone, and that's the method that I've been slowly moving toward. However, it does take skill to use a dry grinder and avoid bluing the edges on tools, and in this realm the Tormek excels - it's not possible to de-temper a tool on one.

P.S. - Buy the "stone truing tool". This is a bit of a misnomer - while it can be used to true the stone wheel, I most often use it to re-establish the stone's surface. The stone grading tool is supposed to be useful for this, but I"ve never found it to do a good job at re-establishing a coarse (and therefore fast) surface.

[Dan Karachio]

Yea, I did expect to also use my water stone to hone chisels and plane irons freehand - saw Tommy Mac do just this on a video podcast the other day. He was swearing by it as do some of you, so that has to be solide advice. Thanks!

[Russell Sansom]

I think you have a quorum on the answers. From what you've said about your sharpening history I'd guess you're going to be very, very happy with the large diameter wet grinder. I think it's wishful to think you can use an edge right off the grinder. I'll confess to having tried it, but there's no reason. As somebody said, 5 swipes on a 6000 or 8000 waterstone and you are ready to go.
After trying all those other methods, you're going to enjoy the 4-minute edge rehab. One more thing: The Tormek will lengthen the life of you tools by letting you take off the bare minimum metal for a rehab.

[Jim Koepke]

...

I was assigned once to visit a swordmaker who was designated as a Living National Treasure. Over a weekend staying at his farmhouse, he told me it took him 3 months to sharpen new sword.

Westerners don't have that level of patience. So turn on your machine, sharpen away and consider yourself lucky.

Gary Curtis

A person once told me that a samari sword was not sharp until a silk handkerchief could be dropped from 6 inches above the blade and be cleanly cut without drooping when it hit the blade.

That would take me more than 3 months to get anything that sharp.

jtk

[Doug Mason]

Whatever works for you!

I bought a Tormack when I first got into woodworking--not knowing any better--but I quickly grew annoyed with it. It simply took too long to set up and sharpen things with--and the gazillion accessories became burdensome. For me, the primary objective of sharpening is to be done with it ASAP.

So but for a couple months of use after its puchase the Tormack has sat in my shop collecting dust. I haven't used it in years. For me it's oilstones, a strop and a grinder. It takes a couple minutes to hone and strop and about 5 minutes to grind. Oh--I also use a belt sander for turning gouges, drawknifes, etc.

[Stephen Cherry]

Guilty- life is too short.

I don't have a tormek, but it's basically a really nice grinder, with a powered strop. Maybe if I continue to be good, Santa will bring me one.

I would recommend hollow grinding with the tormek, then a few passes on a very fine diamond stone, then spyderco ceramic stone, on the bevel and flat side. This will produce a hair raising edge in almost no time, with very little mess. The nice hollow grind will allow you to do the final sharpening hand held.