Two weeks to due a 5-10 minute job? I need to sign up for that Union Job!
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Two weeks to due a 5-10 minute job? I need to sign up for that Union Job!
A Planer? I'm the Planer, and this is what I use
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Originally Posted by steven c newman
Reminds me of one of my favorite Ted Lucas songs, "it's so easy when you know what you're doin". All I had were a set of chisels and a combo stone, much like the OP. When you don't know better you use stones that aren't flat, be them diamond, water, oil, etc. The more you use them the more damage you do. You know the story. So yes, it took a while. Hope you don't think I spent 80 hours on them.
Not to sound rude here, but you started it, I highly doubt you can flatten and polish the back of 8 chisels in 5-10 minutes without your wheel, and even with I highly doubt it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Putting that type of information out there to someone just getting started is just plain irresponsible and is nothing but an ego flex. Same goes for your little pant legs tidbit, not helpful to the OP. Your palm is just oiled leather, great stropping material, don’t do it. Get off your butt and grab the dang strop. Just my .02.
Last edited by chuck van dyck; 12-28-2021 at 8:25 PM.
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That would be 5-10 minutes (maybe) per chisel....and..you should see some of what comes home with me from Yard sale season....
BTW...Oldtimers used to use the palms of their hands for a quick hone, then right back to work...so much for the fabled "Hours of Drudgery"....
And, just because one can indeed put a mirror polish on a butter knife, doesn't mean it will cut warm butter any better..
A Planer? I'm the Planer, and this is what I use
Contributor
A powered wheel is faster but it also destroys faster. Until you have experience enough to have your own opinion I will suggest that flattening backs is best done. with 80 grit sandpaper stuck to a flat surface such as a jointer table.
Grinding chisels or plane irons on a slow-speed grinder with CBN wheels is the way to go, but be prepared to destroy multiple tools until you develop the necessary skills. That is what lead me to start off with a Worksharp 3000. I;ve since moved to using stones with a jig.
I would echo the advice to buy tools with already flat backs. Lee Valley's Veritas tools come flatter than we can do by hand.
[OP]
Member
Wow! Thank you all so much for the thoughts. I was just amazed at how long it was taking to flatten the back of a cheap chisel with a coarse diamond stone. Money is less of an issue for me, so I opted to go ahead and pick up a Tormek. My thing is that I don't have a lot of time to spend on sharpening, so I really do need something that will consistantly give excellent results and is easily repeatable without a lot of time. Yes, I know, if money's not a big issue, get quality chisels and take care of them. I most certainly will and maybe I'll just sharpen those by hand, since I have the gear now. I ordered a Lie-Nielsen jig, so that will make hand sharpening easier and more accurate. I will say though, that flattening the back on the Tormek T8 is actually pretty fast. Way faster than by hand, you just use the side of the wheel... probably takes about a minute whereas last night, I must have spent over an hour on a similar chisel on a coarse diamond stone to get the same results. So, I suppose it will likely be a combination of using the Tormek and hand sharpening with the diamond stones, once I get some nice chisels.
Oh another thing... Youtube can really lead a person astray (likely don't need to tell this group that!) but I saw a lot of videos where they were feeling the wet stone when switching to coarse and fine grit. Yeah, not a good idea. It tore the pads of my fingers up. Just tought i'd pass that on.
I will also say the diamond wheels for the Tormek look amazing. Yes, I have found that grinding a new primary bevel on a chisel on a Tormek with the standard stone does take quite a while... probably 30 min or more for a 1" chisel. I figure this is a one time investment, then instead of doing secondary bevels on these tools, I'll sharpen with the same angle and just keep them with a single bevel.
This stuff is awesome, I'm really enjoying learning woodworking. Thank you all for your input.
Jake
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Jacob asking about sharpening with your first post is a lot like waking into a bar full of bikers and asking who’s got the best Harley.
Threads like this start fights that go for months
Aj
[OP]
Member
I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. Regardless, I thank anyone for constructive input in my journey. We all start somewhere.
Contributor
Howdy Jacob and welcome to the Creek.
The Tormek receives praise from many owners. My choice was made from a Fine Woodworking article some 30 years ago or more. It gave high marks to the Veritas MkII Power Sharpening System <(click on that)
A hollow grind does make it easier to sharpen by hand.
In my case almost all of my tool purchases have been vintage tools needing restorations. The set up has been used for non-sharpening tasks of working on metal and even wood. It has sharpened garden tools.
The Veritas MkII is easier to set up for a secondary bevel than for a single bevel. It isn't difficult to set it up to produce a single flat bevel.
My other hand powered system is a 4' by ~6" hunk of granite with 300 grit PSA abrasive material from a 4" roll. This can actually get a chisel warm while working the back.
If you do not have more than a few tools life will be easy. For me there is always something to tinker with among my various tools and other items that get treated to a little abrasive work.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
[OP]
Member
The Veritas does look like a nice system for a good price. Looks like if I want a flat bevel with the Tormek, I'll need to get a diamond wheel.
We'll see how it goes with the hollow grind method. I don't see any disadvantages to hollow grinds yet, except, I will say, getting the jig
to grind square has been a trick. I'm finding that I am having to fine tune the angle and check several times until I see that I'm grinding
evenly across the chisel. Perhaps this is something that just takes experience. I just learned from a video on the Tormek website that there
are two lines that when aligned is supposed to be square. I'll try that tomorrow to see if it really is. The tolerances on the Tormek seem to
be pretty good, but not machining level tolerances by any means. I'm posting a few photos of my best grinds of the day. I'm pretty
happy with them but I'm open to any constructive criticism.
PXL_20211229_062158156.jpgPXL_20211229_062123361.jpg
Here are google photos links to the images
https://photos.app.goo.gl/GDHLbk2xTFGqBDUr7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/rayrmftkGvLTeom77
Not sure why, but I don't see the photos inline.
Jacob
Last edited by Jacob Chavez; 12-29-2021 at 1:37 AM. Reason: added google photo links
Contributor
The backs look decent except for the pits in the second one. The bevels are pretty coarse, resulting in the minor serrations at the edge visible in the first photo. Are you using the stone grader and buffing wheel?
The finer the scratches in the edge, the better and longer it will cut. When you can pare soft pine endgrain clean with no crumbling or linear tracks in the surface you will be on the right track.
[OP]
Member
Kevin,
Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, I am using the grader, but I didn't spend a lot of time at the finer grit. Sounds like I need to do that to get rid of the serrations then a bit more time on the leather wheel. I am not so confident on the leather wheel as I don't want to goof up the nice edge that I just ground. I'm thinking I will try using the tool holder at the leather wheel until I feel more confident. Then I will take the training wheels off of my Harley
Contributor
The rough grading on the standard Tormek wheel I think is something like 220# for rough grinding and the grader is supposed to modify that to about 1,000#. You can use a marker on the edge to see when the rough ground surface has been removed. If the ground edge is presented to the buffing wheel at the proper angle it will take some effort to really screw it up - at worst you will wind up with a steeper cutting angle.Kevin,
Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, I am using the grader, but I didn't spend a lot of time at the finer grit. Sounds like I need to do that to get rid of the serrations then a bit more time on the leather wheel. I am not so confident on the leather wheel as I don't want to goof up the nice edge that I just ground. I'm thinking I will try using the tool holder at the leather wheel until I feel more confident. Then I will take the training wheels off of my Harley
1,000# to buffing is a big jump and the edge would probably last longer if a something like a 4,000# stone were used in between, but the Tormek system will give you a decent useable edge. My son uses it in his timber framing shop and is happy with it. At least you can't burn your edges as you can with a dry grinder, it gives consistent results and it is somewhat faster than bench stones. You do have to maintain the wheel.
The important thing is to get comfortable with whatever system you are using and get your edges sharp enough to satisfy you without spending a lot of time chasing the ultimate whatever. You can get a lot of mileage out of a sharp edge if you frequently take it back to the buffer. Just don't use the buffing wheel on your nice flat chisel backs as that will dub them over. A flat strop will do better there.
[OP]
Member
Another thing is that the stone grader doesn't seem to return the wheel back to a very coarse grit. Does anyone know what grit the wheel is after using the truing tool? I don't think the grader brings it back to 220 as it grinds much slower than it does after it's been trued. Maybe it's more like an 80 grit after truing, but the difference is significant. I am now hesitant to use the grader for this reason. The diamond stones are looking more and more appealing for their many benefits.
Contributor
Now you are on the endless road to the "perfect" system. Get out your checkbook.
My advice is to stick with the time-tested system you have for now. If the trued wheel cuts aggressively enough for rough work use it for that when needed, which should not be often once your blades are tuned up. Re-establishing a worn hollow grind can be done with the graded stone, whether coarse or fine. You have effectively several (slow-cutting) grit sizes in one wheel at the cost of relatively high wear. By the time the wheel needs replacement you will know whether you need (want) to drop several hundred dollars on a diamond wheel.
[OP]
Member
Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, I am a perfectionist, but really, how I think of it is effectiveness. I know perfection is an illusion. I think the point of struggle that I'm grappling with is that I would like to use the Tormek only to do 90% of my sharpening (utility sharpening where I don't need to cut hardwood end grain like butter. I'd just grind the bevel at 25 degrees each time (coarse, fine, strop move one) but this constant regrading of the stone is an extra step, honestly it doesn't seem to work very well and also slightly gouges up the stone which is not a good thing.
I think I'll likely end up doing the primary bevel grinding with the Tormek, leaving my stone at coarse (or extra coarse - freshly graded) Using the side of the stone to do the majority of the back, then doing the rest on by hand with a Lie Nielsen guide. Seems like this would be the quickest way to get a razor sharp durable edge that is repeatable.
I'm just a little "erked" by the fact that they market the stone to be "gradable" and you can make it fine, but I don't see that you're really able to regrade it very effectively back and forth from fine to coarse, fine to coarse. Even if I'm not doing anything "wrong" and this is in fact a problem with the Tormek, original stone, I don't for one second regret purchasing it because I know I'll use it to sharpen all kinds of things and I'll very likely upgrade to some diamond wheels in the future. I'll probably buy all 3 by when it's all said and done along with the MB-100. I'd probably start with the 600 grit then add the coarse and extra fine later if it either doesn't grind quickly enough to reestablish a primary bevel or get the fine stone to take the sharpness to the mirror polish state quickly. I'm very interested in Rob Cosman's process with the Shapton stones. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qYIdvG455g
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