Tormek leather wheel vs Stones for sharpness
#11
I'm just starting to use the Tormek.  For those with more experience do you find the leather wheel can get your irons as sharp as a 8000 grit stone?
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#12
Two for the price of one ... sharp AND serrated
Smile

I do not recommend this. The Tormek is fine as a grinder. The leather wheel is for non-hand tool workers.

Regards from Perth

Derek
Articles on furniture building, shop made tools and tool reviews at www.inthewoodshop.com
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#13
I have used mine for sharpening hand and lathe tools for 5 years. It's worked great for me. I really like the lack of metal dust in the air.

It won't give you the edge a set of waterstones do but good enough for this wood butcher.
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#14
I have a Tormek and I use it mostly for knives anymore. I have switched to CBN wheels on a slow speed grinder, and I use the CBN wheels for sharpening lathe tools and reshaping chisels and plane irons. I recently ground a 20 degree bevel on both sides of a new chisel so that I could use then to cut dovetails. I am fortune because I hade to make the holding fixture and I did it at work after hours which most you cant do.

   

Then I reground the primary bevel to 15 degrees. Then I took the chisel to a 1000 grit stone, a 3000 grit stone, and a final few stokes on 8000 gritstone and honed a 30 degree. I used a veritas honing guide on the stones. If you want a micro bevel on the cutting edge than the primarily bevel must be smaller than the honed bevel. I am jut stating the obvious  for clarification. The 15 degree angle is so there will be less wedging effects when the chisel goes in the knife line.

Why am I writing all of this? Because if I did this to 4 chisels on a Tormek it would have taken days to regrind the angles. Even aluminum oxide wheels would have taken a long time.  The Tormek does a wonderful job of finishing a sharp edge on a lathe tool also but the wheel d tends to groove very easily too. Here is a picture of my grinder set up and you will see that I used mostly Tormek fixtures when sharpening. They make reshaping a flea market plane iron a breeze. 

   

I hand stone my micro bevels because it only take  5 or 6 strokes on each grit stone and if the cutting tool it gets a little dull,  I is just a touch up until the primary bevel needs to be redone.

I wrote all of this so I could say that the leather strap ( I use the Tormek leather wheel because I have it,  will take a 8000 grit sharp to a whole new dimension of sharp  in about 15 seconds.  

I hope I have helped someone.

Tom
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#15
Thanks for the advise. I guess I’ll go to the stones after tormek. Was enjoying the tormek and wondering if I could skip stones all together.
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#16
Try it by itself, it should be fine.

My edges aren't as good as Derek's but they are fine for what I do.
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#17
Yah I may do that on a couple chisels for comparison
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#18
You need to understand that it is not simply the edge you are able to achieve the first time, but the edge you get next, and after that. In other words, does the sharpening system made it easier to re-sharpen? What happens with a heavily buffed edge? How straight is it? What happens to the bevel or secondary bevel angle when it gets buffed a few times?

Regards from Perth

Derek
Articles on furniture building, shop made tools and tool reviews at www.inthewoodshop.com
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#19
I have a Tormek machine and it is a great system. One can dress the wheel course for faster stock removal or fine for smoother surface finishes by using what they call a stone grader. I used to grind the primary bevel at lower angle than 25 degrees and then dress the stone for fine and grind a 25-30 secondary or micro bevel which depends on the wood being cut. And then to the leather wheel, which takes the edge to a whole different level. I still do the primary angle at less than 25 degrees, just not on the Tormek. And to really use the tormek system to the fullest one needs the diamond dressing fixture to keep the wheel round and in line with the bar.

Now I use CBN wheels on a slow speed grinder to grind the primary angle on my cutting tools. They are 50  -100 percent faster at removing metal than the Tormek wheel and over 300 percent faster when grinding M2 high speed steels I do however love their holding fixtures and the tool bar. A jig holds  the work and guides the cutter like on a dovetail jig or a Kreg drill jig. On a fixture the cutter is stationary (Grinding wheel doesn't move) but the work is held and referenced to the cutter by the bar.

I use a 1000 grit stone, a 3000 grit stone and a 8000 grit stone and a Veritas honing guide to do my secondary bevels. I use the veritas guide because it is repeatable. If you do it free hand you are using what they refer to as kinesthesia which is using mussel memory. And that is training mussels to do repeated movements. And to some extent it is a use it or lose it proposition. If you train your mussels to cut dovetails and then take 4 months off you are going to have to retrain those mussels all over again. However it will not take as long as the first time. A Veritas guide allows repeatability even after 5 months. Where as one could screw up a cutting edge and have to start over by doing the primary angle all over again.

I do not have running water at my shop so all water is to preciouses for grinding and needs to be converted into coffee. I do bring extra water over if I am doing knives on the tormek. I my keep the stones in distilled water in Tuberware so they are ready to go and usually it takes more time to get things ready than it takes to stone the bevels. I move from each stone by looking at the swarf left on the stone. When it looks even and good a couple more strokes, inspect the edge and move to the next stone.  I just repeat the process until I am through the 8000 grit stone. Once the back of the cutter is lapped on the 8000 grit stone it never sees a lesser grit stone again.

Then it is off to the leather wheel.

Now to the fun part. if a cutting edge gets to dull to use, which can happen rather quickly in some wood, The leather wheel will not help much and it really needs to go through the three different grits of stones. And then back to the leather wheel. And with each sharpening the micro bevel will get wider and wider until there is mostly honed angle and it is taking longer and longer to sharpen, At which time the primary angle will need to be reshaped.

I am a semi professional and more and more just a hobbyist. My hours are getting less and less in the shop and I would rather cut wood than spend an hour grinding a primary angle on a 1 1/2 inch chisel. And I know for a lot of you any time in the shop is time when everything else it taken care of.

Again I hope I have helped.

Tom

PS: I only buy sand paper in the 10 yard rolls and it has a sticky back. I tare off a piece, stick it on my jointer table, flatten my stones, remove the sand paper wipe off the table and get on with my life.
PS2: This is somewhat of a reply to what Derek was saying. I guess I didn't make myself clear about stroping.
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#20
(05-30-2021, 10:18 AM)Juss1 Wrote: Thanks for the advise. I guess I’ll go to the stones after tormek. Was enjoying the tormek and wondering if I could skip stones all together.

If you are using the Tormek for every thing I would just stay with the Tormek, at least for now. If you are re-sharpening and have water and have more time than money I would still stay with the tormek. Stones do help to get the backs of chisels and plane irons flat so they are a good thing to have, and they will help complement the Tormek. If you have a lathe I would get CBN wheels in a heart beat.

Tom
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