Okay guys/gals, I have come into a windfall $500 and decided to “waste” it on tools. I have tried every sharpening method over the years and settled on hand sharpening with a diamond stone but have always said if I had extra money I would SPLURGE and buy a Tormek because everyone says they are such timesavers. In all the reviews/comments here, no one seems to criticize it except to say it is expensive but with this money , that may not be a problem.
Can any of you folk talk me out of it; particularly those who are dissatisfied Tormek owners?
Replies
Before you spend, you might want to check out the Lee Valley sharpener. I don't have either the LV or Tormek, but have seen nothing but glowing comments on the LV and occasionally some not-so-good comments on the Tormek. I've just been mentally logging these as I see them with thoughts of eventually getting something better than my Delta sharpener.
Waddaya mean it wont fit through the door?
Thanks Doug. I had read Mark's comments about the LV and concluded it was not what I wanted. I am a real LV fan, but the sharpener seems to have a little problem. Thanks for your comments.
Go ahead and buy the Tormek. It's an excellent tool. Unnecessary, but excellent.
There are 100 ways to sharpen your tools (actually maybe 10, but I'm exaggerating to make the point). Every individual seems to eventually find a way that makes him happy and then you can't understand why anyone would do anything else.
The simplest approach is an eclipse-style honing jig on sandpaper. It works and is inexpensive. Personally, I don't like fussing with a honing jig and would prefer to hone by hand, so I personally don't like this approach, but I'd guess this is the approach used by the vast majority of hobbyist woodworkers today.
The Lee Valley machine is not very good. As I've said in a few other threads, the problem is that the disk is spinning faster at the outside than at the inside, so you get uneven wear that creates a uneven edge and can't be replicated easily. I bought it, was really happy for a week, and then sent it back as I realized its drawbacks.
The Tormek has a 10" wheel and you can easily create a very shallow hollow grind on edge tools. From there, I personally hone by hand on waterstones. The hollow grind makes it real easy to find the bevel and hone by hand. But notice that I don't even use the leather wheel on the Tormek for honing. That's an example of how each person seems to find his own way to sharpen.
After trying a whole bunch of different approaches, I'm like Ed from Mississippi. This approach works for me and I'll never try another.
The idea, as often stated here, is to spend as little time as possible sharpening. With the Lee Valley machine I found it difficult or impossible to re-hone just the micro-bevel effectively, so I'd end up re-grinding the whole primary bevel. This is a ridiculous waste of time and tool steel. By contrast, once you've got the large, shallow hollow grind of the Tormek, when the blade gets dull you just spend a minute or two honing by hand on the waterstones and you're back to woodworking.
One warning: like any other tool, the Tormek requires a little bit of skill and practice. You don't just turn it on and automatically get great results. But the skill required is pretty low, and with the slow speed of the grinder and the water cooling you don't worry about burning the tool. The Tormek itself is very, very solidly-built and well-engineered, which makes it a pleasure to use if you like good tools.
Another reason someone might dislike the Tormek is that it's wet. Some people can't bear the thought of getting water on their steel tools. I can understand that, but because I'm using waterstones anyway it's not an issue for me.
Mark,
Every woodworker has a different opinion, I have experimented with most if not everyone's opinion.
The quickest most efficient way for me, is a wet grinder and a paper buffing wheel. For plane irons, I use a wet grinder and water stones, the wet grinder once in a blue moon. For major surgery, you need a grey wheel on a bench grinder.
A Tormek should satisfy most of the above, as it's essentially a wet grinder with some good jigs and a buffing wheel.
I had read your comments before about the LV and concluded it wasn't for me. Your observations were very helpful, thanks.
I am not a fanatic when it comes to sharpening. So I really like the Tormek.
It is also nice, because in addition to handling shop tools, you can also sharpen kitchen knives, scissors.
It is a very slick system.
"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
-- Bertrand Russell
Nikkiwood,
We have four of them at school, so I've had no reason (yet) to buy one of my own. Once my tools are properly shaped, I hone them using a combination of diamonds and ceramic stones; the Tormek is something I use on new tools, and tools that have been damaged and need to be reshaped.
I am inclined to buy one because I can quickly reshape bench chisels and plane irons with a minimal investment in their myriad attachments and accessories.
My questions for you are: What do you use your Tormek for, aside from bench chisels and plane irons? Which accesories did you buy? In retrospect, was the investment worthwhile? Did you buy any accessories that, in hindsight, you wish you hadn't?
Thanks,
-Jazzdogg-
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.
Edited 4/16/2005 12:13 pm ET by jazzdogg
I bought mine from a Woodcraft manager that I knew well. He had this complete set up that had been at a wwing show, and he said I could have the whole shebang for I think it was $300. This included every single accessory. So I have stuff that has never been used in the 8 or so years I have had the machine. Like the planer blade jig. I do use it for chisels and plane irons mostly, but I also use the knife sharpening jigs a lot. In fact I have become the go-to guy for kitchen knives among too many friends and relatives.I really have no business owning one of these machines, since I don't do a lot of hand work (I own way more routers than hand planes). But aside from a diamond hone, it is the only gismo I use to sharpen my hand tools.I have often thought the Tormek system seemed mainly useful to turners or carvers (neither of which I do); but from what I read here, these folks seem to use other systems, which are as good as, or perhaps better than a Tormek. In sum, I think the Tormek is suited for those (like me) who want a quick and easy (and idiot proof) way of getting a decent edge on hand tools -- but who are not very obsessive about it."I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
-- Bertrand Russell
I made the same decision to buy the Tormek a few months ago. I don't regret it.
First, it is well designed and well made. I think it will last my lifetime.
Second, while it is not the only way to sharpen tools, it is very versatile and accurate. What matters as much to me is that it dramatically decreases the time to get edges in working trim. I am dutiful about sharpening, but I don't really enjoy it. With the Tormek, I can have the three chisels that I plan to use on a project in trim in about 5 minutes. Speaking for myself, it removes a barrier to starting a project with sharp tools.
Third, I looked into a bunch of different options aside from the Tormek, and they all had pluses and minuses. Aside from complaints about the price, I have seen few negative comments about the Tormek. I figured I'd buy it, and use it for the next 30 years- I don't see any break through technologies for sharpening on the horizon.
Good luck with whatever you decide,
Glaucon
Thanks for the comments from you and Jim. I was interested in those that have purchased it and their experiences and so far everyone seems pleased. Thanks for all your comments.
I've had one for six years and appreciate its many capabilities, but find it most valuable when I need to square or regrind an edge on chisels. Most other uses can be done other ways as pointed out above. I would miss it if I had to let it go, but could do without if I had to. Be sure to make a list of the accessories and uses you'll want, because they can add up to big bucks fast and are overpriced, too. For an experienced woodworker, I believe the Tormek is totally optional. Even with the Tormek, I usually turn to water stones for final honing, and you still have to flatten the backs of tools some other way. Sounds like that $500 is burning a hole in your pocket (and I understand that), so go ahead and get it and tell your wife you're going to sharpen all the kitchen knives every weekend until there isn't any steel left on 'em!
P.S. I personally don't like the carborundum stone that comes with the machine for flattening the 10-inch water stone. A diamond dressing tool works much better.
"P.S. I personally don't like the carborundum stone that comes with the machine for flattening the 10-inch water stone. A diamond dressing tool works much better."
Jim, the stone they give you isn't for flattening the wheel. It's just for "re-grading" the wheel from rough to smooth and back to rough again. There's a separate diamond tool for flattening. Expensive (of course) but effective.
Well, you're right on about that, Mark. I guess I haven't used it enough to know the difference! However, it's intended use didn't make much impact on me either. That's why I bought a "T" shaped dressing tool (rather than the one sold as an accessory). As for the two-grades of grind the stone is supposed to create, do you find it useful?
"As for the two-grades of grind the stone is supposed to create, do you find it useful?"
No. It would be useful if I were using the Tormek the way it's supposed to be used, going from the rough stone grit to the finer stone grit to the leather wheel. But since I use waterstones for the honing, all I use the Tormet for is the rough stone grit. From there the 1,000 grit waterstone and the 8,000 grit waterstone finish the job. Maybe this will change when I start using the Tormek for turning tools.
However, I do use the stone grader. As you grind on the stone wheel, the wheel gets smoother and smoother and thus starts cutting slower and slower. The rough side of the stone grader re-roughens the stone.
Edited 4/15/2005 3:54 pm ET by MARKRODERICK
I don't use the Tormek for my turning tools. It's too slow and too difficult to set the angle and set the jigs. Instead I have a dedicated grinder next to my lathe with one of those (can't remember the trade name) jigs that holds the butt-end of the tools. Works great for me. I think the Tormek would be overkill.
I am probably well out of the mainstream on this but if your hobby is sharpening then by all means buy this sharpening device.
If your hobby is woodworking then use a honing guide, a piece of good sandpaper and the flat surface of your table saw or your jointer. It is much faster, does not grind away your blade and you will have more money to spend on good stuff and more time to do woodworking, if that is your hobby.
Hal
I agree with the principle but not the conclusion. The point about the Tormek is that it is both fast and easy, not requiring much skill to get great results. So, if you can afford it, the Tormek is a way to avoid making sharpening your hobby. Also, the Tormek doesn't remove any more metal than anything else. As I said above, once you've got the hollow grind it's extremely fast and easy to do the final honing with waterstones.
Mark, I appreciate your comments, they are helpful. What I didn't understand was why you hand hone rather than use the Tormek? Have you tried the Tormek and don't like its performance or do you just prefer to make that last stage "your own"? I am debating this purchase because I have generally perfected the hand sharpening/honing but felt this would really cut the time. I suppose your hand honing takes just a few minutes after sharpening on the wheel?
Sailex,
In response to your question to Markroderick, Mark and I have shared trying to finish wood with planes only (no sandpaper)and that requires a very sharp blade for the feathers cuts to fly. Personally, I consider anyting below 1000 grit to be sharpening and above that to be honing...I use the 4000 waterstone and strop with green rouge to achieve the edge I need. Some use the 8000 grit instead of the strop. Once you get to this sharpness maintaining the edge is easy if done relatively frequently. For preperatory planing and chisles probably the 1000 grit is enough...
BG, thanks for the reply, I think I understand. The Tormek sytem can't give you as fine a grit as 4-8000 for the degree of sharpeness you are looking for, that can only come from the waterstones.
The reason I hone by hand on the waterstones rather than use the Tormek leather wheel are (1) I think it's much faster, and (2) I think you get a much better edge.
In terms of the speed, it literally takes just a couple of minutes honing freehand on the waterstones after grinding, and because the hollow grind is so wide (a function of the 10" wheels) honing by hand is a piece of cake.
In terms of the edge quality, I think this was borne out by FWW study a couple years back.
I guess the icing on the cake is I like to practice honing by hand for the times I can't use the Tormek.
MARKRODERICK,
I need a way to super sharpen my wood turning gouges, in particular the curved or rounded ones like a bowl gouge.
It's easy to get the back side with the Tormex (about the only thing I use it for anymore) but then the inside is left to those rounded stones and none of them exactly match the curve or shape of any of the gouges I use.. Plus they are way corser than using 1000 grit sand paper with the scary sharp method..
I sharpen away with the Tormex and knock the worst of the curl off with a stone but then 5 minutes later I'm back sharpening again.
Sailalex,
If as you say you have generally perfected the hand sharpening/honing, then spend your money elsewhere. Personally I have no regrets buying the Tormek because I never enjoyed sharpening before and was not really good at it. Having the Tormek and a couple of 1200/4000 wet stones has changed all that and the nature of my work; I make more use of my handplanes than ever before. And it is very useful for our kitchen knives as well as those of my neighbours, which goes a long way to cementing relationships with those long-suffering folk.
If you do go for the Tormek, I suggest you skip the accessories and in particular the planer knife guide - better and quicker to take your blades to a pro.
Regards
Sean, I hate to say I have "perfected" anything but at least I have gotten better at it. The problem is , like you, I don't like to spend that much time sharpening although really good woodworkers would say that is part of the craft. I am going over to my local Woodcraft store today and examine the merchandize. I just hate paying that much money, even if it is a windfall. Thanks for your comments.
I own the complete Tormix system, I found that with planner blades and jointer blades that a pro could do it much better, my best results got me less than 1/2 of the boards planned as a pro could do.
Since I needed to go to a pro to sharpen my saw blades It didn't really take any longer to sharpen the jointer and planner blades as well.
Fine wood working had a wonderful article on all of the sharpening methods. If you look the Tormex blades all had a slight curl under a microscope. The best methods for my money seemed to be the scary sharp method while she felt that diamond grit on a maple board was superior..
Plenty of microscope pictures of every method and their results..
"If you look the Tormex blades all had a slight curl under a microscope."
That's undoubtedly because the tester used the "full Tormek method," meaning she started on the stone wheel and finished on the leather wheel, and the leather wheel probably curled the edge. Absent the leather wheel, the Tormek is just a high quality wet grinding wheel. If you go from the wet grinding wheel to waterstones or sandpaper or diamond past on ebu wood or whatever gets you off, it's no different than any other method.
Mark and all Tormek users-Enough about the chisels and plane irons. Tell us what we really want to know. How does the Tormek do on axes, it's primary intended use by Vikings?
By the time the axe is sharp Donald, the battle's lost, ha, ha.
We have a few Tormek thingies with their wobbly wheels kicking around the place. Never found a use for one yet, but that's just me.
Some of the students lovingly caress their plane irons and chisels on the darned things for an hour or two at a time.
I wouldn't buy one, but then I've got used to a (relatively low speed) high speed grinder with soft, airy, friable wheels and a few ceramic stones for final honing. Slainte.RJFurniture
Siggy, they're pretty pretty good for hollow grinds because the wheel is big but you have to pack a lunch if you're going to use one..., dinner too if you're doing several chisels.LeeMontanaFest
Lee, my point exactly. Far too slow for a busy production environment, and for a hurry-up sharpening fool like me. I'm a sharp'n'go man myself, ha, ha, a bit like the old hair shampoo advert which used a similar motto.
But the Tormek grinders are quite good in a sense because of their slowness, there's water sloshing about, and it's almost certainly impossible to overcook the steel-- no blueing, which is useful when you've got ham-fisted beginners around.
My learners can ruin their chisel and severely screw up the stone on the slow'ish high speed grinder in the workshop in just a couple of minutes.
I'd never buy a Tormek for my own use, but as I said before, that's just me, and others love them as witnessed by respondents in this thread. Slainte.RJFurniture
"My learners can ruin their chisel and severely screw up the stone on the slow'ish high speed grinder in the workshop in just a couple of minutes."Yup, a Tomek would turn that into a full week's project, Hah, hah, ha...LeeMontanaFest
Tell ya the truth, ya know that hypnotic resonant sound the thing makes? Well, I had a stack of kitchen knives to sharpen and pulled up a short stool to sit on while facing hours of slow Tormek grinding. The machine was doing its yonga yonga yonga yonga thing when I caught myself slowly drifting off the stool. Dam near fell asleep.
Well, as you might expect, it can handle axes (and hatchets) just fine. All my axes are honed and ready to go; and I live in Viking country ( but not the Viking country you had in mind)."I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
-- Bertrand Russell
I've waterstoned, sandpapered and finally Tormek'ed. Tormek is nearly fool-proof, quick and makes sharpening turning gouges much simpler (for me). I can understand that some may think tormek set-up time for turning gouges takes too long but, making a little jig for the length of the gouge out ahead of the tormek jig really makes the process quick and painless.
To me, it's a great system. I may never have the free-hand sharpening skills that I would have developed absent the Tormek but, with limited time to devote to the hobby, I'd just as soon work on other skills.
Personally, I would consider doing the final honing of flat blades (chisel, plane irons) on a flat leather strop. Also, as tools dull, you may want to simply hone a quick micro bevel on a fine stone a few times before breaking out the Tormek again.
The system ain't cheap and it isn't strictly necessary but I have no regret at all (which is more than I can say for a fair amount of other tool purchases).
Matt
Here are a few observations from a casual user of a coupla years:
1. New out of the box, you can't stop the stone or stropping wheels by hand or by levering a tool against them. After a few years in the shop, my shop anyway, the motor drive begins to slip. The Tormek demo guy at the most recent WW show here in Tacoma WA said to take the stropping wheel off (unscrews easily) and run some 80 grit sandpaper lightly over the driven drum that the motor shaft rubs against to improve the contact. Worked. Just to let you know.
2. The upgraded tool/jig rest has one threaded arm that fits in the machine. Probably aren't many of the older models still on the shelves but if you happen to get one without realizing the 'new and improved' change, don't bother ordering the upgrade. It may be a free option for new purchasers but you can use a standard die to thread one of rods yourself then simply use an ordinary nut + locknut to accomplish the same end.
3. I read somewhere that light machine oil was better for the stropping wheel than what's recommended in the user guide. NOT! The fact that it ~does~ not dry out results in the wheel failing to take on any glaze that does a decent job of honing. The Tormek demo-dude said to take the side of a chisel and "squeegie" the wheel to remove some of the oil. NOT! At least don't take the Godzilla approach I did which managed to almost peel the leather strip coating off the wheel. The splice isn't scarfed, it's just a butt joint. User error!
4. The new accessorie profile honing wheels are being sold as individual profiles instead of the one with a large and small radius for concave honing with the 'valley' in between. If you go for this accessory (which is great for turning gouges by the way) make sure your getting the newer style wheels. You have a better choice of profiles.
5. I have never managed to get a bench chisel or plane iron mounted in their respective jigs squarely without using a small square to do so. I say that because after sharpening a plane iron the first time after I got the Tormek, the edge just didn't look right. Put the square on the iron and it was out of square compared to either edge of the iron. Maybe I'm being too anal about this particular aspect of chisel and plane iron edge to side squareness?? Plane irons in particular - isn't it rather important that the edge be square to the sides?
I like my Tormek a lot. Don't know if I'd like it as much if all I had to sharpen were plane irons and chisels, but for profile turning tools it's great. I'm generally working with a single tool for any length of time on the lathe, like say a 3/8" bowl gouge. I'll set the tool rest on the grinder and the gouge jig for proper edge angle and all, then all I have to do is slip the gouge into the jig, set the projection length against a gauge block I have mounted next to the grinder and swish the gouge back and forth a few times. Takes little more time to do than it does to describe
From Beautiful Skagit Co. Wa.
Dennis
>I have never managed to get a bench chisel or plane iron mounted in their respective jigs squarely without using a small square to do so.<
I agree. I use a small engineer's square when setting up a chisel or plane iron. Not much of a fuss, but it'd be nice if they had designed it plumb and square.
Glaucon
Thanks for taking the time to fill me in on all the "ins and outs"; I will keep them in mind as I approach the purchase.
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