Tormec alternative.

[Andymaker]

Hi all, I'm looking to purchase a watercooled bench grinder. I've used tormec alot in other workshops but feel it would be a lot quicker with a lower grit wheel it cuts pretty slowly compared to a traditional (non cooled) grinder. I only grind the primary bevel so I don't really need a smooth finish.

I wonder if either a courser wheel is available for the tormec or if any of you guys know of an alternative watercooled grinder.

Thanks in advance

Andrew

 

[Rorschach]

I had a tormek but never used a coarse stone on it. Recently sld the Tormek and bought the Rutlands versions, the stock stone is pretty coarse though I don't use it, prefer a japanese stone I already had.

 

[heimlaga]

In my oppinion coarse natural sandstone from is superrior to everything else. Isn't there anyone in England quarrying and making grindstones anymore? You seem to have plenty of sandstone down there.

There are plenty of alternatives to Tormec. Kirunaslipen is a very reputable brand. Made in Sweden. Unfortunately they also tend to use rather fine grained stones
http://www.geoprodukter.se/Engelsk/Kiruna-Slipen.htm
Their bigger models are a lot better than their small models.
In general I favour a bigger stone because I find it easier to produce a good flat or slightly hollow bevel on a bigger stone. I always grind freehand.

My waterstone grinder is partly homemade. The gearbox comes from a 1960-ies Alimak waterstone grinder. The frame and water trough are home made from scrap yard materials. The motor is a 1950-ies or 60-ies Strömberg purchased secondhand. The stone has been hand cranked in the past. I bought it at a boot sale. Half a car tyre protects the stone when not in use.

Others build their grinders from horse drawn sickle bar mowers or from industrial washing machines.

 

[Andymaker]

Thanks guys, I'll take a look at Kirunaslipen see if I can find a course stone for those grinders. Nice home made grinder heimlaga! I may considerd making a treadle version from a singer sewing machine and an old crank stone wheel... if I can find one.

By the way, what is it you like about the sandstone wheels?

 

[heimlaga]

I haven't tested them all but my limited experience with synthetic wheels indicates that they develop a dull and sort of clogged outer skin much faster than my old sandstones.
Some new generation synthetic wheels are said to be a lot better but I haven't had the opportunity to test whether the rumour is true.

 

[custard]

Andrew, I put a Silicone Blackstone Wheel on a Tormek (at a cost of over £100) but didn't see much improvement with A2 steels and thick plane irons. A full grind was still a tedious twenty or thirty minute job.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

I use a Sorby Pro Edge. It is nearly as fast as a bench grinder and very easy to use. It is possible to overheat an edge but is, in my opinion, loads easier to use than a dry bench grinder and nearly as fast. I've never used a tormek so can't compare.
You can also buy fine belts sharpening for gouges and lathe tools. I have even read about people sharpening (rather than grinding) bench chisels and plane irons with the finer belts, I think it would be ok for plane irons but not bench chisels as it tends to dub the edges a bit.

 

[Andymaker]

Andrew, I put a Silicone Blackstone Wheel on a Tormek (at a cost of over £100) but didn't see much improvement with A2 steels and thick plane irons. A full grind was still a tedious twenty or thirty minute job.

Thanks for this I had wondered if these stones were worth upgrading to if a bought a tormec.

 

[Andymaker]

I sharpen my tools in the traditional way.first hollow grind the bulk of the material on the tormec or grinder and then sharpen just the very edge on stones free hand.
With the tormec it's easy to dial in the exact angle and produce a very square edge and because it's water cooled I don't need to worry about my tools overheating and loosing their temper. but the tormec is very slow, tormec seem to recommend grinding on the wheel and then stropping on the leather wheel but I've never found this to give a satisfactory edge. So all I need is a quick, course wheel. Tormec offer a diamond wheel trueing tool which can also be used to grade the stone to a courser gritty but this adds another step to the sharpening process, wares the expensive stones down quickly and dosent last very long before the stone become smooth again.

I could use a dry bench grinder. These can have really course wheels but they also carry with them thr fear of blueing edges. Also they aren't as easy to set up to an accurate angle.

The search continues...

 

[custard]

Over the years I've tried pretty much every grinding solution out there, for my money the best bet for most woodworkers is either a dedicated linisher (like the Sorby Pro Edge) or a decent wheel grinder with a well trued, fast cutting stone and a top quality after market tool rest. Nothing's perfect but these two get you closer to where you want to be.

The Tormek is a dead safe option in terms of bluing, and the jigs are pretty impressive too. But life's too short to grind a thick A2 plane iron on a Tormek (and believe me I've tried every way of speeding it up, from stone grading to Silicon Blackstone, but it's still S-L-O-W!), like Paddy I now use a Sorby Pro Edge and even though it does have some shortcomings (very short tools can be a bit of a faff, and at some angles the tool rest is a bit far from the belt) it's probably the best all round solution that I've found.

Incidentally, I suspect many people are overly concerned about bluing and that's probably the truth behind Tormek's success. I mark the bevel with a thick permanent ink marker, and I only grind down to a little under 1mm from the edge. That preserves the camber and shape of the cutting edge and pretty much removes any risk of bluing unless you're really ham fisted. Even when removing a nick, so grinding past the edge, go gently and if there's a trace of bluing then a single hone usually removes it. With a fresh belt on the Pro Edge I rarely get bluing even with nick removal, I guess that's why knife makers and cutlers use them so much, linishers reliably deliver that sweet spot between fast cutting and cooler temperatures.

Good luck!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Just seen Custard's has crossed in the post with mine, sorry for any repetition but I suspect we've been solving the same problem along parallel lines.

There is a modern solution to this with the Tormek but ironically not with Tormek parts. I have a long history in trying to make my Tormek grind HSS fast and I've spent a lot of money and time trying to solve this problem. It all started for me with HSS turning tools. gouges predominantly. When bought new they generally have a (not too useful) standard grind which most turners immediately transform by sweeping the wings back.

This operation has strong parallels to your situation in that the primary problem is the same, ie you need to move a lot of HSS and its dam hard unlike carbon steel. For the purposes of this discussion lets call that operation "shaping". The far more trivial operation is what I call "sharpening" which is when all you're doing is putting a fresh edge on a recently shaped bevel. I guess in your world that would be the hone you do manually on an existing hollow (shaped) grind. So shaping is BIG and removes lots of steel, sharpening is finessing and just removes a little. Sharpening is easy on almost any grinder in any mode, shaping is a right royal pain in the oojamaflip!

I struggled for a while with the original grey Tormek wheel shaping HSS gouges as well as flat bevel tools like skew chisels. it wasn't a pleasant experience! So, like Custard, I dutifully absorbed Tormek's marketing about how wonderful the SB stone is for grinding HSS and shelled out the plus £100 for the privilege only to discover that, like Custard, it makes no difference whatsoever! There has been much discussion on the Tormek forum about this but the bottom line is the SB appears to the vast majority of users to be a total waste of time and money.

Next step for me was to try and protect the investment already made in Tormek jigs et al so I bought the BGM100 which allows Tormek jigs to be used on a traditional dry bench grinder. That works after a fashion because you now have the precision angles available from the Tormek jigs against a fast, abrasive wheel. It has all the attendant problems of edge overheating and so you need to take all the appropriate measures to avoid that as you would on any bench grinder.

But I was never really satisfied with that as it just seemed a bit heath robinson to me. Then I saw the Pro edge at a show and immediately saw the value as a "middle ground" solution. It has the best of both worlds ie differing grit belts which allow fast steel removal (and it works) right through to sharpening with finer belts. It's detent system baked into the tool rest makes for fast setup time so now that's the one I use most often and certainly all the time for skew chisels (an absolute pig on the Tormek). But I still use the Tormek for gouges because the elliptical grinding arrangement is beautifully designed and a problem with the pro edge is fouling of the handles in some elliptical circumstances.

The solution I never got to try is to install Norton 3x 46 or 80 grit wheels directly on the Tormek and use them wet. That has been done as an experiment by the moderator of the Tormek forum to great effect although he did have to improvise some bushings to accommodate the different diameters of the wheel bore versus the Tormek spindle. The coarse grit Norton wheels remove HSS fast and the water cooling obviously prevents overheating. Why Tormek have never introduced that style of wheel into their catalogue I have no idea but I suspect they're in love with the idea of the "gradable" grey wheel that can exist as two grits. That functionality is core to their marketing and identity as a company it seems to me and they don't seem to want to let go of it, despite near universal criticism of their inability to remove steel fast during the shaping operation.

So Norton wheels are a step too far for me because I have already invested in different solutions. If I had my time again I might have gone that route, although I do like having multiple platforms as it reduces setup time.

 

[RobinBHM]

I once bought a tormek for use in a joinery shop, which wasnt wise. As all above say it cuts far too slowly and if the stone is left in the water trough it can go miles out of true.

I ended up buying an old viceroy sharpedge grinder, which has a 400mm horizontal wheel. It still cuts fairly slowly, taking maybe 5 minutes to regrind a chisel but it works very well. Its the size of a washing machine so a tad bigger than the tormek.

Ive not used them, but Ive heard woodturnefs have success with CBN grinding wheels.

The reviews on axminster seem positive
http://www.axminster.co.uk/woodcut-tru- ... s-ax933820

They seem to have the advantage of fast cutting yet dont overheat when used dry in a bench grinder.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

CBN wheels are rapidly gaining a reputation as "miracle" cures because by all accounts they also don't require truing. I've not yet used one myself but folks in my club rate them. They are expensive mind.

 

[heimlaga]

So who do everyone have soch problems with wet grinding.......... I know my old Gotland sandstones are good but they cannot be that much superrior to all the new sorts of stones.......... there is something wrong somewhere in those new machines or their use......

I have a home built linisher which I often use with 80 grit bands for rough grinding and for wide plane irons. However only the old waterstone wheel gives me a good edge on chisels and axes and knives.

 

[custard]

So who do everyone have soch problems with wet grinding.......... However only the old waterstone wheel gives me a good edge on chisels and axes and knives.

Apart from turners none of us are trying to get an edge straight off a grinder. We just want to remove metal quickly, safely, and in a controlled manner.

 

[No skills]

This thread has certainly put me off any wet grinder purchase in the future.

I believe any body wanting to grind a regular bench chisel should just develop a good technique with a standard dry grinder and save a butt load of money and use it to buy some nice timber for their next project

 

[Beau]

They appear to be totally out of fashion but I have an old horizontal waterstone grinder and have found it great. Not rapid but from what is said here much faster than the Tormek. Obviously not ideal for gauges and curved blades but for chisels, planes etc it's spot on and don't tell a certain member on here but it's great for flattening the back of blades haha. Not sure they are even available on these shores at present but mine is pretty much like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Makita-9820-2- ... B0000223JC

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

The problem with the Tormek removing steel fast is all to do with the grit of the wheel and nothing else. If you can get an 80 or less grit wheel on the thing they work really well for shaping. Also, in their defence, for turning tools you'll not find a better means of sharpening a gouge, both speed and quality of the edge. For knives also, top notch. And also for bench tools, just sharpening though, not a massive change in geometry that requires lots of shaping.

 

[heimlaga]

The problem with the Tormek removing steel fast is all to do with the grit of the wheel and nothing else. If you can get an 80 or less grit wheel on the thing they work really well for shaping. Also, in their defence, for turning tools you'll not find a better means of sharpening a gouge, both speed and quality of the edge. For knives also, top notch. And also for bench tools, just sharpening though, not a massive change in geometry that requires lots of shaping.

This makes a lot of sence. Moste of the modern stones have very fine grit while my old Gotland sandstones are rather coarse.
Hence I can grind fairly rapidly and hine and start working.

Somebody should restart one of the old guarries on Gotland and stat exporting proper grinding wheels!

 

[DennisCA]

Perhaps I should add a wet grinding wheel to my sorby style linisher after all... Cheap gotlands stones at Clas Ohlsons spare parts webstore after all.

Actually wait, I should not. No new projects until I complete the ones I got going.