Tormek Revolution

[Chems]

I've been learning the noble art of sharpening since last summer, and I managed to get decent results with a set of cheapo diamond stones and doing it free hand. Today I visited the Woodworking Center in Northampton (if your located anywhere at all within about a 25mile radius of Northampton its well worth the trip, first time I've really seen a proper woodworking shop in the flesh having always mail ordered) and I was looking for the cheaper Jet wet grinder, they didn't have any but they did have the Tormek T3 for £224 so after much thinking I decided to get one as its my Birthday next week so its a present from me to me.

Never have I been so impressed with a tool in all my tool buying years (about 1year now ) I read the manual and got to work. Initially I got no-square results when grinding with the wheel in the Horizontal mode, switched to vertical and against the flow and its was perfect. The angle guide is so easy to use and its all so easy to set up. I had a Record No4 off ebay and it took the chips out of the blade in no time at all. Polishing on the leather wheel has to be done freehand on this model and its easily done. Backs can be flattened on the side of the stone too with excellent results.

But the biggest revelation came to me when I sharpened my Record 60 1/2 Block plane to 22.5 degrees. I got for the first time ever end grain shavings! I have a pair of chest of draws which have dovetail draw supports, yesterday I planned and scraped and sanded one unit all flush, took me around an hour. Today it took me about 5mins with the planes all sharpened up.

And to stick to the rule, pics or it didn't happen, heres my ad-hoc sharpening station. Anyone thinking of getting one I would highly recommend, and with prices going up nows the time to get it.

 

[John. B]

Chems,
you will find a lot of differing opinions on this,
I have had a T. 2000 supergrind for several years and IMO it still is the best grinder I've ever used.
It does have some limitations, for example I prefer acute angles on my skews with a straight grind and the best way to get them is a linisher/grinder like the new Sorby,
and to reprofile any edge it's much quicker to use a high speed double ender, then take it to the tormek.
I frightened myself the other day when I priced my machine plus all the jigs I now have with todays prices and it came to over £600.00.
I'm not sure I'd be willing to go along that road nowadays.
I'm glad I've already got the jigs I need.

 

[Chems]

Yes for the turners the jigs will soon start to add up. But for me this is all I need at the moment. I may get a V-Tool polishing wheel in the future but thats all I can see. The speed to re-grind a chisel or plane iron is very small actually, about 2mins.