Alternatives to the Tormek SJ Stone

[Rick Kr]

Greetings,

It is a bit chagrined that I ask, but what are some alternatives to achieving the same function as the Tormek SJ Japanese Waterstone wheel (4000 grit)?  Deburring and polishing after bevel setting and refinement using coarser grindstones are its primary functions.  I'm exploring and in fact have embarked on acquiring and trying paper wheels with diamond pastes, with information and assistance from Mr. KnifeGrinders.  Mr. Grepper suggested I post regarding my trevails and quest as there are many here with relevant expertise. 

Trevails:

At the conclusion of a short season of knife and scissors sharpening at farmers markets, I was loading up, with only the SJ wheel still on the table.  An open can of acetone was also on the table.  The table collapsed, sending both to the pavement, chipping (and cracking) the stone and soaking it in acetone.  Documented on the Tormek forum. After the acetone evaporated, the cracks have closed up quite a bit, but the stone is still toast. 

Potential Solutions:

It has been commented that there are some great and better methods than the SJ stone.  I have the diamond pastes as used by Mr. KnifeGrinders and am awaiting delivery of paper wheels to try them out.  Mr. Grepper said his choice would be a 4000 grit belt. 

The cost of replacing the SJ wheel is quite high ($401 + shipping) and equals or exceeds the alternative of a variable speed/modified Viel 1x40 belt sander as sold/recommended by Steve Bottorff.  I was seriously looking at this option and was about to pull the trigger when I realized I might be able to modify my existing 1x30" belt sander with the variable speed drive Steve refers to.  That stalled a few weeks ago.  It seems very much more attractive now and would provide quite a bit more capability and speed for this and other tasks.  

I would like to hear from others regarding their processes and any recommendations you may care to offer. 

Thanks,

Rick

[grepper]

Time to get a sturdier table!  I just hate it when that happens.

These are the finest grit belts that I know of.  They are very soft and flexible.  I have some for polishing.

http://micro-surface.com/index.php/produ...belts.html

For 1200 grit belts:

https://www.knifemaking.com/product-p/im42009.htm

There is also stuff like this around:

https://www.amazon.com/Inch-Knife-Sharpe...B06W55VZYF

[Ken S]

Rick,

Your sharpening business reminds me of the photographic side business I operated for years. I consistently overbought expensive equipment, thus preventing the business from being viable. In my case, I was using a Leica and a 4x5 view camera instead of a more practical standard 35mm. I was also using archival processing for ordinary work.

I do not see using the SJ 4000 grit Tormek as viable for farmers market sharpening. Your customers just want sharp knives for day to day cooking. And, they do not want to pay luxury prices. The SJ is a marvelous tool if you can attract very high end customers or for your own edification.

From a practical standpoint, I think you would be hard pressed to find a more cost efficient set up than Steve Bottorff's simple Tormek/paper wheels combo.

Ken

[Rick Kr]

Ken,

There are several ironies in all of this. 

1) I never wanted to have a business of any kind.
2) I never wanted to be doing sharpening at farmers markets.  I was doing it to help my daughter with her struggling market and my sense of it before their location change was that having knife sharpening wasn't attracting any new customers.  After their location change, their traffic was hugely increased but again, I don't think I was drawing anyone to the market that wasn't already there.  The one, repeat customer came only for the sharpening and returned to their restaurant and did not do any other market shopping.  
3) I never used the SJ stone at the market.  It was there as an option, so at the very least it should have been left in the milk crate on the ground. And I didn't really use it on things I brought home to sharpen.  
4) I really have not been using the SJ wheel much at all, even for my own sharpening.  I was already moving in the direction of paper wheels.  I did like it when I did use it, however.  
5) My real mistake was in not checking to be sure the little ring that locks the leg support hinge of the folding table was in place.  The table is a very cheap, plastic thing and I'd noticed the rings tended to lodge up the support arm and did not slide down to lock the joint.  That is what failed, causing the table to collapse.  My bad.

So much for my whining. 

I can appreciate your dilemma with the photography business.  If I were to try to run a business such as sharpening or photography (which I was into in the late 70s), I would likely have done it the same as you.  I have the habit of consistently overbuying expensive tools for my machining and woodworking hobbies, but I don't mind as I am not trying to make them a business (oh, there it is again   ).  (I changed wording from "problem" to "habit" as I don't regard it as a problem.)

I agree with your thoughts on the Tormek/paper wheel combination for efficiency.  My preferred combination at the markets was to use the SB stone and leather wheel honing.  I did use the SG wheel graded fine when I wanted to refine the bevel more.  While I had my diamond wheels there, I preferred not to use them and only did so when working on someone's higher end knives such as the Japanese knives (and they stayed in the milk carton, on the ground until and unless I needed to use them).  

I did learn quite a bit about knife sharpening as a result, particularly that the leather wheel really does work when used as Mr. KnifeGrinders has shown us about guided honing at a higher angle.  It also did lead to me learning how to free-hand hone as I developed enough of a feel from the guided honing.  I believe I would not have, at least for a long time, learned to use the leather wheel not having done it at the markets.  I also used the Norton 3X wheel you gave me for creating new bevels on really dull knives (and nearly all were), say rather than going to the coarse diamond wheel.  I still feel like that much coarser grindstone removes metal faster than the Tormek DC wheel.  I want one in 10" diameter! That is also why I am more interested in the belt grinder at this point.   

Whew.  Sorry for the verbosity.  I'm trying to give Ken a run for it .

Rick

[Mark Reich]

Belts are cheap and come in a hundred flavors, from 40 grit to 400,000 grit. It takes about 5 seconds to change gears, so you can effectively shape and/or sharpen practically anything to whatever degree on a 1x42.

Paper wheels are... extremely limited. Kinda like a 4k Tormek wheel IMHO.

[Ken S]

Rick and Mark,

Your two posts resonate for me. Mark, I know that your preference for the belt grinder is the result of long and focused experience, both hand and head knowledge. I am certain that, unlike many people, your preference is not the result of any lack of proficiency with other sharpening methods. I get suspicious when an "expert" espouses one method because he has not mastered the other.

Rick, the knowledge you have gained from your farmers market experience reminds me of what I have learned from my experimental work on the Tormek forum. Deep down, I'm just a guy who enjoys sharpening chisels. All the work I have done on jig setting knife bevels (the "kenjig", which I originally called the KS-150 or Knife Setting tool 150mm long and was asked by Tormek to change) started as a simple setting tool for chisels. I really switched into knives because I felt a forum need. 

Adapting the Norton 3X wheels to the Tormek was another forum need. Our forum turners needed a way to efficiently reshape turning tools. Along the way, I became very proficient with the Tormek truing tool. I did not start out wanting to learn this. I had to; my Tormek blackstone kept glazing. (This was probably due to me not using it correctly. Others have had good success with it, however, not as good results as using the 3X wheels. Incidentally, I use the 3X wheels wet, Tormek style, so there is no overheating or dust.)

Rick, your farmers market has proved a useful learning experience for both you and us from your sharing it. We all benefit from individual bessexers doing intense work and sharing it.

Mark, you mention quick changing of belts. One thing which has made my belt changing much more efficient was removing the yellow “safety” guard on my Kally. That is a direct result of the comments on bessex. As I recall, the opinions were unanimous, no one liked the guard!

I am grateful to you all for sharing your experiences.

Ken

[Luis_J]

Hello everyone.

Mi name is Luis, I'm from Mexico, and I'm a chef who has knives and sharpening as a hobby. I do my sharpening free hand with whetstones but I got curious on the Tormek system and just like Mr. Rick, I had a similar idea and I think that this is the right place to consult with you all.

I'm not sure about buying the Japanese stone for the tormek, I think that is too expensive for the use that I'm going to give to it, and mi alternative is the following, please let me know your thoughts on it.

Instead of buying the Japanese stone, I'm thinking on ordering a second leather honing wheel and to use it with a 1.0 or 1/2 micron compound to get an extra polishing degree.

That way my progression will be 1000 grit- leather honing wheel with 3.0 Micron compound - leather honing wheel with 1 or 1/2 micron compound.

¿Is that a good idea or a nonsense?. 

If any of you think that it may work and want to suggest me a good 1, or 1/2 micron paste, it will be nice too.

Thanks in advance and best regards from México.

Luis Jiménez.

[grepper]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't think you would need the Japanese stone. Just regular Tormek compound is 1-3 micron and gives a very nice polished edge. I've switched to doing all my sharpening with belts now, but I have a Tormek and the Tormek compound did a fine job.

That said, I hope this gives your question a bump because there are many folks here who know more about and have far more experience with compounds than I do. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

You being a Chef, I'm curious why you prefer polished edges over toothy edges. I'm no chef, but in my limited kitchen experience a toothy edge seems to perform better as it does not start to ride on the surface of things like tomatoes as quickly as a polished edge does.

[Ken S]

Bienvenido, Luis.

I am a Tormek sharpener, and more at home with chisels than knives. There are elements of using the Tormek which are generally not well understood by Tormek users and, frankly, not well explained by Tormek.

One element is grain size. I have found that the Tormek DC-250 (also the DWC-200) 360 grit diamond wheels cut more aggressively than the 220 grit SG wheels. The physical grain size may be smaller, however, I would guess the diamond grains are sharper.

I also tend to ignore the 220 and 1000 grit numbers assigned to the use of the stone grader with the SG wheel. I am not criticizing the stone grader; it is a core part of the Tormek sharpening method. I just think that Tormek chose to use the two numbers as a learning aid for users. I think in terms of just being more coarse and more fine. When I want my SG wheel to be coarse, I take a very light truing/dressing cut with the TR-50 truing tool. I have no idea what grit number is produced by using the stone grader coarse side. It does produce a coarser stone surface, just not as coarse as the truing tool.

Somewhere along the line, Tormek discovered that the stone grader can produce middle grits. (This has not been included in the handbook.) This is referred to as "600” grit. This surface is useful in sharpening knives and is produced by using the fine side of the stone grader only briefly. I think "mid grit" would be a more useful designation.

Out of curiosity, I tried using the fine side of the stone grader for a longer than recommended time. The stone surface was noticeably smoother. I am not certain whether the cutting grains are actually smoother or just less sharp, however, this does seem to lessen the grit gap between the SG and the leather honing wheel with compound.

I have not seen anything resembling a scientific test of the grit range of the Tormek PA-70 honing compound. Like some other compounds, the grit size breaks down (becomes finer) with use.How fine? I don't know. I have found that longer use time with the leather honing wheel and compound produces more polished edges and, with good technique, better BESS numbers.

I do not dispute the value of the 4000 grit SJ wheel for some specialized applications. I just don't think many of us are squeezing all the juice out of the standard SG wheel and leather honing wheel.

Ken

[Luis_J]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't think you would need the Japanese stone.  Just regular Tormek compound is 1-3 micron and gives a very nice polished edge.  I've switched to doing all my sharpening with belts now, but I have a Tormek and the Tormek compound did a fine job.

That said, I hope this gives your question a bump because there are many folks here who know more about and have far more experience with compounds than I do.  Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

You being a Chef, I'm curious why you prefer polished edges over toothy edges.  I'm no chef, but in my limited kitchen experience a toothy edge seems to perform better as it does not start to ride on the surface of things like tomatoes as quickly  as a polished edge does.

Grepper... Thank you very much for the warm welcome, and believe me, your response is on point. I'm going to start with the tormek just like it comes out of the box and once I've experienced it, I may or may not try to get finer results with different compounds, but for now I'll focus my effort on the machine use, the sharpening angle calculator software, the vernier and I'll work hard on understanding the principles of fine sharpening . I've spent a few hours reading this forum and it's way more advanced than I thought, but I'm enjoying it big time.

And about the toothy vs polished edges let me tell you that as a chef, I've discovered by experience that a polished edge lasts longer than a toothy one and you learn to enjoy the sensations of it. On the other side, a toothy edge gives you a lot of feedback, I think that it has a lot to do with personal preferences, a fellow cook in my kitchen doesn't like the edge on my knives at all and he sharpens in a very low quality-cheap stone that must be 300-400 grit and he says that my knives feel "slippery".
 
A few weeks ago, I had to do some prep work with a new forchner/victorinox chef knife and it felt nice too, the grity feeling of it while cutting veggies was nice, but as a personal preference, I enjoy more the clean and smooth feeling of an 8000 stone on the edge of my knives. 

I primarily use Japanese knives (Konosuke HD 24 Cm -A.K.A. a "lasser" -very very thin blade, HRC:61 that slices like a Star Wars light saber thru storm trooper flesh, a Masamoto HC 21 Cm HRC: 61-62 that handles very nice but is very very reactive and patina prone, and a Gesshin ginga 27 Cm. Stainless also HRC:61 wich is my absolute battle horse) all of them can take a great edge but I  have gone only as far as taking them to the 8000 grit stone and then to the leather strop with the dreaded green compound that looks like a piece of hand soap, I use that instead of an steel or a ceramic rod, and maybe once a week I "retouch" the edges on the 8000 stone.

I've read in other sites that when you go beyond 10,000 grit on kitchen knives, the cutting sensation is odd and that the knife doesn't feel very good, but I want to give it a try to understand how much of a polished edge is practical for cooking purposes.

On cooking standards, my knives feel very sharp, and that is the most important thing on a day to day basis, but  I really want to have a better understanding on the subject and to improve on the craft, I also want to be able to measure in a more objective way than just saying "My knifes are very sharp and polished to a 8000 grit and are sharpened 15 dps" I want to be able to really measure it. 
I know that as soon as I start using a sharp BESS and a microscope, I'll find a ton of flaws in my technique. Let's see how it goes, next Monday I'll order the Tormek, a cheap microscope, the 300mm vernier and the adventure will begin   , I'll keep you all posted.

Again, thanks for the welcome Grepper!