Tormek T-8 Original – Water Cooled Sharpening System for Edge Tools – US Version – English Handbook

I will add a photo in a bit. First of all water wheels are messy, but first I bought cookie sheets and bolted the unit so the working end was 1 inch higher than the base with a hole seal around a filter and small recirculating pump. The mounting bolts stainless. Then around the edge of the I put round rubber corner guard. The unit is mounted in series water wheel, Buck Knives blade grinder, water wheel. One wheel is 1,000 grit, the Buck 2,500, and the other wheel 4,000. I found the best solution is not to complain, but design and take advantage.Because they recirculate I seldom have to add water. My engineering bench has these a platform sander for handle making, an Arbor press, large drill press, a Worx table saw so I can shape or cut. Because I have had issues with a large enough press I welded corner bar to have two feet of brackets each 1 inch apart so I can put a plat in with the right size holes and clamp. Equally the drill press large but some handles larger it has a hole through the engineering bench with a mounted laxer angle and two mounted wood clamps going 180 degrees from each other so I can make a 4 inch handle normally or simply turn the top to do handles and the longest hole I have had to drill was 10 inches deep for an extremely large deep sea fishing knife. I did have to make the bench but it saves my 10 foot work bench made of bamboo from holes, and with 4 locking wheels the bench simply rolls out of way when done. Another cooling pan 2 inches deep has a cedar block and rubber pad glued on top I can take any whet stone up 15,000 grit and set it and it won’t budge. Another section took an 8 inch slow speed 2 HP grinder on one side a polisher. the other an exact angle stropper. Because polishers through a lot of resin it is surrounded by a 2 foot wall of sheet metal with the edges covered with the same round corner protector that comes with self adhesive. The total cost about 120.00 but I can sharpen over 200 knives in a couple of hours. From experience just plan around the tools. I have placed small stainless drain spouts in each of the areas prone to sawdust or resin and other junk, a shop vacuum fits right on the spouts with no adapter.

I'll say that I started with a Chef's Choice sharpener, that never worked and you couldn't vary the angle on it. Then I went to the belt style sharpener where it just ate through belts almost every time I sharpened just a couple of knives. So then I said, OK, you get what you pay for and just spent the money on the Tormek T8. For accessories, I purchased the rotating base, the cover, a Blackstone Silicon stone, and the blade sharpening jig kit. I'll have to say I'm very impressed. This system comes with a wire-bound book that tells you not only the theory of sharpening (advantages/disadvantages of the stone rotating towards or away from you, etc.) but also how to sharpen just about everything that has an edge. There is a tiny learning curve (as with everything) and I started on a knife and axe that I didn't care about if I scratched it, and I had no problems--everything came out perfect. With just 4 passes on each side I got my Buck knife so sharp that it would cut through the edge of a piece of paper just under its own weight. It comes with a marker to paint the bevel of a blade so that you can perfectly fine tune how the bevel contacts the stone. It also comes with a jig that allows you to set the angle of a blade if you want to achieve a certain result. The machine comes with everything you'll need to get started. Just using it on an axe and a hunting knife and I was confident enough to sharpen our expensive kitchen knives. The Tormek system is worth every penny. My plan is to get the Japanese Waterstone so that I can get a mirror edge on my expensive knives. Thanks for reading my review!

It is expensive, but it's a great tool. It does a remarkable job at sharpening kitchen knives--and they stay sharp. No more hiding the one good sharp knife (laboriously sharpened with a stone) that I need, and then my wife finds it and begins to use it and somehow dulls it. All the knives that I sharpened are still sharp! I have sharpened a few chisels, but no plane blades yet. Flattening the back of a chisel is easily done on the side of the wheel. I knew that I could change the apparent grit on the wheel from 220 to about 1000 by using the abrader block that comes with the tool, but I had not realized that I could use the honing wheel to polish the entire bevel to a fine finish. (Use the included angle setup tool on the smaller honing wheel to accomplish this step.) I think I prefer to use a fine water or diamond stone to remove the wire edge after the other sharpening steps are done. I have used the honing wheel for this purpose, as suggested by the manual, but it is a bit difficult to get the back of the chisel exactly tangential to the honing wheel at the contact point. I inadvertently put a small reverse bevel on the back of a few chisels before I realized my mistake. They would still shave, however.A diamond wheel truing tool is included. This permits the user to true the surface of the wheel to be exactly parallel to the bar that supports all the jigs that are used with the Tormek system.If you are willing to spend the money, it is a cleverly designed system which can sharpen a variety of tools.