Tormek question

[Bill T Tucker]

Curiosity is a powerful motivator to investigate new stuff. So when the opportunity arose to quietly play with a Tormek....Whohoo! No dust, no fuss....possibilities. But many of my gouges are V groove and that seems to be a problem, namely it seems to be forming a bird's beak with repeated sharpenings. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?

 

[robo hippy]

That is a common problem, and I do touch on it in my video about platform sharpening. Mostly when you sharpen, if you are getting that scallop by the nose, it is from spending too much time with that part on the wheel. You need to roll pretty quickly through that bottom part of the gouge rather than keeping the same roll speed through that arc, if that makes any sense. With a SRG (spindle roughing gouge) you keep a smooth steady roll. With a V flute, slow on the nose, then a quick roll over to the wing.

It is at about the 30 minute mark. Doesn't make any difference if you use jigs, or free hand like I do.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZ6iR3bbEk&t=44s


robo hippy

 

[hockenbery]

What Reed said above.
A common mistake is hold the wing on the wheel.
This make the cutting edge scalloped.

To keep,the cutting edge convex you need to always be rolling the tool also tje cutting edge is ground with a convex profile.

The cutting edge can be flat. In cannot have any dips. A dip makes it prone to catching.

 

[Bill Boehme]

What Reed and Al both say. The only thing that any jig does is control the angle that the tool meets the grinder. This means that it is up to you to control the shape. For any setting on a bowl gouge jig you can grind the shape to have a very pointed nose with long wings or very rounded nose and short wings.

I've had a Tormek for about twenty years which is five or six years before turning ever crossed my mind. When I started turning I used a six inch bench grinder with very out of balance wheels and hated it. Besides that, I really didn't know how to sharpen tools. I don't recall what prompted me to use the Tormek, but that led me to using it for nearly all of my tool sharpening even though I now have a very good eight inch bench grinder. Using the Tormek gouge jig, I can produce profile that is very close to any grind that can be done with the Varigrind.