Another New CBN Owner

[Mike Goetzke]

I'm not very a very experienced woodturner nor sharpener yet but all this talk about CBN wheel got me to bite on a pair.

I had a Tormek that I purchased locally a couple years back and added the Woodturners kit and the jig to use the Tormek tools on my old Craftsman grinder for shaping. Maybe it is mostly associated with lack of experience but seemed to take me forever to sharpen my bowl gouges on the Tormek. So I decided to sell my Tormek and after reading David Delo's and Reed Gray's posts I purchased the new Rikon 80-808 1hp slow speed grinder, the One-Way Wolverine, and a Robo-Rest.

In the end I couldn't be happier. I sharpened a 1/2" bowl gouge with fingernail grind on the 80 grit wheel (the other is 220) and in no time I had a razor sharp edge. Sharper that anything I produced on the Tormek. I had to throw a chunk of wood in the lathe and try it out and the results were shocking. Not only did it cut quicker with nice curlies but also left almost no tear-out compared to before.

Here is my setup:




David will notice I remover both halves of the wheel guard. Originally I was going to leave the inner one on but the Wolverine would have hit it. I recall David saying he needed 7/8" shim under the Wolvering clamps but I only need 1/2". The Robo-Rest aided in setting things up. I also ran into issues of the cast feet on the base being far from level. One was short by about 0.050" so I just shimmed it and checked for level using my digital angle gauge and my TS cast top.

Mike

[Robert Hayward]

That is a nice setup you have now. You will be glad you bought it for a long time.

I really like my 1hp Rikon grinder. It spins up fast with two CBN wheels on it.

[Roger Chandler]

Congrats, Mike! That is a real nice setup, and all of us who went this route before you really do understand your excitement....CBN, Wolverine on a slow speed grinder is the best turning tool sharpening setup out there in my opinion.

[Reed Gray]

I had to grind about 1/8 inch off of one foot to get mine to sit level, and have heard of at least one other who did the same thing. Other than that, a good grinder for the price. You may want to reconsider the wheel shroud for dust containment. The metal dust floats like wood dust. I had to grind out or redrill the holes on one side to be able to slide the rest all the way up to the proper position. The other side was almost perfect for just pushing the rest up till it hit the hood, for proper set up.

robo hippy

[Alan Heffernan]

Looks great, thanks for sharing.

What CBN wheels did you go with? Are they Woodturners Wonders?

[Mike Goetzke]

Looks great, thanks for sharing.

What CBN wheels did you go with? Are they Woodturners Wonders?

Thanks - yes, I bought the wheels from Ken at Woodturners Wonders. I suggest you purchase them by phone so you can talk to Ken and get the correct wheels and washers for your application.

Mike

[David Delo]

Looks good Mike. Glad to see it's working out for you.

[Marty Schlosser]

I'm surprised to hear that your Tormek was so slow and didn't do a good job for you, as I own one and am really happy with how well it performs. Perhaps it's technique, or perhaps you were expecting that you were needing to take off a lot of material to sharpen the tools - which is certaily something the Tormek isn't designed to do? I find that it takes about 10 seconds, at most, to touch up any of my lathe tools and get back to the lathe.

Either way, I'm glad you're happy with it and that it's working for you.

[John K Jordan]

I'm surprised to hear that your Tormek was so slow and didn't do a good job for you, as I own one and am really happy with how well it performs. Perhaps it's technique...

I've used my Tormek for maybe 15 years for almost all of my sharpening, even when the general opinion on the forums was it was an incredibly slow waste of time. Set up properly it gives a perfect edge in just a few seconds, as you mentioned, and removes very little metal in the process. Tools last a long time. I think some with problems didn't learn the secret of how to set it up. But it is in fact just about worthless for shaping a new tool, especially a wide skew chisel! I quickly added a Tormek bar to a standard grinder so I could use the same jigs and had the best of both worlds. Now with CBN on both my grinders and Tormek sharpening is easier and quicker than ever.

I'm still looking for a used Tormek if anyone has one they don't like.

JKJ

[Harold Wright]

A group of 12 members of Chattahoochie Woodturners made a package deal with Ken Rizza of Woodturning Wonders about a year ago. I got a 180 grit which I like very much. Tools are sharper than before. After some grinding I was able to replace the shroud successfully. Ken Rizza is a member of our group and a nice person.

[Gary Iseli]

I see that there are now 10" CBN wheels for the Tormek. I wonder how they cut when wet? Anyone have any experience in that arena?

Oops, I just found is a link that answers some of those questions......

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...heel-on-Tormek

[Dok Yager]

Nice setup Mike. Having gone CBN wheels myself this year I was Amazed at the difference form a wet grinder!

[David M Peters]

I'm another Tormek-turned-CBN sharpener. I really liked the edge the Tormek would give, it was quite sharp. However I got fed up with the wheel maintenance, glazing & flattening. I'm much happier with my 80/220 CBN setup, it's maintenance-free and delivers an edge that's totally adequate for woodturning finish cuts.