Tormek vs. WS3000 vs. 1x30 belt sander

I guess I left out a 2x72, but that is also expensive.

I have an old tormek and a 1x30 (maybe 32"?) whatever it is belt sander.

They're completely different tools, with basically no overlap in capabilities.

The tormek system is nifty, but does get expensive, and it has some really bad design issues too- but it's probably the best wet stone system out there. It will sharpen most kitchen knives with some practice to a great edge. It's really good for wood chisels too. I've cut some HSS tooling it mine as well, but keep in mind this can get real expensive if you wear down their wheels trying to remove material. use the belt sander for that and finish the precision edges on the tormek.

The leather stropping wheel the key to the system if you ask me. You will need the diamond trueing device at some point, there's not way around it as the wheel is fairly soft. With the black grading stone you can sort of change the effective grit of the cutting wheel.

The clamps are just pure trash though. They get in the way, have goofy knobs and levers to clamp with. Something always seems wrong with the amounts of travel you have to set on all the adjustments too, but again, it's about as good as it gets.

A Drill Doctor is way harder to use than a tormek.

Wow! Pretty much dead on. Yes the 1x30 belt grinder is by far the most useful tool. I have a Harbor Freight 1x30 approaching end of life that I've been using in my shop for years and its done a tremendous amount of work. I have a Tormek wheel in the garage on the house, and I use it once in a great while to finish a knife, but I grew up using large oil stones, and I feel like I can get a working edge faster and more accurately on a big oil stone.

A nice long triple stone with built in oil bath filled with mineral oil is my reflexive tool of choice for knives, but I currently do not have one. (I do have some nice oil stones.) I can use the coarse stone for all but the most egregious ham hand damage, and put a near polished working edge on a knife with the fine stone. Growing up working in my parents grocery store I used to resharpen all the knives in our meat department once a week, with boning knives occasionally requiring a mid week touch up. I happened upon a Tormek at an estate sale a couple years ago with tons of attachments that I found were mostly just awkward to use at best.

Now I mostly use diamond bench stones with a cardboard and diamond paste lap in the shop, and when I sharpen kitchen knives for the house I'll sometimes correct misuse with the Tormek... free hand. I think the only attachment I use on it is the diamond dressing tool. LOL. I suppose for some other tools all those attachments might be ok, but there are better tools for chisels and plane irons, not the least of which is a heavy glass plate and some wet or dry sandpaper and of course my diamond bench stones.

Anyway, they are all very different tools, and my opinion and my experience may not lend itself to the operation of your hands to sharpen your tools. Ultimately people do use different methods for sharpening tools and get good results with the experience they have.

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I learned hand sharpening in Jr High from an old Swedish cabinet maker. It wasn't that difficult but we needed to be personally shown how and practice maintaining the proper hand positions, especially to sharpen a plane iron straight and square. To pass that lesson the edge had to be nearly light-tight against the blade of a try square. Years of amateur abuse of the oilstones didn't help, and he had no replacement budget.

See how little wood planes changed from the Roman era to the 1800's:

I know someone that has an old Tormek and it sort of destroyed itself. I had a look at it with a view to repairing it and wasn't impressed with the design considering the price asked for them. The shaft was just chrome plated steel and it had rusted and wore through the bushes which IIRC were moulded as part of the housing. It could have been repaired but he wasn't that bothered and bought a cheaper lookalike which does the job for him.

Can you fit a scotchbrite abrasive belt on your HF sanding machine? I found them too thick to fit on my machine (kalamazoo, or something bright yellow)- there just isn't enough clearance unless I modify to make a new table or rest for whatever you're sanding to rest on.

Unfortunately no. I just tried a surface conditioning belt on it a few days ago. Since mine is approaching end of life due to a hard life in my shop (its not after all a real commercial machine) I've been thinking of making my own more configurable version to replace it.

Unfortunately no. I just tried a surface conditioning belt on it a few days ago. Since mine is approaching end of life due to a hard life in my shop (its not after all a real commercial machine) I've been thinking of making my own more configurable version to replace it.

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The custom 3-wheel belt grinder the blacksmith/knifemaker owned didn't look too difficult to build and adjust, compared to getting a bandsaw blade to track on abused motorcycle tires. I rebuilt a small air sander, whose rollers had disintegrated, with rubber hose over a custom crowned drive roller. The crown is a two-sided taper rounded in the center with a file. The end roller is cylindrical.

I can't figure out why none of these machines can take those belts.

I played with a Burr-King 2" belt sander (I guess they prefer the term grinder) at the Fabtech show in Chicago last week.

It was able to grind away a some sort of mill or bastard file with no effort at all. It was up there with an aggressive angle grinder, but with no spark shower, no vibration and no noise. Real solid machine.

Specs were 8000SFPM and price is something like $1700, so proably not getting one of those anytime soon.

I noticed a changing of the guard of sorts for the smaller "family" run firms. The usual faces were not manning the booths, but a younger crowd was, some were the kids for sure. So it's good some of these specialty tool and manufacturing companies will continue to run.

Yeah its a pisser ain't it. To be fair, my HF 1x30 has been through hell and still runs. It needs to be replaced. It may just be that its condition is why it doesn't run them.