Setting up the Tormek T-4 is super simple. Jigs are available for knives, axes, turning tools, scissors, drill bits, and more. For those of us that aren’t quite there, Tormek offers a series of jigs (sold separately) to help us achieve precision. The Tormek T-4 offers pros the ability to use their decades-in-the-making honing technique but with the convenience of a motor-driven stone and leather wheels. Watching a bladesmith in action, their sharpening technique is as smooth a great violinist playing a Stradivarius – it’s an art form. The other reason that professionals stick to hand sharpening is for the amount of control they have over the blade. The T-4 runs cool enough that every blade I sharpened was still cool enough to touch without thinking about it. They know that heat build-up will damage the steel. It’s also one reason that professional bladesmiths tend to stick to hand sharpening. This eliminates the loss of hardness that comes along with high speed, high heat grinding. The Tormek T-4 uses water cooling and low RPM’s to keep the heat generation to a bare minimum. Chances are, it’s going to chip right out. When sharpening lawn mower blades, sometimes the heat gets so high that you can even see discoloration on the blade when it cools. In my work with Parker Street Ministries, an urban ministry, I deal with all kinds of cutting tools from knives to axes to lawn mower blades and almost anything in between. In using a high RPM grinder to sharpen blades, I notice that there is a lot of heat generation and sparks flying. Why Hand Sharpen Instead of Using a Grinder?
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