Equipment/TormekT7
Contents
Current Status
The T7 is currently being commissioned and owners/trainers being recruited. Please contact any of the current owners if you would like to help out. It should not be used without formal training.
Summary
The Tormek T7 is a water cooled sharpening system. It can be used to sharpen a variety of tools from chisels and plane irons to scissors and kitchen knives. It consists of a grindstone that rotates in a bath of water at a lower speed compared to a normal bench grinder. This has the benefit of preventing heat build up in the blade edge thereby avoiding any possibility of it losing its hardness. We have a full assortment of tool holding jigs so most tools and knives can be sharpened easily. The following links are to the manufacturers website for the products we have.
Equipment Class
TODO decide on equipment class. We want users to be trained before using the grinder but there is a small risk of injury in use.
Health and Safety
The grinder itself isn't particularly dangerous. It operates at low speed and tools are supported in jigs on a tool rest so there is minimal chance for injury. However, after some practice you will be creating razor sharp edges and care needs to be taken when handling tools and in the operation of the kit. Care should also be taken to avoid damage to the grindstone as these are an expensive replacement.
TODO: fill in the risk assesment.
Using the Tormek T7
Training
Training will be required for all users before they can use the equipment. There is minimal risk of injury but it is possible to damage the grindstone beyond repair and they are expensive to replace. Each user will also be expected to clean the machine after every use.
Requesting Training
Please post training requests on the Makespace mailing list here. Training will likely be run once a month unless there is sufficient pull for more.
Training Schedule
The training will cover the subjects listed below. If you have a chisel or plane iron that you want sharpened then feel free to bring it to the training. Anything with a flat blade and known bevel angle is useful; curved blades such as knives are less useful to training and can be covered in your own time.
- Basics of the T7
- Safety items and best working practice
- Truing the stone
- Sharpening theory
- Sharpening practice
- Clean up tasks
Self Help
Along with the equipment is a very good user manual and an instructional DVD covering general usage and all of the accessories. It is recommended that the manual is consulted before using any of the jigs for the first time.
Owners
Owners can be contacted via the Makespace Google mailing list.
Maintenance
The T7 doesn't require any major maintenance aside from keeping it clean and making sure the stone if flat for the next user. Training will cover the maintenance cycle to be followed on each use of the tool.
The following is a list of consumables that we probably want to keep in stock:
The following is a list of consumables that can be ordered on request:
