Tormek Diamond Wheel Review by Stephen Stokes

hello my name is Stephen Stokes welcome to Bodden Cross studio

I've been asked today to talk a little bit about my favorite tools and this is

possibly my most favorite which is the tormek and this is the tormek super

grind 2000 so one of the latest upgrades that's come from Tomek has been their

new diamond stones and I have one it's a bit of an investment but I think it's

going to be worthwhile so in order to get this new stone on we have to get the

old stone off

and we can get going so again having read the instructions it says very

clearly that it's going to work best if you use a bit of water but not too much

water it also includes in the set when you get the diamond stone this very

exciting look at here which is designed to mix the water non-corrosive always

used with diamond wheels so given that we trust tormek we're going to do as

we're told on this occasion so I followed the directions on the book on

the bottle and I've got an amount of water in here now whenever things it

says in the instructions as well is not to overfill so we'll just put enough in

here to get the wheel wet but not necessarily up to the line that says

maximum

the factory grind is that which for me is not quite as versatile as I need for

the beginners so I just need to change that and I know from teaching for a few

years that the 40 degrees works well for me so very excited to see what it's

going to be like on the diamond wheel so let's get ourselves set up so first of

all we need to check that we have the right distance from the wheel itself and

I know from my chart that I'm going to be using whole a on the turning tool

setter so here's a hole a and all we have to do is make sure that both those

wheels on the turning tool set are here and here and making contact with the

wheel and they are so we've got that distance absolutely right so the next

thing we're doing referring back to our chart is we know that we need to have 75

millimeters as a protrusion and again this marvelous jig has that already here

you can see there's the length there 75 millimeters so let's get that set up

okay so let's get started now getting to the shape that works for my students

so get the tool started we know we've got the water in the trough there and

you can see there's a nice film of the water now on the tool on the wheel

Wow that's really quick

that's really exciting can you see already the difference is making there

in that shape that feels to me much much quicker than the stone right let's just

see how long it's going to take us to finish off this shape

so here we are after 10 minutes on this lovely new diamond wheel and it's

incredible I mean I'm genuinely surprised at the speed with which it's

working the instructions again advised you not to apply too much pressure onto

the wheel when it's new and I haven't been certainly not as much as I would

have done on the stone and as you would be using with the stone remember that

you're wanting to spend more time on the edges and less time on the front of the

bevel there and always checked and stopped to see what progress you're

making because there's no point in taking off more metal than you need to

and I'd say that looks done yep that's looking really good well I

got a save that's ten minutes that we've been working with the diamond wheel with

this lovely tool from woodcut and that's quite extraordinary in terms of a result

I'm very very impressed it's got this beautiful bevel now rounding around the

whole work the whole way around the tool it looks exactly the shape that I need

for my students so I'm looking forward to trying this out on the lathe and I'm

going to resist the temptation of running my finger across the top to see

how sharp it is because we all know how that ends not well so we've got this

lovely tool now sharp comes straight off from the new tormek diamond wheel let's

find out how sharp it really is typically I'll be wearing obviously dust

protection on my mouth but if you're going to hear me speak today then

clearly that might interfere with the process but obviously wearing the safety

specs

well that's incredibly sharp I mean I'm very very impressed given that

that took just ten minutes to go from the factory grind from the tool into

what I would consider to be a usable shape for my students I'm

extraordinarily impressed and you know I I genuinely didn't believe that that a

significant step forward could be made with tormek but yep they've done it

again and and it really is as they say a game-changer