Harbor Freight Tormek Clone

I had a coupon in my pocket and they had one left in stock, for 67 bucks how bad could it be?

Turns out it's not bad at all. Sure, it's cheap and chintzy and you have to be careful with setup, but it cranked up and ran fine out of the box and can produce a decent edge fairly quickly. Not a superb edge mind you, but one that a few passes on a hard arkansas stone can finish up nicely.

The stone holds a lot of water--I put a small nalgene bottle full in the tray and the stone emptied it in about 30 seconds (note--I don't mean it splashed it out, I mean it soaked it up). The second bottle full filled it to the mark and the level pretty much stayed there.

Overheating the tool is _not_ an issue--the edge is completely immersed in water the whole time that sharpening is going on.

I put some pictures of of it in operation and of the results at

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Reply to
J. Clarke
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Great pictures John. I don't think I have ever been that up close and personal with a chisel before. :)

That looks like a pretty good unit for the price.

What camera, etc. did you use to take those pictures?

And, what I really want to know is, how did you grind that chisel and take those close up photos at the same time? And extra arm maybe? :)

Reply to
Lee Michaels

The Tormek is the same.

I'm 99% sure some of the Tormek attachments are patented. They also have some slick features. But I assume one can use Tormek's add-ons on the HF clone.

Reply to
Maxwell Lol

post them.

I have wondered about that machine, but never had nerve/dough/interest/ need all intersect at the the same time.

I have heard a lot of buzz about that sharpener, but no one really wants to own up much to proudly using a Harbor Freight item to do anything.

Like you, I am thinking "for $67, how bad could it be?" If it's not bad at all, sounds like a winner to me. Even the "cheap" Tormek is now $350 - $360 or so at Woodcraft these days. And I but don't but I do believe I had heard from a WC employee that the Tormek accessories do work this machine, as well as some of the Jet stuff from their slow speed sharpener.

Did it come with any polishing compound? And just as a note of interest, can you tell where the actual grinding wheel was made?

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

There's a pretty good discussion of this unit on this forum. You all might want to check it out - good reviews and a few tips on tuning it.

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Reply to
C & E

Good review, John..

It appears to have the honing wheel also, is that true? If so, how did it work?

Any idea how it would work for turning tools such as bowl gouges? I will probably get one just for skews, but it wood/would be nice to freshen the edge of bowl gouges on it if practical..

Thanks for taking the time & effort to review it and post some really good shots..

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

Harbor Freight is kind of like Radio Shack.

80 percent of their stuff is pure crap. 10 percent is decent, but needs some modifications to get it great. 10 percent is actually great quality.

One example of an item that falls in between those 10 percent categories, is their router fence.

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bought it for 40 bucks, just for giggles to try on my new table. I was looking for some decent L-angle and some slotted aluminum to build my own and ran across this thing by accident.

It's actually really nice and functions very well out of the box (after a little wax on the sliding stop rods).

Reply to
-MIKE-

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news7.newsguy.com:

So, if you need to make a few passes on your hard Arkansas stone anyway, why not get a good grinder with a fairly fine wheel to put a pretty good edge on your tools, then make the final passes on the Arkansas stone? You already stated that you need to be careful with the setup, so why not just be careful when grinding? The dry grinder will be so much more versatile because you can put on different stones, and won't cost any more than the Tormek clone.

Reply to
Scritch

I have a version of this:

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use it with the Wolverine Grinding Jigs and it does a great job.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Out of the box it wouldn't do so well for bowl gouges.

There's a lathe chisel jig

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and a curved chisel jig
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that don't come with it.

Also the Tormek Universal Gouge Jig and the Jet Gouge Jig will in principle work with it.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Because there's little danger of overheating the steel with a wet grinder?

Greg M

Reply to
Greg M

I took a look at this thing at my local H-F, a few hours ago. I suggest being very discerning if you decide to buy this thing. The display model was falling apart.... which is par for the course at H-F. :-) Just check out the box and all the parts and make sure it's all ok.

I've noticed at H-F, that there can be a significant in quality for the same item from box to box, part to part. The original poster surely did this or else he got a "good apple."

Reply to
-MIKE-

For $30 plus shipping, I think I'll make the jig..

mac

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Reply to
mac davis

I bought one of those HF wet grinders. Which Wolverine Grinding Jigs do you have and how do you position it to work with the wet grinding wheel?

Reply to
Ray

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the skew:
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was all in a prepack from Woodcraft.

You just screw it down to the bench that the grinder is on. In the case of that particular HF grinder with the slow-down worm gear, you would mount the grinder sideways so the wet wheel is perpendicular to the front of the bench.

Reply to
-MIKE-

A bit of serendipity here as I'm just about ready to junk my Sears router table in favor of a shop-built table. What's the fence made of? How substantial is the base and is the 90 degree angle true? TIA

Larry

Reply to
TD Driver

The L-angle part is 3/32" steel. The extension rods are solid steel. The t-tracks sections and stop block are aluminum. Mine is perfectly square, as checked with my engineering square. I added a couple mods. I added UHMW plastic fences to the front of the aluminum fences, because I like plastic ones and to move the fence back to accommodate big-ass bits. I also added a long piece of aluminum channel (scarfed from a 4ft, clamp) to the L-angle, so I could clamp it at the ends of my 36" wide table. If you're going to put t-track in your table to clamp the fence down, it will work fine with no mods.

So far, I'm very please with its quality and performance. I noticed that there is no view of the L-angle portion on the website. I'll see if I can take some pics of mine and post them.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Thanks, Mike. I'm off to the local HF to see if they have one in stock.

Reply to
TD Driver

Thank You. The pictures shows it being used on long lathe chisels. My question is since the wheel on this model sits higher than normal grinders do you have to elevate the jig in order to clear the water trough? Can you use this jig to sharpen short bench chisels? My grinder is packed away. I could be mistaken but I thought the direction of rotation was wrong for using the end of the grinder that is easily accessible?

Reply to
Ray

Then you won't see this until you get back. :-)

Check under the display shelves. My store didn't have them anywhere in sight. It was under the display for those horrible little tile saws and whatnot.

Either way, buy it and check it out. They have a very liberal return policy. Besides...if you do return it, the next guy who looks at it will be thankful that someone who's actually used a tool before, had put it together. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

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