History
Storvik, Sweden 1972. Torgny Jansson, a mechanical design engineer and keen woodworker was frustrated because he could not get his tools sharp enough. The good old Swedish water cooled grindstone gave a fine and durable edge, but there was always a need for a kind person to crank the handle. Torgny came up with the idea to use an ordinary portable power drill to turn the grindstone.
An ordinary portable power drill was used to turn the grindstone, this model rapidly became very popular.
In 1981 the first self powered model was introduced.
Torgny Jansson, the founder of Tormek, with the latest model Tormek T-7.
The power drill could be attached to the grindstone in just a few seconds. A shaft in the chuck was supported by a cleverly designed holder which attached to the power drill. The high rpm of the power drill was reduced by a rubber drive wheel to suit the low rpm required for a grindstone. Thanks to the innovative solution, the shaft could not slip and the design proved to be very user friendly and reliable.
The machine rapidly became very popular and one year later, in 1973, he founded Tormek AB (short for Torgny’s Mekaniska) to manufacture and market the machine. In 1975, Tormek began exporting to other Scandinavian countries and in 1976 to Germany and several other European countries. In 1981, the first self powered model was introduced with the same reliable design as the original drill powered model.
The first version of the Universal Support was developed in 1984 and it came to be the heart of the Tormek system. It could be considered as a simple design, but like most good innovations the ingenuity lies in the simplicity. The Universal Support worked both as a tool rest in itself and as the basis for the developing range of Tormek jigs and attachments. Simultaneously, the jig for straight edges SVH-60 was redesigned to work with the new support.
At that time, all grinding machines had conventional, flat tool rests. Today, the Tormek design has been adopted by manufacturers of water cooled grinders around the world.
Tormek have worked continuously to make sharpening easy and efficient even for the inexperienced worker. The initial natural sandstone has been replaced by a vitrified aluminium oxide grindstone specially developed for water cooled grinding at low speed. Today the product range is the widest on the market and offers a complete sharpening system for all kinds of edge tools.