@chip4charlie I see you have a soft spot for Tormek's LOL. Just curious since you appear to be heavy into this subject. With a Tormek, is there any reason to have a belt sander specifically for sharpening? Maybe I should qualify - for knife sharpening? I can see larger shears etc. would benefit from belt. After many hours of Tormek internet grazing, I've seen some nice work done restoring completely worn/bad/damaged blade geometry up to surgery sharp. From my understanding the slow sped & water cool is supposed to be a big part of it, but my point is it doesn't seem to take a back seat to basic angle forming (with the right wheel).
3 - Tormek T7 Wet Sharpeners
1 - Tormek T8 Wet Sharpener
BTW, was this the same fellow you mentioned who recently passed away?
Not a soft spot, it's just that it's the best machine available, with a challenger only recently available (the Toycen Tradesman Edge sharpeners workstation).
However, a belt sander does a few things better than a Tormek:
1) straighten out a knife edge that has a dip ("swale") from overuse. The Viel S5 can be placed flat on a table and the knife edge then is placed on the (now horizontal) belt backing plate.
2)Re-bevelling the now-straightened edge. Official Tormek stones only go down to 220 grit - too slow for commercial sharpening. I usually use a 120 grit belt.
3) Grinding down the safety bolsters on German style knifes - Henckels, Wusthof, etc.
4) Garden pruners and loppers on the back of the S5, where there is no support for the belt
5) Garden shears and kitchen scissors with the Viel scissors jig. The Tormek scissors jig does NOT work well at all. (If you get a S5, get this and sharpen your spouse's scissors. This considerably increases the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of the S5...)
6) Straight lawnmower blades - because of large material removal, can use 40 and 80 grit belts.
The Tormek is great, but for most things it's too slow. The grinding wheel rotates at 110 rpm. I've mechanically sped up three of my machines to run at 154 rpm. I have 80 and 160 grit CBN stones from KnifeGrinders in Australia (yes, that's the fellow who recently passed away). But, still too slow.
IMHO, the two leading sharpening authorities are:
1) Knives: Vadim from KnifeGrinders dot com dot au. He figured out how to sharpen a kitchen knife to sharper than a double edge razor blade (BESS = 50), then generously shared his methodology and protocols. I highly recommend his book, "Knife Deburring - Science Behind the Lasting Razor Edge". It's $9 to download the PDF from his website:
http://knifegrinders.com.au/11Shop.htm
Or, you can order a printed copy from Amazon Canada for $25.37 (printed in Coburn, Ontario!) Vadim's research is now used by over 700 commercial sharpeners in 66 countries.
2) Jeff Toycen of Cuttermasters in Ottawa. For sharpening drill, end mill, and tool cutters Jeff's machines are unmatched. In the 1970's he landed a contract to sharpen 100,000 + bits for Boeing Canada. Not satisfied with what was then available, he designed his own machine and wheels. I'm now modifying a Tradesman T8 to work with Vadim's grinding software - essentially marrying the best with the best : )