Infinity carbide blades for my Dewalt planer need sharpening. Any recommendations?

[Justin Pfenning]

I have a set of the Infinity straight carbide tipped blade for my Dewalt DW735 13” planer. They need to be sent out for sharpening to bring them back to new. That are not chipped, only dull from milling lots of hard wood. Do you have a recommendation for a shop to sharpen these? I check the Infinity website, and did not see where they offer sharpening, so I’m looking for source. Thank you.

[Andrew Hughes]

I have a set of the Infinity straight carbide tipped blade for my Dewalt DW735 13” planer. They need to be sent out for sharpening to bring them back to new. That are not chipped, only dull from milling lots of hard wood. Do you have a recommendation for a shop to sharpen these? I check the Infinity website, and did not see where they offer sharpening, so I’m looking for source. Thank you.

This is a fixture I made and used for sharpening carbide tipped blades when I had a 735.
The angle is 45 cut into some leftover ikea counter top. The diamond hone is made by Smith and pretty cheap on Amazon.
I did send my blades out when I first needed a fresh edge and the shop ground the heck out of them and were not very straight. So the fixture was born. Use shims if your kerf is wide and doesn’t hold the blades tight.
Good Luck

[Brian Gumpper]

Some food for thought on sharpening those based on customer feedback selling our knives for that machine. When you remove too much of the width, the screw heads end up hitting the workpiece and denting the wood. Not sure at what point that happens but just something to be aware of being it will probably cost a few bucks to sharpen them. Also, I've seen sharpeners go hog wild on material removal so might want to just tell them to take it easy.

[Justin Pfenning]

Thanks for the reply’s. I have decided to send them to Forrest for sharpening. They have done nice work on my round blades, and I am hoping that carries over the the planer knives.

Brian, thanks for the tip on the screw heads hitting. I’ll keep an eye on that. These blades are way to expensive for one and done use.

[Andrew Hughes]

Don’t worry too much about the screws becoming part of the cutting circle. When that happen to me I just remove the long bar and used washers under the screws. That will lowers the screw heads a lot. I didn’t find any wood fiber getting under the knives.
I used my 735 as a fine finish planer lots of exotic woods including gaboon ebony. Once my stash of exotics was gone it was easy to sell the Planer for jointer restoration money.
I like Forrest blades I hope they do a good job.
Good Luck

[Jim Becker]

Justin, just keep in mind that you have limited ability for sharpening of the knives for a machine that holds them "captive" relative to knife height setting. I'll guess you'll be fine with one touch up, but taking off much metal will potentially get you to where you don't want to be. This is one of the risks with using expensive carbide on this kind of tool. That said, I'm sure that Forest will do a nice job getting a good edge back as they really understand carbide for sure.

[Warren Lake]

dont know that planer or how the knives work. We have to watch them and how much they take off, We have to watch them if they give us straight or not. IN the beginning getting knives done for my machines they were hollow ground and not flat ground. had knives come back one time out .015 on 14" knives, crazy so they went back.

[Justin Pfenning]

@Jim Becker
Great point Jim, my long range plan is to upgrade to a wider planer with an indexing insert head. Hopefully I won’t use up the life on these sets before that happens. In hindsight I should have invested in the insert head cutter for this planer instead of 2 sets of carbide straight blades. Live and learn.

[Andrew Hughes]

At one time I both a 735 and pm15 planer with bryd head. The 735 with carbide tipped knives left a beautiful surface Much better then the bryd head.
I think you made the right choice insert heads take more power to cut 735 were not designed for them.
I still have the pm 15. Honestly I miss the 735 best little finish planer money can buy.
Good Luck

[Myles Moran]

Justin, how much wood do you think you've run through the carbide blades? I have a set of infinity HSS ready to go on mine when I start the next project. I couldn't decide between the two, and at the time of purchase it seemed like there wasn't much online feedback yet.