Blade sharpening

[Ted Walter]

Interested in sharpening my own carbide saw blades (5" - 12"). It takes a 65 mile trip now to get them sharpened; can't afford the gas or time any more. Can a guy buy a decent quality sharpener in the $200 - $500 range? I'm not interested in going into business so the commercial types are way out of range. Just a machine capable of small runs of blades. Please, some comments. Thankyou, Ted

[Eddie Darby]

Buy $500 worth of blades, and then make the trip worht it.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

As has been said, accumulate several and make shipping worthwhile. I don't know where you are but I'm in a pretty small town and there is no sharpening service here. But if I drop them off at the local lumberyard every so often a guy picks them up and then returns them sharpened later. Not the speediest service ever but I can't complain about the quality.

[George Summers]

I also live in the boonies and the service I use is 50 miles away. I mail the blade(s) and or knives (planer and jointer) to them and call with my CC number, they sharpen them and return by mail. Turnaround time is usually a week. Of course I have spare blades and knives so I am not without and when the new ones come back I put them away til the next shipment of the ones in use.

George

[Joe Chritz]

I have a folsey belsaw sharpener. The only diamond wheel I have will do a 40 tooth 10" blade but nothing finer.

Last time I priced a wheel to do an 80 tooth it was over $100 for the wheel.

It is actually cheaper to but an extra blade and ship it out. Most commercial sharpening places use higher tech equipment than what I have anyway.

They are out there but unless you are going to get into sharpening for other people they are a bit pricey.

Joe

[michael osadchuk]

...there are motorized waterstones like the Tormek (stone rotates vertically) and the Makita (stone moves horizontally) that can sharpen steel jointer and planer knives...... for the Makita, which I have, look up a detailed description at the Highland Hardware website....

....but carbide, I believe, needs to be sharpened with a diamond media; you can buy a small, handheld diamond hone for under $50 (from Grizzly, I suspect) that may be able to do "some" touch up work with the blade in situ, but I'm not aware of any non-industrial level sharpening machine for doing serious sharpening of carbide blades.......

good luck

michael

[Peter Quinn]

No, you can't buy anything to sharpen and balance modern carbide TS, shaper, or router bits for $500. Not even close. You would need ten to twenty times that much in tools and jigs, plus a fair amount of training. Three letters may help. UPS.

[Ted Walter]

Thanks to all for the replies; kinda blows my plan but saves me a lot of time on research. UPS isn't an option in this area for sending them off; guess I'll pile em up and make the trip worthwhile. tks, Ted

[Bruce Wrenn]

An $8.95 flat rate box from the post office will hold a lot of blades. Heck, you can even schedule for the mail man to bring you a box, and pick it up when you are ready. Locally here we have two excellent sharpening services, but it is a seventy mile round trip, times two. So I send my blades to Dynamic Saw (dynamicsaw.com) in Buffalo NY. ( They are only 850 miles away.) I have been well pleased with their work. About a two week turn around from shipping to return on blades. Be sure and buy a confirmation of delivery. Ridge Carbide, along with Forrest offer sharpening, but Forrest is rather proud of their work. Dynamic is about half of what Forrest charges. Both use the same sharpening machines.

[Howard Acheson]

If you have some of the newer 40 and 80 tooth blades, you need a CNC controlled sharpening machine to sharpen them to the tolerances required. You won't get one of those in your price range.

[Tom Walz]

Tim Cook has a picture on his web site of a fully automatic CNC Vollmer sharpening saw blades. http://www.cookssharpening.com/ I know West Coast Saws has the same machine and a similar one for router bits.

It is partly the machines and a partly the folks doing the sharpening. It is not unusual for a saw blade to work better than new from one of the pro level shops.

Scott Whiting used to be on here pretty regularly but haven’t heard from him in a while. He has an excellent reputation as a sharpener.

There are a lot of second hand Foley machines around. You could buy one and try it. For simple grinds it will work well.

CMT hones and similar are widely used. If you can hold it straight and flat you can do some good.

Tom

[Jack Vines]

Just a FWIW, I use the USPS quite often for packages. I learned the hard way their "Delivery Confirmation" service is not intended for tracking purposes. It does not track the package in transit. The carrier scans in the bar code only upon delivery. If a package goes astray prior to the actual delivery, the USPS can't/won't do anything about it. A Priority Mail Flat Rate Box can easily hold several thousand dollars worth of saw and planer blades. Make sure you buy insurance on it at the Post Office, where they will scan in receipt of the package going into their system.

thnx, jack vines

[Mike SoRelle]

While I agree Forrest is a little proud of their work price wise, I'm happy to pay the premium because they've always done me right.

And quite frankly when I'm paying north of 100 for a blade, I' just as soon let the people that made it, sharpen it.

And USPS Priority is definately the way to go, price point on it is likely well below your gas cost. Out of curiosity where on earth are you that UPS (or FedEx, or DHL) isn't an option?

Mike

[George Summers]

And USPS Priority is definately the way to go, price point on it is likely well below your gas cost. Out of curiosity where on earth are you that UPS (or FedEx, or DHL) isn't an option?

Mike

I can understand Ted's dilemma. Many small rural towns have the problem. Until about two years ago there was no place in town that a citizen could ship via UPS (or FedEx or DHL) unless you could use your employer's service. We now have a shipping outlet. The PO was always there.

George

[Mike SoRelle]

I can understand Ted's dilemma. Many small rural towns have the problem. Until about two years ago there was no place in town that a citizen could ship via UPS (or FedEx or DHL) unless you could use your employer's service. We now have a shipping outlet. The PO was always there.

George

Really? In Oxford? Up until November I lived in North Raleigh (and SW Durham)for the last 10 years or so and I never really considered Oxford 'out in the boonies' so to speak, I mean it was out of town to be sure, but not so far that I would have considered things like that.

Learn something everyday.

And yes, USPS is very unappreciated, it's the only service that will also deliver overnight packages sent on Saturday on a Sunday, any day of the year. Get one of the major shippers to do that at any cost, even saturday is a stretch for fedex, and it costs a pretty penny for that.

Mike