Thread: burr on sharpened buzzer knives

Personally I would send them back and politely ask them to do the job correctly, otherwise just finish them on an oil stone the same as you would a plane iron or a chisel

Originally Posted by China

Personally I would send them back and politely ask them to do the job correctly, otherwise just finish them on an oil stone the same as you would a plane iron or a chisel

Ditto... and tell them you will inform all and sundry of their sub standard service

From where I live I have access to probably 20 "sharpening" services. Experience has revealed that only 2 of that number have the first clue about sharpening sawblades, jointer blades, etc., the rest are just metal butchers. Sounds like you've just discovered another one !

Anything I ever receive back from sharpening is ready to go straight on the machine - don't see why you should have to put in extra work to bring the blades up to scratch.

I use my Tormek to sharpen HSS blades, but if your blades are tungsten carbide, the Tormek will bounce off them.

My experiences with sharpeners of tungsten carbide blades is so bad I stopped using them and returned to HSS which I can sharpen myself. On two occasions expensive tungsten carbide blades that needed only a touch up came back from their first sharpening with so much metal removed the blades would no longer engage the timber.

As Mr brush says, there are a lot of metal butchers out there.

Thanks for the replys. Yeah, I thought it was a bit poor coming back in a half-a-job state. So, as advised above I finished them off on an oil stone.
As for using the Tormeq I think I read somewhere that planer blades shouldn't get given a hollow grind? I think that 300 mm is too large for any of the jigs for a T3 anyway.

Thanks for the replys

I use my T3 for HSS planer blades ... always have ... this is the principal reason I bought a Tormek. It does a great job. The very slight hollow grind is fine. Never had a problem.

My blades are about 260mm long, but a 300mm knife fits into the jig so I can't imagine why you could not use the T3 for HSS planer blades.

That is interesting to know. Not sure where I got the idea that it couldn't. Does the jig ensure that the sharpened tip is in a dead straight line down the length of the knife?

Johnnz,

I generally "touch up" my HSS planer blades on a regular basis rather than let them get really blunt. this means I am removing minimal metal each time.

It is possible to remove more metal from one section of the blades than another, and wind up with blades that are not precisely the same width along the entire length. After sharpening the blade, I put the sharp edge, very carefully, on the alloy bed of the planer to gauge the amount of light passing through. If too much metal has been removed from one spot, the light gives it dead away, and I grind again the high spots until I get a really good fit between the blade and the planer bed.

Its is really quite simple. Nearly always, it takes me longer to remove and replace the blades than it does to sharpen them.

When you get new blades, its a good idea to take the time to flatten the backs of the blades on your Tormek so they are dead smooth to about 5mm from the edge. This gives a very sharp, clean edge. Your Tormek handbook has all of these details.

IIRC there is a horizontal grinding wheel ( the axle points up) that is used by a fair number of folk to sharpen jointer and thicknesser blades - they were made by Makita (?) or Hitachi but I've also seen Chaiwanese copies being imported by people like Timbecon. No hollow grind, it comes with a medium sized blade holder and they usually advertise a 300+ holder as an accessory.

I think it was a Makita 9820 or something like that. I actually went looking for one a while ago, but they didn't seem to be available here now. Does anyone know if they were ever sold by Makita Australia, or was it a US-only item?

Cheers