Thread: DIY or send away?

send it.

send it..

oh...yeah.....send it..

Depends on how often you reckon your blades are going to need sharpening.

You get quite a lot of visit to the sharpening service for the price of a Tormak.

The cost of the sharpening is probably exceeded by cost of postage, any service will be out of town for me.
Then theres the issue of turnaround time unless I buy spare sets.
Any idea how many $$ to sharpen 6" jointer & 15" thicknesser blades?
Regards, Bill

Bill,
You should have made it to the Day at USQ for the SHARPENING
It likely would have been worth your while.

Mathew [Wasn't it?:confused: :confused: I'm BAD at Names] made it look as easy as it can be.

Myself,
I'm considering another grinder and other things I saw at the SHOWING

Start here
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ight=Toowoomba

Originally Posted by gnu52

Any idea how many $$ to sharpen 6" jointer & 15" thicknesser blades?
Regards, Bill

The bloke I use charges $1 per inch (unless he's increased his prices since last I used him).

Bill,
I've been considering this for quite some time too. If I were to buy a grinder I'd buy the one that Timbecon and others) sell which has a dry horizontal wheel and a jig that will take a 400mm blade. For me it's a courier or lose at least half a day running up and down the hill. What's been holding me back (besides lack of $$ ) is that I hope to have thicknesser one day that will take knives longer than 400mm . I'll have surf and see if I can't find an ad for said machine.

Mick

3x15” thicknesser blades + 3x8” jointer blades + return postage = $80+

Tormek!

I just bought the green one and the planer blade jig. I bought it because

1. I can sharpen my blades whenever I want to. I don’t have to send them out and wait for them to come back
2. It encourages me to sharpen the blades more often. If I had to pay every time I would probably get them done once a year. That is not good for the machines and the wood.

BUT It is pretty expensive ($1,300 all up). It takes a bit of practise to use the planer blade jib but you will get good result.

I suppose with for $1,300 I can get them done many times but I just have to have one (if you know what I mean)

cheers

Ivan,
Had every intention of attending the sharpening day and am sorry to have missed it.
A couple of local lads were killed near Captains Mountain that morning and the road closed for a while. Did'nt feel like driving after hearing that, in a small town it touches everyone. Tragic, just tragic.

Mick,
Is that the lap sharp system?, They are sometimes talked about on US sites, I had the impression they would be wired for US current & too hard ($) to convert. Or is there a local variation?

Regards, Bill

Originally Posted by gnu52

Ivan,
Had every intention of attending the sharpening day and am sorry to have missed it.
A couple of local lads were killed near Captains Mountain that morning and the road closed for a while. Did'nt feel like driving after hearing that, in a small town it touches everyone. Tragic, just tragic.

Regards, Bill

Yes, Bill,
I'm at Millmerran,
Where they were Killed, [Captian's Mountain]
quite a few have come to Greif in that area.

Some/many from Millmerran and Pitts. knew them, or knew of them.
Seems they were some "All right" Kids;
that being their only guilt, was being Kids.
So Young:mad: :mad:
Such a waste, pain and suffering to their Family and friends.

Have a look at Mirboos post re the Jet wet grinder......may be a worthwhile option. Saw a post on it on a US site.
Regards, Bill

Originally Posted by gnu52

Mick,
Is that the lap sharp system?, They are sometimes talked about on US sites, I had the impression they would be wired for US current & too hard ($) to convert. Or is there a local variation?

Regards, Bill

Here is a link to the page that has the grinder that I think Mick was talking about. The advantages with these machines is that they grind all the blades uniformly so that you have a balanced set

Bill,
sorry it took me a while, here's the link:
http://www.timbecon.com.au/products/...nes-382_0.aspx
Will do up to 600mm wide for $499 (or 400mm for $365)

Mick

Missed this first time around.

I have a tormek. It is sssssoooo ssssslllllloooooowwwwwww.....zzzzzzzz

A mate (was ) gave me his spare set of 12" thicknesser blades to sharpen.
They are/were ground flat.
The tormek grinds hollow.
After some hours of beer drinking & grinding, I was drunk & the first blade was not even anywhere near hollow enough to have started getting sharp.

Bill,

I thought seriously about a tormek then found a guy not far away that charges me $20 to do 3 X 15" thicknesser blades. He also makes bandsaw blades. After reading the positive comments arising from the Toowoomba sharpening day, I'd advise having a go at doing this stuff yourself. You may be creating another income stream. The point someone made was that expensive gear wasn't really necessary. (Hey, Matt, how about a series of video's?)

The gear my guy uses is mounted in the back of a Toyota ute and certainly isn't an elegant looking bit of kit but works well. I'd say he could do blades up to around 2m in length (imagine a thicknesser that size???). Point is, maybe there's some secondhand commercial gear available that's better priced than the Tormek.

I've heard comments similar to Cliff's before (about the Tormek being slow). The other thing I didn't like was that you'd spend around $800 for the base unit then, potentially, another 1 or 2 $k for all the other jigs to make it really useful.

Anyway, my 2c worth.

Cheers,
Keith