Thread: Sharpening 15” thicknesser blades

Wongo...

You da man.

Wow, Scott. That is a devilishly clever idea. I suggest that you submit it to FW as a tip. Could earn you a nice leward

But what is a dark-sider like yourself doing with a 15" planer? OK, OK, I am just jealous.

Rocker

Yes you are a true blue chingalese speakin little legend!!!

Id been wonderin how in blazes I was going to manage that... so what I did...

I simply took a little trip to the neighborhood Caratec store and bought me a second set!!

no seriously... well I was serious actually I did get a second set along with the second set for the jointer... but I also got one of those round grinder thingys with the white grinding disc on the top? you know the one I mean!! it came with an attachment I havent tried yet for the 15in blades which is of course why I bought the thing... mind you I will have to give it a whirl one day sooner or later... but now having seen your brilliant idea I will probably forgo that and just do as you my legendary chingalese brother has done!!

Great idea and like said before, you need to submit the idea before some scallywag beats you to it. But my biggest problem is the nicks, how well does it take care of them?

Ah Wongo - great minds and all that. Being caught short one day with both sets of planer blades dull, and desperately needing to plane a mess of wood in a hurry, I conceived a very similar idea to yours. However, my planer has only two blades, so I just cut two grooves in a block of hardwood, at slightly less than the grind angle on my blades. I then honed both blades at once, by placing the stone across the top. Worked so well, I've used the method ever since, to touch up a few times between taking them to be reground. I use the sharpening service for two reasons - a) there's no way I'm going to hone out nicks by hand, and b) a decent sharpening service should be paying attention to keeping the blades even and the same weight. Unbalanced cutterheads whizzing about at 6,000 rpm is not a good idea........

And Hickory - this system doesn't handle nicks, unless you have the patience of Job. My blades are HSS, and harder than the hobs of hell, so it takes a bit of elbow-grease to put even a small secondary bevel on them. Nicked blades go to the sharpening service, for the reasons mentioned above.

Cheers,

Hate to burst your bubble Wongo but I've seen that idea in the tips section of one of the American mags a couple of years ago. The thing you have to watch out for though is that if you take more off one blade than the others, they will be out of balance. My uncle uses a spring balance to make sure they all weigh the same after sharpening. The tip I saw was for two bladed machines and was the same idea as Ian's. I made one for my jointer but it has 3 blades, so a bit more complicated. Now I just do them on the horizontal grinder I made.

Originally Posted by silentC

Hate to burst your bubble Wongo but I've seen that idea in the tips section of one of the American mags a couple of years ago.

Silent - now you mention it, I think my jig WAS a slight modification of something I saw in the 'Tips' section of FWW, way waaay back. Since I've had very few truly original ideas in my life, this is quite likely where it all began!

It's interesting how different people come up with similar, but personalised ways to solve common problems - a sort of convergent evolution.

Avagooday

Silent you have just destroyed my world and you are enjoying it - Bastard. Well, I am sure if that bugger didn’t invent the wheel thousands of years ago someone else would anyway.

I am not so concerned by the weight because I didn’t take much off, it is something like 0.000001 gram. I did polish the blades too.

Rocker, I have already sent FWW the tip. A bit of fun really.

Good idea alright.

But something to be mindful of, that you probably already know.

Make sure passes are complete from one side to the other. You want even distrubition while lapping it....

even with this in mind, long term you could create a dish in those blades, which will transfer to the wood.

It probably be worth while jointing the edge of the blade initially before lapping to restraighten it first.....just do it a little with a file in a jig like when jointing the teeth of a hand saw......then lap the bevel to burr etc.

Fiendishly clever Bro!

Like dingo I went and baught the surface grinder, but just for honing the edge back this will prove the bees knees....

Good one Wongo...Owe you a green one.

H.

Finished the jointer blades tonight. I stuck a piece of leather to a piece MDF and polish the blades.

Now I have the fun to put them back to the jonter and thicknesser. I will report back after the test run.

Scott,

I think you would be better off polishing the blades by using Veritas honing compound directly on MDF, instead of sticking leather to it. Surely leather would tend to round over the sharp edge.

Rocker

Thanks David, that sounds a good idea. I did use honing compound on the leather thouht. It sounds strange doesn’t it? A piece of leather is tough enough to round a piece of hard solid steel.

After reading SilentC and Ianw’s comments and out of curiosity I might weight the blades tonight. My MIL has one of those mini scales in the kitchen. The problem is the readings may not be fine enough to show the difference.