Catclaw sharpener help

[mikejp]

I called cooks saw today and they said that the new super sharps come with a 8 degree hook. That was a good guess but I think the biggest problem is poor stone dressing to match the blade. I am trying to work up enough courage to go and try again. I just don't want to ruin any more of my friends blades.

[LeeB]

Buy a couple of blades to practice with.

[Tom]

 

I have a catclaw sharpener and for the life of me I can't sharpen blades. Every time I try to sharpen one of my friends blades I ruin it. I don't know what I am doing wrong. He is running a timberking b20 with cooks supersharp blades. I have the supersharp cam installed on my machine and set to 8 degrees in the back. This last time I had him pull me a blade off that was still cutting good but starting to get dull. I did not set or roll just try and sharpen. When I do they may dive then climb. Make a wavy cut then break after a pass or two. I cant figure out what I am doing wrong. If anybody has any advice or could help I would be very greatfull. I have ruined so many blades now I will have to sharpen for a year to break even. Thanks for the help. Mike

Mike,
First of all, climbing, diving and wavy cuts are more symptoms of a flattened set than a poor sharpening.  You might be grinding all of the set out of the teeth if you are being too aggressive.  You might also have something dragging on the teeth. check that out separately.

It can be frustrating when you try to make too many changes at one time.  Without turning the sharpener on, make your adjustments and move the band through the sharpener by hand, watching the stone and turning it with your hand as you go   Watch the contact area of the stone and tooth.  Look for the light that indicates that the stone might not be matching the original grind. 

Don't get in a hurry.  Take your time. Even when you get it all together, you will be taking about 20 minutes to sharpen a 13'2" band.

Here are some links to threads that might help. They go to posts that I made, but you should read the whole thread.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,850.msg9886/topicseen.html#msg9886

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,1276.msg15379/topicseen.html#msg15379

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,15633.msg224873/topicseen.html#msg224873

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,18912.msg271702/topicseen.html#msg271702

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,15078.msg213906/topicseen.html#msg213906

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,13229.msg185332/topicseen.html#msg185332

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,4667.msg62065/topicseen.html#msg62065

[mikejp]

Thanks Tom so much for the links and the post. I just learned alot. I do think now that almost all my problem was inproper stone shape and to aggresive of grinding. I have just one more question on the stone. If you were going to sharpen for other people and kept a cam for all different blades is the stone shape so much different for each blade that you would keep a stone shaped for one type of blade and change stones when you change cams? Or is the change in stones so little that you would just do a real quick reshape as you change. Thanks for the help. Mike

[Tom]

I'm just supposing,  but I think it would have to do with the number of blades in that run.  Because of balancing problems, changing stones will usually require the stone to be dressed anyway.  It puts it back into balance the same as rebalancing a tire if you swapped it on rims or dismounted it and remounted it differently on the same rim.

Most of the difference in the shape of the stone will have to do with the shape of the back-grind.  Some teeth have steep backs and some low angled backs.  You also dress to get taller teeth and deeper gullets.

Since you would be dressing anyway, I think I would dress the stone to match the next run of blades and not change stones.  Where that might differ is if Gullet shape was drastically different.  The old Woodmizer blades had flat gullets and depth control was used more than the cam. If you ever ran into any of those, it might benefit you to change stones.  But that would be a really drastic situation.

I would do anything to keep from changing stones.   I'd put that sucker on there and get it dressed and balanced and run it till it was of no use anymore.

If you do much professional sharpening and have a lot of different profiles, it might make more sense to have more sharpeners, if the production allowed for dedicated sharpeners.

I think that you will find that shaping the same stone will be more economical.  You might think of charging a setup charge everytime a blade profile changes.  Planer mills do it when running mouldings.

[mikejp]

Thanks Tom. This weekend I am going to try again. I think a little prep time with the stone and proper setup we will be in buisness and that would make my friend very happy seeing that I have about 25 or more of his blades here and will probally have to sharpen every one for free to pay for the ones I ruined. Oh well. Cheap price to pay for tons of lessons learned and experience gained.

[customsawyer]

There is alot of room for error in the cooks sharpener but once you get it down then it will work just fine. You might check and make sure the motor that drives the cam is running the right direction.
Start with a blade that is from cooks SS and then dress your stone so that it follows the contour of the face of the tooth, to the gullet, then the back of the tooth with the same amount of grinding in each area, take that rock off and use it to look at each time you need to dress a rock.

[GF]

ONe thing I found on mine in the past was the gear motor felt as if it was tightly bolted to the frame, but when it start to push the arm I could see it move very so lightly, this will also cause problems with sharpening consistantly.  Thought I would mention it.  I have a Cooks sharpener and it works very well.

GF

[backwoods sawyer]

That is a good point about keeping a stones profile handy, I took a thin piece of tin and made a profile of the grinding wheel by gently plunging it straight into the grinding wheel and this hangs on the wall with the spare stones for a quick reference.

[bandmiller2]

Mike,the best tool to dress the stone is a diamond dresser my favorite is "T" shaped with diamond bits brazed on the top of the tee.Companys that sell machine/industrial supplies sell them their not too expensive.Frank C.

[Big Timber]

COOK'S MILLS AND SHARPENER ROCK, my bad, the ppl at cook's are the most helpful ppl that I have talked to, if your boss or owners dont want you on the phone with ppl that well help you and make your service better, DANG, let them guys do it instead of you.  After the feed back comes in, the boss will prob send you to troy, AL to get first hand lessons from Tim's guys!!

[logwalker]

I am assuming he is sawing at home therefore he is calling on personal business. I could be wrong.

[LorenB]

Mike,

I've been using my Cat's Claw sharpener for a while now and noticed some issues that haven't been mentioned yet. 

The hardest thing for me to learn was how to dress the wheel to get the grind I want.  Like everyone else here, I want to just kiss the band as the sharpener grinds.  On the other hand, I want it to touch along the entire tooth profile.  Obviously you must grind the top of the tooth in order to sharpen it, but you must also grind the bottom of the gullet in order to remove any micro-cracks before they develop into real cracks. 

In my experience, you need to shape the left side of the wheel to match the profile of the bottom of your band's gullet.  If you notice, as soon as the grinding wheel reaches the bottom of the gullet, the band starts moving and the wheel rises immediately to grind the back of the next tooth.  That means that the shape of the bottom of the gullet, at the face of the tooth, is set by the shape of the left side of the grinding wheel.  Be careful not to round off the grinding wheel to heavily on the left side.  Removing too much material can affect the hook angle of the tooth. 

Once I got my wheel shaped to grind the gullet properly, I found that it was taking too much off the back of the next tooth as the band was forced into the wheel faster than the wheel rose.  I corrected this by shaping the right side of the wheel at a fairly steep angle upwards, about 45 degrees.  My wheel wound up with a fairly pointy appearance. 

Note that the issue of taking too much off the back side of the next tooth could also be fixed by adjusting the cam (welding material to it to raise the wheel sooner), but that was more work than I was willing to do. 

I am sharpening Timberwolf bands and am using the Timberwolf cam.  The bands are 1.5" x 0.056", with a 1" pitch. 

I found that I needed to raise the height of the band carriage to prevent the grinding wheel from contacting the frame of the sharpener.  I think this was 1/4" higher than the "correct" setting for my 1.5" blades.  (Don't take that number as gospel.  I don't really remember how much I raised it.) 

Initially, I had some blades breaking prematurely.  When I sent samples back to Timberwolf, they told me that the hook angle was much less than I had set by using the scale on the back of the sharpener.  As it turned out, if I wanted a 9 degree hook, I had to set the sharpener to a higher angle.  I finally got it where I wanted it by trial and error, using a protractor.  I'm pretty sure that this was not caused by shaping the wheel too heavily on the left side. 

I like my sharpener, mostly because it saves me a lot of money.  You will like yours too once you get the hang of all the adjustments. 

Now if I can just figure out how to adjust the Suffolk Dual Tooth Setter.  (Actually, I think I am finally getting it right.) 

Good luck

– Loren

[bandmiller2]

I'am not the poster boy for correctness,but I use the Simonds 3/4 cam for everything including woodmizer 7/8 bands ,it matches them quite close.I do very little stone [rock] shaping after I form it ,with the blue ceramics.The slight radius on the bottom left of the stone is critical ,that transformes from tooth to gullet and must never be sharp or too abrupt.Its important to have the proper dressing tool a diamond dresser is best.You more or less configure the stone to a new band gullet.I grind the least possible material off the band.First sharpening sometimes I just get the face and back of the tooth next time full gullet grind.The Cooks sharpener gives you great latitude to sharpen different bands you just have to learn how to set it up properly.Frank C.

[ladylake]

 I'm not much for correctness either, I just do what works.  I used to profile the wheel on regular basis a while back, about 6 months age I quit profiling except if I put a new wheel on.  The wheel seems to wear nice and even without profiling and the blades cut great. I was worried about the hook angle but it must be OK as they cut good. On the first sharpening mine hits the face and the whole gullet except for the last little bit of the tooth, blades cut good like that, the opposite  of Franks . On the 2nd sharpening it gets it all.    Steve

[motohed]

Another thing that I have not seen  mensioned in this post is that you may also be getting the rock out of round ,when dressing it . This can cause quite a few problems on it's own . If you don't spin the wheel by hand close to the blade before you start sharpening . You may be setting up on the the low side of the wheel  and when the high side comes around the grind will be heavy . This will cause bluing and profile change also .

[Chuck White]

Mine goes just like yours Steve!
When I'm sharpening a new blade for the first time, it don't get it all, but it'll clean up nice the next time I sharpen it!
I don't usually send it through the sharpener 2 revolutions.  I'd be taking off metal that I don't need to!  ;)

[bandmiller2]

Do you guys set before sharpening every time??I have a dial indicator and check the set if its close I don't bother setting, it usally works out to every outher grinding,unless I hit nails then it goes through setting.Most bands its once around the block with minimal removal.Frank C.

[Chuck White]

I always set, then sharpen!

That way, I don't have to mess with deburring the back side of the blade!

It really speeds things up and the burr goes away within a pass or two through the log and the blade cuts just as well as if the burr was removed by hand!

[ladylake]

Do you guys set before sharpening every time??I have a dial indicator and check the set if its close I don't bother setting, it usally works out to every outher grinding,unless I hit nails then it goes through setting.Most bands its once around the block with minimal removal.Frank C.

About the same here except I just eyeball them, every 2nd sharpening most times. I like to have bands with varying degrees of set. Lots of set for dry pine, not much for frozen logs.    Steve

[LorenB]

Do you guys set before sharpening every time??I have a dial indicator and check the set if its close I don't bother setting, it usally works out to every outher grinding,unless I hit nails then it goes through setting.Most bands its once around the block with minimal removal.Frank C.

Like you, bandmiller2, I set only if it's necessary.  I also have a dial indicator to check the set.  With this latest batch of ten blades I found that all of the ones up for their first sharpening were close enough.  Most of the rest, on their third or fourth sharpenings, needed setting. 

I also set before I sharpen.  I've tried setting after sharpening, but dealing with the burr was a real nuisance.  That burr probably messes up the setter, and I know it produces errors in reading the dial indicator. 

– Loren