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Looking for ideas to sharpen heavy old planer blades

Started by Quebecnewf, September 19, 2022, 05:46:14 AM

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Quebecnewf

 

 
Pic of the planer blades from my old square head planer . I'm looking for ideas on how I might fab up something or some jig that might aid me in sharpening them .

I have a Tormek wet wheel but these are just too thick and wide to work on that system . 

Any ideas out there ? 

Quebecnewf 

240b

they look like the knives out of the whole tree chipper i used to contract. 
 those were sharpened on a huge morbark wet grinder machine. 

Old Greenhorn

Whats the angle on the cutting edge. Hard to tell in the photo, but looks like they are square? If not square you should be able to do them on a chipper blade sharpener, is there anybody around you that does those?
 If they are indeed square, they could be done on any surface grinder, which most machine shops have.
 I know you are short on those type resources in your area, but maybe you can get lucky with some detective work. Yeah, they should be done wet to keep the heat down.
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kantuckid

The bandsaw service I use is Piper Saw in Central City, KY and they sharpen my planer blades besides my bands. Ask around your area?
I "see" an angle of ~45deg.
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Joe Hillmann

I used to sharpen blades similar to that for work but had a full machine shop to do it.  We used a surface grinder and sine plate to do most of the work.  Then a surface plate and very fine sand paper to remove the burr and polish it.

That probably doesn't help you unless you can find a cheap surface grinder on craigslist.

Larry

Two ways to do it.

The first one is make a jig to hold the blade on a RAS.  Orient the blade with the parallel to the arm on the saw.  Put a grinding stone on the RAS and turn the motor sideways.  Pull the motor back and forth to grind away.  I knew a guy that sharpened planer blades this way both for himself and others.  Of course your RAS must have a stroke as long as your planer blade.

Second is find a old table saw something like a 8" Craftsman.  Grinding is the only thing you will ever do with the saw.  Put a grind stone on the arbor and fix a straight edge on the saw so you can slide the blade back and forth.  I ran the grinding stone in reverse rotation.

Either way make sure you don't exceed the safe rpm of the stone.
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barbender

I have the Grizzly planer blade dry grinder. The depth adjustment is kind of crude, and you have to be careful not to burn the blades as it is a dry grinder. But it keeps the blades on my 15" Grizzly grinder sharp. I have a neighbor that keeps paying me to grind his blades for his planer too, so they must work well enough for him.
Too many irons in the fire

blackhawk

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Hilltop366

I have used a old RAS to do this but I found that the saw runners were worn and not accurate enough so instead of using the slide on the saw I fixed the head and slid the blades past the grind stone on a plywood blade holder and fence, that way the distance between the blade and the stone stays the same. Much like the table saw method. Quick light passes to prevent burning as mentioned. I just had a hardware store grind stone but I think a real sharpening stone would do a better job and run cooler too.

https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/sharpening/wheels-and-wheel-dressers/32981-cool-grinding-wheels

sealark37

Delta and Powermatic made a sharpener carriage that sat on top of the planer, and allowed the planer blades to be ground while mounted in the planer arbor.  If you could find one of these accessories, you could adapt it to your planer, even if you had to mount your own grinder to the carriage.

moodnacreek

You could always file them. Large sharp flat file and some type of bench jig to hold them.

WDH

This one works well.  Has a water bath to lubricate the 1000 grit grinding wheel.  You clamp the blade and adjust to get the angle bevel on the planer blade (or jointer blade) flat on the grinding wheel, then slide the the tool assembly holding the blade back and forth over the spinning wheel. 

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bigblockyeti

Another farming out option would be to find someone who grinds bed knives for reel mowers, like fairway gang mowers or greens mower.  You could also check around to see if anyone sharpens granulator knives, those are very similar to what you have only 3-4 times longer.

rusticretreater

I saw a page on the internet once where a guy made a precision angled block of wood, attached two blades to it, put some wet sandpaper on a glass plate and wet honed it.
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