I was wondering if anyone has used the Cooks dual tooth setter, and what they liked or disliked about it?
Gary
I'm not a fan of dual tooth setters. It's a personal thing and it falls in the line of saying "that's good enough", whereas other setters with gauges say, "that's on the money". Without a gauge and setting each tooth individually, you really don't know that the teeth are set. I've seen major differences in metal memory from one tooth to the other.
Still there are people who use them and swear by them, so you just have to decide how much you care to know about what you did.
Cook copies and works in partnership with people. Their mill started as a knockoff of Timber Harvester. Both companies knew it. Timber Harvester didn't care. The Cook setter was a knockoff of Woodmizers. The Cook blade guides were a knock off of Wood Mizer and even used Wood Mizer parts for awhile. The Cook sharpener was sold as a Suffolk Machine product for awhile. The dual setter, a Suffolk Machine product ended up on the sales pages of Cooks Saw a few years ago.
All of these companies are good and produce good products. Cook equipment tends to be heavier built, as if built by a backyard mechanic instead of an engineer, but, they do a good job.
The only recommendation I could give would be to pick for price and support.
I have a woodmiser setter but looking at something that maybe a little quicker. The blades I use on my mill at exactly 18' in length and sometimes I would like to be able to set them a little quicker. I definitly have seen the difference in the metal on the blade when sharpening, some require more or less pressure to get them correct. The Cooks setter had two dial indicators and wondered how accurate the setter actually was by someone that used one. If at I would like to run one through the Cooks and then set it in the woodmiser to check for accuracy.
Gary
I have the Cooks dual tooth setter and find it very fast and accurate. The setter is only as accurate as you set it up and how clean your blades are. Remember in the machine shop trades anything under .005 is pretty high precision for production work. If you want .001 precision you better use a single tooth setter with a dial indicator. I doubt if you could even maintain that tolerence with tooth springback, and varations in temperature. Remember your application do you really need a tolerence that tight no IMO. I think consistancy of set from tooth to tooth would be of more importance for a smooth cut.
I am w/ Fstedy on this one, get the dual if you can. I recently passed on a dual at an auction :-[ that went VERY cheap (I had already spent my quota). It was something I immeadiately regreted and am quite bummed about. It is occurences like that which make me just "pull the trigger" if my gut says to do it. I had assumed that it would go for $800 or so, so at $250 :o I wasn't prepared to bid. :-\ :'(
Ironwood
I own a Cooks Dual tooth setter, and I do like it, it is about 100lbs or more, kind be hard to p/u and set on the bench, but I think like all setter there only as good as how you dial it in,, it is acurate, and very fast, and I have a bunch of other things ta do besides settin one tooth at a time,,, when its time to set and sharpen bands, I usually have about 15-20 to do, so being able to accomplish the tooth setting quickly and move on to the shrpening process, which takes more time, is a plus.. I would recomend there setter, if your looking for a good quality machine,
I went to see one of those in operation, and saw several missing teeth on the mill, when I pointed them out he acted like no big deal. Then we went onto setting the teeth on some of his saws, after he broke three teeth off the first saw I was not very impressed. I can say that if it was mine I would have been solving that issue or sending it back. They are much faster then the single tooth setter, but I have never broke a tooth off of one of my saws while setting teeth. I also cut smoother wood then what he does.
I would not mind having a duel tooth setter if it can match the performance of a single tooth setter with a patient operator who is a bit , shall we say, picky, about how the teeth are set.
The breaking of teeth isn't the fault of the setter. Either the operator or the blades themselves are brittle. I have a Dino semi auto setter and after 3 years I am getting the hang of it. Joe
Odd's are that he was trying to bend the set too high on the teeth.
Get too high in the tooth (where it's hardened) and you'll break teeth reguardless of what kind of setter you have.
Andy
I just bend the top 1/3rd of the tooth on my Woodmizers blades and have never broke any. I wonder what he is running? Joe
I have broken teeth off before, the first time was a shock! As the band is sharpened, you loose the width of the band and consequently how high up in the setter the teeth are positioned, they should have adjustments for this and I find about 3/16" get the set, maybe a tad less.
Tim
Wood Mizer's setter does have adjustments for band width.
The only time I've broken teeth on the setter was when I had off-set some of the teeth and was straightening them up or had gotten off a tooth and was trying to set a "right" tooth with a "Left" set. It was just too much to move the tooth at one time. It angers me when it happens because the guage shows me that I'm on a "wrong" tooth, if I'm paying attention.
I set the band so that the clamp is at or just above the bottom of the gullet. I can then bend the tooth without trying to bend the body of the blade. I don't care for bands that have the tip of the tooth bent over and the rest of the tooth straight. It takes away from the progressivness of the set and makes setting the second or third time around more difficult than if the set is a gradual bend from transition curve upwards.
i've had the teeth on timberwolf blades break off while setting them. that was when I was new to sharpening, though. Now i exclusively use Woodmizer blades, and have never had a problem.
Sounds like it may be time for an experiment. Timberwolf suggests setting the tip, I will fool around with setting from the gullet. I know Wood Mizer has a different gullet shape than Timberwolf, would this have any influence on the manner in which each set their teeth?
Tim
I believe that Timberwolf blades have a gullet that is 9/32" deep. I believe that they said to set the top 1/8" of the tooth which would be just under 1/2 of the tooth.
I'm like Tom, I like to set from down toward the bottom of the gullet.
Andy
Quote from: Tom on March 31, 2009, 02:59:27 PM
I set the band so that the clamp is at or just above the bottom of the gullet.
I remember that tip from the WoodMizer video. Raising the gullet just out of the clamp ensures a more accurate reading on the setter gauge. If we sharpen then set as they suggest, there is usually a small burr on the gullet. (Assuming the gullet needed to be chased a little during the sharpening).
They suggest adjusting the gullet/burr to slightly clear the clamp.
When I bought my Cooks Dual tooth setter, they also sent a video with it, to show adjustment and opperation of it, but also in that video, they showed how to get rid of the burr left behind after the sharpening process,, Cooks also sent with the setter a 3" piece of 1/2' square miachine milling bar, edges are very square,, they show ya in the video how to drag the bar-stock on the inside of the blade to cut the burr off, which works very well,,
Nobody mentioned how to get rid of the burr,,
I typically set, then sharpen. But if I need to knock the burr off, i use a short peice of square wood to knock the burr off, like a 1.25" x 1.25" piece.
I wouldn't want to use a metal piece to knock the burr off, I think it would damage the teeth
Dan; robnrob2 is correct in that, in the video it shows Tim (I believe that's his name) using a piece of hardened square stock to remove the burr.
It doesn't look like he's applying much pressure though.
We generally use a piece of hardwood to remove the burr.
My FIL has a WM sharpener and setter. I'm still trying to make up my mind which brand and type I want to get.
We're going to give "setting then sharpening" a try. Seems that the burr would be gone by the time you're into the log 3-4 inches!
I only remove the burr if I have to set after sharpening. the log does a great job of removing that burr :)
If you set after sharpening, the tip of the tooth is not at a right angle to the blade body. I have noticed a big difference in the performance of the blade when setting after sharpening. The blade cuts like a dull blade. I always set first and then sharpen. Also you don't have to worry about the burr on the blade.
I have always sharpened then set the band. But I don't like knocking the bur or scale or what ever off before setting. If I change to setting first, how many extra ths do i need to set the blade to allow for what the grinder is going to get? ??? Tim
Banjo Picker. I have set and then ground for years. It saves a lot of time and aggravation. I like a band that is set about 21 or 22 thousandths. I set 22 and 23 thousandths and then sharpen. There isn't as much that is taken off as you would think.
I also like the flat chisel edge that I think is presented to the wood.
Setting with a single tooth woodmizer setter. I could set one and half to two (13'2") blades for every one I sharpened. That means that I could take a break and drink coffee, with my feet propped up, every three sharpenings or so. I also didn't rush the sharpening stone. I guess it took about 3 seconds to face grind and run through the gullet and up the back of the next tooth.
link to a thread on sharpening. (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,850.msg9886/topicseen.html#msg9886)
Thanks for that link Tom. I may have read that in the past, but it just didn't sink in. ;D The blades I use tomorrow will get the set first then sharpen. That should cut better. Tim
Sulfolk Machine says that their new blades don't perform as well as they do after the first sharpening due to the angle on the tooth, as per the reason listed above.
Tim
Got my dual tooth setter from Cook's a week and a half ago. It sure is nice to be able to set a 18' blade in less than 4 minutes. Accuracy has been within two thousandth's of each other. I have been very pleased with the results.
Gary