circular mills to swage or not to swage.

[tmroper]

My question is do you swage insert teeth?  My saw doc said you don't what are you opinions?

[Ron Wenrich]

Depends.  If you're running chromes, you can't.  And the underlying tooth is the same as chromed tooth.  So, if you're doing OK without swaging a chrome, a steel one won't make much of a difference.

However, if you're the type that likes to run your teeth down to the nub, then you can get a few more Mbf out of the set of teeth.  But, I've always found that the shorter the tooth, the less I can saw on it before it gets dull.  Maybe that's just me.

If you swage your tooth, you'll also have to file a little more off to make up for the metal that you're pushing around.  That straightens the tooth, but you've lost a sharpening.  The other thing you have to do is side dress your tooth.  For that you should have a spider gauge.  Otherwise you can get too heavy on one side and your saw will lead to the long side. 

For the record, I don't swage.  I stopped running steel and went to chromes when the steel quality fell so bad I couldn't keep a saw sharp.  Chromes helped with the problem.

[ARKANSAWYER]

 I have two circle blades on my scragg mill.  Since I saw mostly ERC on it and prone to cut barbed wire in them I run steel insert teeth.  When I sharpen my blades I swage them to keep the side clearance up on the teeth.  It is important on scragg mills to keep the width of the cut the same.  So I swage.
  When I sawed on a circle mill we ran carbide teeth most of the time but when we switched to pine we would install steel teeth and would swage when we filed the teeth. The thinking was since the pine was soft it would "fluff" out in the cut and rub on the blade. 
  I know of some who sharpen band blades and do not set the teeth every time.  It is the same as not swaging the teeth after filing.  Sooner or later they will not have enough kerf and the blade will rub and heat up.

[bandmiller2]

TM,I usally don't swage, of course I'am not running a production mill.Belsaws don't have alot of bits and the expense would be minimal to just change them out when they get worn down.One of my headsaws is an old diston I have a small supply of bits, you can be DanG sure those will get swaged to the nubs.Frank C.