Woodland mills bandsaw sharpener

[maple flats]

I bought a bandsaw blade sharpener from Woodland Mills. Has anyone ever gotten a CBN wheel to use on one of these? The more I read about CBN wheels the more I think it is the way to go. At present I only have 15 blades 7 degree (except whatever came mounted on the mill) I don't know yet if that's a 7, or maybe a 10, but I would just get a CBN for the 7's, at 7/8" pitch.
Anyone do this?

[rusticretreater]

Hi,

I have a new blade sharpener myself. Haven't even unpacked it yet.  I would think a CBN grinding disc would work great as long as it is the same diameter and thickness as the regular grinding disc.  

As the video shows the blade rotating in one direction and there being an adjustment, the leading edge of the disc needs to be close to where the original is.  I will be looking at that closely when I get to it.

I think that's a great suggestion/upgrade by the way.

[rusticretreater]

I did some research on this and now I'm sure a CBN disc would NOT work.

The Woodland Mills website shows the disc: https://woodlandmills.com/product/blade-sharpener-grinding-disc/

In the description it reads:

Designed to be dressed with a grinding stone to match the gullet profile of the sawmill blade.

As a CBN wheel or disc cannot be dressed in this fashion, it would not work with this sharpening machine with out some modifications.

[Southside]

You really don't want to run a CBN wheel dry, they need to have an oil bath or they will wear very prematurely.  

[maple flats]

I was of the impression that a CBN wheel got made to the profile. On the Woodland mills info that part would only refer to a conventional wheel.
As far as a CBN needing lubrication I'd add that the same way my brother added lubrication on his Bridgeport milling machine, an after market unit powered by compressed air.

[goose63]

The Woodland grinding wheel is a metric hole I don't know if the CBN wheel is or not metric

[JoshNZ]

It can be done of course but you'll need to modify it, possibly the arbor of your grinder or your CBN wheel, and probably the cam that controls the lifting sequence of the grinder head.

The pusher arm will place a tooth of the band under your grinder head and with a CBN wheel, your grinder head wants to drop in and stab it, then lift out and get clear before the pusher arm arrives with the next tooth.

This is in contrast to how it will be setup now where the grinding head is still lifting while the pusher arm is pushing the new tooth into place (and consequently your stone is grinding the back of the next tooth). So however you do it you will need to make sure the grinder head is lifted enough that it is not touching the band once things are moving.

I've never done it myself but, you might have to add weld to the cam and grind it so it lifts earlier than currently (or remove, however your cam lever is setup), or maybe you can rotate the cam and change the phase. I don't know exactly but, I'm sure it's possible.

I've got an old ltaga here I'm about to do it to, once I've managed to destroy all my mongrel bands I'll be running 4 degrees only.

As mentioned, you'll need to bath/spray the wheel in oil while running too..

[maple flats]

I hadn't thought of that issue, I'll use it as designed for a while once I get my mill finished. Then I'll look at what could be done to change it to a CBN wheel.
At my age, I won't likely buy a CBN sharpener (looks like $2000+) , if it proves not possible to convert what I have I'll stay with that. If I was 20 years younger it might be different.