Hook angles,9 vs 10

[music_boy]

     I fianally got to sawing some Osage Orange a buddy of mine had recently cut down. Sawed great on the first and second log. Needed to do a blade change and went to sawing the same log. Man!!!!!!!1 I couldn't get that blade to cut worth a hoot. I actully stalled the 28 HP Kohler on my lt40. :-[ The first blade was a 9 degree, second was a 10 degree hook. Both are reccomended for hard or frozen wood. I called WM and they recommended a 9 or even a 4. I got the 10 s cause they are supposed to be a general purpose blade. Mathmatically, there is not that much diff between the two, but obviously the Osage sees it different :D  Iwent ahead and ordered some 9s. What do you guys saw using 10  degrees hook ? Advice on 4s.
     Is there something else going on here that my obvious lack of experience is missing?
Thanks yall
Rick

[customsawyer]

I use 10 degree hook on everything that I cut. I have used it on oak, hickory, cherry, black walnut, pine, cypress, and some others that I can't think of right now. The only thing that bothered me was when some of the blades weren't set right.

[Kelvin]

Woodmizer sent me 2 free 4's when i complained about my 9's dulling so quickly on cuts over 16" in hard wood.  If you bought a sawmill from them, they will send you some, if not maybe you know someone who can request them, or just buy some, but i don't think its that much of a problem to use a 4.  Suffolk saw says they can't even see how a 4 degree blade would even work, so its not very standard.  I would look at heat being your problem.  Switch to diesel and bar lube at just a drip a second, or just barely enough.  Doesn't bother lumber, isn't enough to hurt the enviro, actually works better for decreasing friction.  Check the set on your blades, look for sand or dirt in the bark, check for steel you might be hitting without realizing.  Does your tension keep going down?  Sign of too much heat.  Just some ideas.  Good luck.  How wide is this osage?
Kelvin

[music_boy]

     The Osage cant is 11 inches wide. Yes, the blade tension went down but I expected that from a new blade. I used plenty of lube. Now that you say that, I had put some RV antifreeze in the regular lubemizer solution cause it froze here the other day. Can't imaginre that having anything to do but maybe/??? I looked for tramp, but non. Blade appears and feels sharpe. This Osage is hard stuff. It probably simulates frozen wood. Don't know how to check set??
Rick

[Kirk_Allen]

Music Boy,
I have cut a fair amount of Osage and have a whole yard full of it to cut next week.  Some variables that will effect the outcome are as follows:

Green or dried?  Fresh fell osage cuts OK with 10 degree but you wont get far if the wood has dried for more than a few months.  I had a 20" Osage that cut hard as heck with a 9 degree untill I widdled the outer 6 inches down.  After that I had no problems.  I tried a 10 to begin with but got no where fast.

I have not tried the 4 degree because the 9 degree works fine provided the wood is not dry.  

One thing to note is that Osage is full of knots from dead branches.  Those knots are DRY and will dull your blade VERY Fast.  I normally dont want any logs from an osage that are above the 12 foot mark from the base because of the high volume of dead branch knots in the tree.  

One problem I found recently was the sharpening process I was using was actually taking away my degree to a point where WM said I had a negative hook angle.  I was taking to big of a bite on the back of the tooth causing the sharpening stone to were causing a negative hook angle.  Correcting this has taken several sharpenings but I noticed today a huge difference once I got my proper 9 degreee hook angle back.  

Kelvin:
How does heat cause the tension to go down?  I seem to be having that a lot recently (tension drop) but cant isolate the cause.  

[arj]

I like the 9 degree blades for general cutting much better than the 10 degree. I`m phasing out my 10`s. I`ve used them on whie pine, to hickory & white oak. I had a ugly knotty white oak hanging around over a year before I got to it, the 9 degree did`nt do so good so I tried a 4 degree and it cut nice and flat a little slower but worth having a few around for emergencies.
                 arj

[gmmills]

music_boy,

    The 10/30 profile is WM general purpose profile. this profile works well in green  red oak and softer woods, poplar ,pine, cherry.  The 9/29 profile is used for red oak and harder, white oak, white ash, hickory. The 4 deg profile is used in extremely dry-seasoned or frozen wood.

     When choosing a blade profile you must not only consider the species of wood , but also if it is green or seasoned.  In general, when the wood is seasoned it will be harder than it is when green .

    I cut mostly nothing but hard woods. The 9/29's are what I use almost exclusively. I use the 4 deg when the logs are frozen.

   Many years ago I sawed some Osage . That stuff is harder than  hickory ,even when green.

[music_boy]

     This Osage was felled about 2 weeks ago. I believe this species dries quick but it was still stickey from sap. The lower 6 feet of the trees usually aren't wort too much because of the way they grow. Sorta like the Cedar around here. They grow in and around them selves. I'll probably not find another tree this size for a long time.
Thanks all
Rick

[mhasel]

My guess on the blade tension drop would be the increasing heat causes the blade to expand making it slightly longer and then tada you have less pressure.

Rick, glad to see you are getting some use out of that orange machine:)

Mike

[Ed_K]

 I sharpen mine to 9 deg's. I found out long ago 20 deg don't work for frozen black birch  :D. My set is 24.

[FeltzE]

Kirk if you get a fairly quick and substancial tension drop sawing with a fresh blade. Stop the blade at the end of the cut clear of the log and feel the blade temperature with your hand, if the blade is a little warm ok but if its hot to the touch then there's your culprit. Metel expands when heated the blade will soften and strech a bit loosing tension.

Causes? Blade set incorrect, too little, or off set causing the blade to rub and climb or dive and stay there in the cut, or possibly poor gullet grind with the sawdust blowing out of the gullet rubbing the blade in the cut. I'm sure there are more causes but the set is most likely

Eric

[music_boy]

Hey Mike,
      Good to see you on the forum. I think it's been a while. I agree with you on the heat logic. As I'm cutting, you can actually watch the tension dial go down as the blade heats up. I've learned that giving a little more lube will bring the blade back to proper tension most of the time.
    I cut some pine yesterday with the blade that was giving me trouble  on the osage. Didn't cut the pine very well and really bogged on the knots. Changed the blade and it was like a new saw. I'm thinkin maybe I just gota bad blade. When I get the mill back to where the osage I'll try again with a new 10 just to see.
Rick
How's the young one doin?

[Kirk_Allen]

Thanks for the info Feltz.  All was fine on the blades................other than the ones showing a tension drop were the 9 degree blades that turned out to have virtually no angle and very little gullet to take the sawdust.  

Turns out this was the last of several blades that had been sharpened with the grinding wheel to rounded out on the left side causing almost a negative hook angle.  Culprit discovered and fixed.  

[fstedy]

   : ;D :D Seems like most bandmill problems come back to the main culprit BLADES  :D   ;D :

[FeltzE]

Kirk,

I recently ran into the same problem, I have been sharpening and not paying much attention to my grinder wheel. The back side of the wheel got too rounded reducing the angle of the tooth until I lost the entire hook angle.

Easily fixed though! Brought back a good angle and increased it a bit for the nasty pine I was in, and then Yesterday I was cutting red oak, What a dream.... To cut sawgrade fresh red oak 8), Then I hit a very hard 30 inch 12 foot long knotless log, hard as nails, sawblade chattering reduced the hook a little which made it better but still miserablly hard to cut and harder to cut straight, the saw dust came out as dust instead of little chips, it was like cutting hickory. Switched through 3 blades before it was done :-/

Eric

[Percy]

Just to add to the fray ;D tooth height is an important factor as well. On WM sharpeners, this is controlled/adjusted by the amount of angle on the front of your grinding stone. The more amount of  angle, the deeper your gullet/taller teeth. When Im dressing a stone, I usually have a blade in the clamp and use it as a guide to keep the proper angle.  I thingk every grider is probably a bit different but on mine, I like to keep the angle slightly over half the thickness of the wheel. This causes the wheel to wear out faster but I notice better feed rates with the taller teeth ;D ;D

[Kirk_Allen]

Good point Percy.  I like a little taller tooth hight as well.

I fixed the last of the screwed up 9 degrees last night and cut up about 500 bf of Osage Orange today.  

WOW.  I got through all of it with one blade!  

I now better understand the value of GOOD sharpening and setting!  Things went so well that I tried one of my 10 degree blades on the Osage to compare the 9 degree.  I have done this in the past but not with proper sharpening techniques.

I have to say that both cut like a dream through the Osage to my surprise.  One of the logs was cut 6 months ago but it still cut like butter.  

[woodnut]

I'll have to remember that to angle the front of the grinding wheel some to get tall teeth. Thanks Percy.