Sharpening planer blades

[Kasba]

Does anyone have any ideas of sharpening 16" planer blades at home? I was thinking of some sort of jig with my 8" bench grinder. Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas.

[Kbeitz]

Grizzly tools has a low cost sharpener. They also have something
called a planer pal. Check it out. Woodstock is part of Grizzly.

https://www.amazon.com/Woodstock-W1226A-Mini-Planer-Pal-Pair/dp/B0000DD1VL


http://lumberjocks.com/topics/50437

[terrifictimbersllc]

Does anyone have any ideas of sharpening 16" planer blades at home? I was thinking of some sort of jig with my 8" bench grinder. Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas.

It is one thing to sharpen but another to grind nicks out of jointer and planer knives. So I have wondered myself about using a dry grinder with a white stone, or just sending them out for grinding.

Up to now I use a Tormek which has a planer/jointer knife holder.  My Delta planer and jointer knives are HSS which is slow to grind with the regular stone, and wears the stone a lot. So I got the black Tormek stone SB250 which wears less and is better.  But the bottom line is that grinding much HSS metal is very slow and tedious to grind much metal from jointer/planer knives this way.

Tormek sells the not too expensive mounting hardware which is on the Tormek unit, to allow positioning this hardware and the Tormek jigs in front of a dry grinder.  I haven't pursued that yet. It would come in handy for planer knives, lathe and other HSS tools.  But I would want to get a dedicated grinder and balance its wheels for this purpose, so i'm not there yet.

[Larry]

I have sharpened planer blades at home on a RAS and also on an old 8" tablesaw both with grind rocks mounted.  While it worked a good sharpening shop does a better job.

I spent a couple of hours in the local sharpening shop learning how they sharpen various tools. 
For planer blades they lay all three or four end to end in a magnetic clamp.  Than a grinding head goes back and forth taking all of .0005 per pass.  The head might make 20 or 30 passes or even more.  Its all automatic.  Results are perfect and the cost is reasonable.  I think he told me the grinder cost $100,000. 

Of course if you don't have somebody local home sharpening becomes a lot more attractive.

[low_48]

Depends on how accurately you want to do it. Personally I don't want more than a couple thousandths difference along the entire length, and I haven't seen any DIY fixture that can do that. The sharpening shop I use is way cheaper than doing it myself. They use a machine with a 16' magnetic chuck. They line up all three blades off a straight edge on the chuck and do all three in minutes. They are all the exact same width too. No issues of balance with the planer head either.

[Brad_bb]

It's cheaper and more efficient for me to send mine out for grinding.  These are 16" blades for my sawmill beam planer.  I own 10 sets of 4 blades and when I have at least half of them dull/chipped, I ship them out.

[barbender]

 I have the Grizzly knife grinder, it's a little crude but it works well for me. I've sharpened a buddies Woodmaster planer blades a few times, he was happy with them. Shoots, he even paid me! ;D I'm sure sending them out gets you a better job, but these work fine for me.

[SlowJoeCrow]

Barbender,

Do you mean this one?

I picked a used one up at an auction a while ago, but haven't used it yet.

[pineywoods]

I have a home-made jig that clamps on to the table of my milling machine. Chuck a white rock on to the spindle. It works ok, but too DanG slow. Quicker is another jig that holds the blade at the proper angle, and then make a few swipes across a 12 inch bench type disk sander with emery cloth on it. My 18 inch woodmaster planer is not picky at all about accuracy, it uses a jig to set the blade height. Just get the angle right and sharp sharp..

[Just Me]

Barbender,

Do you mean this one?

I picked a used one up at an auction a while ago, but haven't used it yet.

I used the makita version of that up until I went Tersa, worked well, and nice for chisels and plane irons. You need an apron though.......... Now that I look at it I don't see a water tank, if it grinds dry I would look for a Makita.

[gww]

I have never sharpend a planer blade jet.  My friend from work made me a knife sharpener using a little harbor freight belt sander.  On one end he put a T-bar that slides up and down to get your angle and then you have a long little bar that holds the knife at the end of it and you just let the knife ride on the belt you chose while sliding the bar holding it along the top of the T-bar.  It works well on knives at deer season. 

I have an off topic question on planeing.  I am getting lots of gouges in my wood while planing.  I am doing oak and hickory and such.  Are there any tips to stop this.  Would this be more caused by wood not dry enough, too much cut depth or blades not sharp enough?  My quarter sawn stuff seemed to gouge the worst.

I will try to get a picture of the home made knife sharpener but am not promising I will get it posted, Hope to though.
Cheers
gww

[SlowJoeCrow]

Just me:  It definitely is designed to grind dry, with no water.

[muggs]

I sharpen my knives in the head with a built in sharpener. I can go from dull to sharp in 15 minutes. If you take the knives out of the head for sharpening, it is a real pain to get them all back at the same height. This is a Powermatic planer. Can you get a sharpener for your planer?    Muggs

[gww]

A picture of what I might try and use to sharpen with.


 
Cheers
gww

[barbender]

SLJ, yes, that is the one I have.

[Brian_Weekley]

Here's a guy who uses a jig and a grinding wheel on a radial arm saw to sharpen his planer blades.  He just slides the jig along the fence and in contact with the grinding wheel.  He's got a clip of it in action but Jeff's software won't even let me spell the word "Ph0t0bucket" without getting scolded.   :D

[barbender]

Piney, I have a Grizzly 15" planer, and I've found the same thing as you- it's not picky, it also uses magnetic jig to set the blade height. I just try to keep the blades the same depth front to back, which means if one has a deep nick they all have to be ground back a lot. My friend's blades are the worst, he lets them get really dull and tends to only use the center of the blades, so it requires a lot of metal to be ground off to get them sharp again.

[Kbeitz]

Piney, I have a Grizzly 15" planer, and I've found the same thing as you- it's not picky, it also uses magnetic jig to set the blade height. I just try to keep the blades the same depth front to back, which means if one has a deep nick they all have to be ground back a lot. My friend's blades are the worst, he lets them get really dull and tends to only use the center of the blades, so it requires a lot of metal to be ground off to get them sharp again.

Planer Pals and they work great...



 

[Don P]

That looks like an old Dewalt 9" in Brians post. I did pretty much the same using a white stone. Keeping the stone dressed nice and square helps. It did a better job than I thought it would, about .010 variation on one set I measured. We've got a local guy again now, it's an easy $20 decision.

[Kasba]

Thanks everyone for your help. I contacted the local sharpening shops they averaged around 55$ with taxes in to sharpen, any large nicks would be a little more money. I bought a overseas knock off of a Tormek with a 10" stone so I think I will make up a fixture to Sharpen them myself, the shops seem a little expensive when I can get a new set for around 80$. Thanks again, it's great having a great bunch of knowledgeable people to pull ideas from.