Anyone what this is and how it works

[Ernie]

I came across this thing for sale on our New Zealand auction site, billed as a "Blade and saw sharpening" tool/machine.

Anyone know how it works and what it sharpens ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

LINK

[bitternut]

Well Ernie I have never seen one of those things but I am going to take a wag and say that the front part opens up and clamps the blade with the teeth facing up. Then there is a pawl that sits into the bottom of a tooth and is used to index the blade to each tooth. There is a belt that goes on the flywheel which turns on an eccentric. This gives the file a stroking motion. I would say that there is an adjustable stop for the depth. Most likely there is also a feed mechanism for the downward travel till it reaches the bottom stop. Once you reach the full depth you have set you stop the machine, raise the file, index to the next tooth and start the machine in motion again. Just a guess though. Any name on that plate. How much did it go for? Lets us know what you find out about it.

[Sprucegum]

I was going to skip the link til I read Bitternut's reply and I just had to look  ;D

It looks like a fine example of engine-uity and it was built to last.

[Daren]

What bitternut said. I have an old Foley Belsaw "auto saw filer" that works as explained. There are different models that do the same thing the really old ones look very similar to the one you have a link of. It is just belt driven with a motor. The one in your link is manual advance from tooth to tooth. They made many that moved the blade automatically.
Mine is basically the same machine, it just has a face plate on it for hanging handsaw carriers and circular saw blades, it does bandsaw blades too. Like bitternut said the file just runs on an arm back an forth. Mine is one that moves the blades after each tooth is filed. The handsaw carriers have rachet bars that are the size of the teeth to be filed that attach to change the carrier progress.