This blade came today for me to trial:
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Chris even sent a pair of gloves.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_6385.JPG)
I'll put it on Monday morning to not necessarily see how it saws but how long it saws. I have been only sawing 8-12 and using one blade per day. We shall see. ??
Nice. let us know!
Absolutely. I have a good record going of what I have been sawing and what I will be sawing. Nothing will change other than the blade so it should be a very reliable test.
It has been interesting so far comparing Resharps and New blades which both last the same. I did not realize/know that I was gonna get something else to test.
Can't think of a better person to test it for us either!!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Doc
Yes, ideal conditions for testing, thanks for sharing Lynn. :thumbsup:
That's pretty cool.
I didn't know Norwood made blades, but never looked into it. Stellite is an interesting choice for an edge. It is very hard and tough stuff. I will be most curious to hear how it works.
Lynn, if you think of it and have a second, could you snap a close up photo including a few teeth? I'd like to see if we can tell if it's a bi-metal blade or actually stellite 'tipped'. Interesting concept.
Nevermind about the photo Lynn. I went to their site and they have good photos that answered my question, but created more questions. They have a brazed or welded stellite tip on every 3rd tooth. They say this should make very smooth boards.
The new questions are about setting. I am going to take a guess and say they have one tooth set left, one set right and the stellite tooth is not set, but full width and 'wipes' on both sides. It's going to be real interesting to see how this cuts.
Quote from: Old Greenhorn on August 16, 2024, 09:13:06 PMI am going to take a guess and say they have one tooth set left, one set right and the stellite tooth is not set, but full width and 'wipes' on both sides.
Yes Tom, this is the exact tooth combination on this blade. It also matches my 10° tooth gauge perfectly.
I also have a Wood-Mizer "stellite" blade that I have had for over 10 years and I have never used it because, well just because.
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It appears to have no set and only one wide tooth on the entire blade which is painted red. This is an oddball that I am sure was experimental and is no longer manufactured. All of the teeth appear to have a welded tip but they are not wider.
After the other blade dulls, I will put this thing on and see if it breaks, bleeds, or blisters. ffcheesy
I guess I'm trying to get my head wrapped around the "why" of it. If the two set teeth are conventional, and are made of conventional geometry and material, and so I would assume last and stay as sharp the exact same time as any other conventional teeth, what is the advantage of a brazed and tipped neutral raker? It should stay sharper longer, but as the conventional teeth get dull, the neutral tooth takes on the cutting load?
Is the width of the insert the same as the combined sets of the teeth? What if the sets of the left and right teeth are less or more and the neutral is cutting the kerf, so two dull teeth and one sharp one.
How would you sharpen or even set such a tooth pattern? CBN ? Diamond?
Just seems odd, but I'm also interested to hear the results.
Of course cost would be part of the equation, as well.
maybe it clears the sawdust better. Robert, you know how you hate sawdust on a board. :snowball: ffsmiley
Well at about $45/ea one would want to justify their value. Here is the LINK (https://norwoodsawmills.com/products/sabretooth-stellicut-tipped-sawmill-blades?variant=48522910368065) to their full info page on that blade. 10° and it says sharpen with CBN. They are touting the cut quality and the wear life.
Seems to me they did a lot of messing around with this idea and probably landed on something that showed good results. How it markets and sells is yet to be seen. Norwood wouldn't put something out that was a shot in the dark. It just costs too much for tooling and refit, let alone marketing and manufacturing. There has to be something to it.
Let's see how Lynn does with it. I bet this gets interesting. popcorn_smiley cone_1
Quote from: YellowHammer on August 17, 2024, 12:50:15 AMI guess I'm trying to get my head wrapped around the "why" of it. If the two set teeth are conventional, and are made of conventional geometry and material, and so I would assume last and stay as sharp the exact same time as any other conventional teeth, what is the advantage of a brazed and tipped neutral raker?
The set teeth do the bulk of the 'cutting', and the raker cleans up the cut? I've seen this in CNC applications, where they remove material in bulk with one tool, then change to a second one to 'clean up' what they just roughed out. The second tool has a finer cut (and made with a different material)... too expensive to use for bulk removal, so a cheaper tool removes most of the material and it's polished up with an expensive bit.
The marketing material suggests a 'smoother' cut, which makes me think that's the purpose of the modification.
Quote from: YellowHammer on August 17, 2024, 12:50:15 AMIf the two set teeth are conventional, and are made of conventional geometry and material.....
I just took a close look under my magnifier and the set teeth are conventional and not tipped. They are blued indicating heat treatment. As Robert mentioned, my question would also be the set teeth tips, which are my indicator of a not sharp blade. ??
This is also reverting back to a 10° blade which I have not used in several years. Anyway, Monday's sawing should be interesting. Since I am only sawing 4 hours per day, this could theoretically take several days.
Since the profile exactly matches my Wood-Mizer tooth gauge:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_2306_28Small29.JPG)
I'll add a splash of Paint and also talk to Marty Parsons before I send it to him for Resharp.
I'm interested in the results as well. I believe that's the same size blade o use on my lt28. I've ran a box of 10 degree double hards and can only get through around 8-10, 8'long 12-14" wide pines without it getting ugly. I know a lot of people use the 747's but I'm not sure that a 19hp kohler would be able to get it ripping through hard maple enough.
The tooth will certainly clean out the kerf but it also lops off some of the wood fibers that lead to the rough cut surface of the boards. I'm thinking it will result in a more finished appearance and feel right off of the mill. This should raise customer satisfaction for the mobile miller.
For the wood worker, it probably doesn't matter all that much as you have to work the wood with planers, jointers, etc. It would take less sanding if using a bare board.
Longevity, sharpening needs, more expensive. Only time will tell if its worth it.
I am going to follow along. I deal with Norwood blades all the time, lots of Norwoods in my neck of the woods as head office Canada is down the road. I have had a heck of a time trying to get a wheel to match Norwood blades. They don't want anyone sharpening there blades is all I can figure out. I have talked extensively with their parts department and service. Neither knows what is going on when it comes to sharpening. All I can tell is they use different manufactures for different blades, Lennox is one I know, Norwood does not readily sell a CBN wheel for they're blades, if they have one, which they don't keep in stock, but would have to order ,The cost is over $600 almost triple a WM CBN wheel.
So I just find a WM CBN wheel that's close and reshape the customers blades.
As I indicated in Reply #13 above, this trial blade matched my Wood-Mizer 10° profile gauge.
It goes on in the morning so we shall see. I will remove it at 12, clean the B57's and be ready to reinstall it Tuesday morning.
The trial is ongoing so no report yet.
I have tried a couple of times to reach Chris @ Norwood, but I have not gotten a response.
Anyway, I installed the SabreTooth blade Monday morning sawing the same SYP that I have been sawing for a few weeks.
It sawed as expected leaving a few tooth burr marks for the first couple of logs and then smoothing out very nicely. I saw nothing unusual about the sawing speed.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_6451.JPG) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=355246)
I always enter a log or cant at sawing speed and as you can see there was no blade chatter on entrance which is my normal.
My objection was that the blade did not completely dump it's sawdust at the sawdust chute, but carried a portion of sawdust around and dumped it on the driven side. This created a constant shower of sawdust which was unacceptable.
Now about blade longevity. After 6-8 logs I started seeing some knot wave, not much, but it was there and there was none when the blade was fresh. My magnifier showed the tooth tips starting to reflect. That is far as the trial went because....
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/IMG_6452.JPG) (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=355247)
Yup, fence wire destroyed the blade. End of trial. :uhoh:
That fence wire appeared like magic, man. :reddisgust:
Yes, but I had already made my evaluation. Even if it had produced good sawing quality and blade longevity, the sawdust would have been unacceptable.
Thank you for the review, I agree with sawdust coming back around as unacceptable. To me that is a sign to stop sawing and clean the fingers. I get lots of clogged Shute with EWP from my arborist as he uses a mini ex to move logs on his job sites and at his yard, so a fair bit of bark damage which end up clogging the fingers.
Thanks for sharing your results with the rest of the group!
Good info right here 👍👍
Thanks
I am still playing "phone tag" with Chris. I have left him messages and he has left me messages, but so far no talk.
I thought more about that blade when I was sawing today and the sawdust shower on the driven side is still a mystery. The logs are dry and so is the sawdust but I have sawn plenty of dry logs in the past. Absolutely no clog in the sawdust chute but that would cause a sawdust shower or spillage around the drive side anyway. Been there plenty of times, especially with Cypress with it's clingy sawdust.
Sorta like my experience with 747s which I like but with wind in my face I got showed in sawdust! Worse than standard 7s by far for me re: sawdust in face, but cut great!
I just had 8 blades from a Norwood sawmill, dropped at my shop to S&S. 4 are 1.5" 7? and 4 are the new Norwood 10? 1 carbide every 3rd tooth.
I tried sharpening the Norwood carbide and I'm not exactly thrilled about using my CBN wheel on it. I have tried my Diamond blade but with every 3rd tooth its not going to work.
I have called Norwood just down the road from me and am waiting and answer.
What has everyone heard?
I never was able to actually talk to/with Chris but his email to me stated that he had read my review that I emailed him.
My trial blade was 10° with the third (raker) being carbide (?). [EDIT: Stellite] The blade sawed OK but it did not dump all of it's sawdust load at the sawdust chute but rather carried some of it over to the driven side and dumped it there. The lesser amount of sawdust exiting the chute was quite noticeable.
Now to be fair, I do not remember whether my old 10° blades completely dumped their sawdust load. That was 2MMbf ago and now I only use Turbo 7 blades that have deep gullets which carry the load of sawdust and dumps it at the sawdust chute.
I hate that I hit metal which trashed the trial blade and was not able to record the sawing longevity.
It will be interesting to watch your reviews on your trial blades.
I am confused, are these things carbide or stellite as first stated. Those two materials are very different. Stellite is a tool steel and very tough. Carbide is a sintered material. Or did I miss the part where carbide got involved?
No need to be confused Tom. I did put a (?) behind "carbide" in my reply above rather than looking it back up.
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I suppose that I deserve 2 1/2 slaps with a wet noodle because my trial blade was indeed a Stellite tipped blade.
Not at all Lynn! I saw your (?) but then Stephen also said 'carbide', so I wanted to understand and be sure. Besides, someday, somebody as dense as me may come along and read this thread and be confused like me.
If these blades do find a following and some of our guys begin running them I would really be curious to see the differences between carbide and stellite for longevity, quality and operating cost.
The choice of Stellite is interesting and I would love to hear their engineering logic. Certainly they are cheaper than carbide.
I had misread also or just did the ultimate...assume,
I did run one blade around with the stelite 3rd tooth. I guess that's why I was able to clean the gullet. I am still a little confused but I am going to call that # MM posted as it's a local number to me.
I also sent the blade to the Sawyer with a request to let me know how it sawed. I have 3 more to sharpen. He also dropped off more blades for me to sharpen.
This Sawyer is having problems with his mill sawing flat, he's getting lots of waves. Judging by the condition of the blades, he is running the blades way to long, but that usually goes along with someone that is not charging enough.
I told him the same I tell other sawyers that come to have blades sharpened that are having troubles, New Blade, drive belt tension and blade guide alignment tool.
Quote from: Old Greenhorn on September 06, 2024, 02:03:18 PMThe choice of Stellite is interesting and I would love to hear their engineering logic. Certainly they are cheaper than carbide.
I suspect the ability to sharpen with the same equipment/wheel would be a top priority, also carbide would stay sharp longer but what would be the point if the rest of the blade is dull.
The salesman never returned my call. I called Norwood service line and got a good guy to chat with. The one tooth is a stiletto, so a hardened steel? he told me I can sharpen them with the CBN. He also told me they are R&R a CBN grinding wheel to match that blade and the other blades they sell.
I sharpened the customers blades, the stiletto blade I did with the WM 10degree, it did reasonably well, twice around and cleaned up most of the gullets. I think you can set them the same , but really do not see the need as the stiletto chip is wider.
I sharpened his other blades with my 7/39 wheel and same thing, twice around and turned that saw blade into a WM 7/39. I believe the Norwood are a Lennox brand.
I'm still waiting for him to pick up and pay for the blades. He sure was in a rush to have them sharpened. I always find customers like him are my lessons in Buisness. All new customers from now on are on a pay 1st when you drop off the blades.
Stephen,
Not sawmill related, but in response to your last thought. We kept track for 2 years, and if we happen to let a first time customer charge (it happens), we were 80% uncollectable.
Hopefully your luck will be better than ours.
Doc
That sounds like a losing proposition!
did they not come and get the blades, or did they take them and not pay. either way is not good.
It took a few phone calls, and an email, from my bill Collector, Cathy,
We finally got paid and they came for the blades. They dropped of 7 blades to be sharpened and I sent them a bill before I put them on the sharpener. He called after he paid and asked when he could pick them up, I said in 4 days I'd have them ready. Quiet on his end of the phone. ffcool