Is anyone using the Hudson band sharpener and what do you think of it. I have decided it's time for me get a sharpener and I can't decide which one to get. I'm looking at the one from Hudson Forestry and Cooks Cat claw. Any help would really be nice. Thanks LPitt
I like the looks of the cat's claw. that's a nice sharpener.
I have the Cat's Claw from Cooks.
Very nice, does a real good job and like most, very precise.
I have a hudson sharpener and wish I would have never bought it, the grind rock has to turn to fast to get thru the profile cycle, motor isnt strong enough, the push finger pushes 3 teeth behind of the one to be sharpened,,, after viewing the cooks sharpener and video, I made some changes on mine to help,,, I got rid of the tiny little round adjustment knobs and welded on a Tee handles,, I added weight to the sharpener head to cut down on the vibration/bounce,, { to much weight and the cam wont lift the head } I lengthend the push finger so it pushes the tooth to be sharpened,,, It does a pretty good job now, but it AINT no Cooks,,,Wish I had a Cats claw sharpener,, If I had it to do over I would buy the one w/o the motor,, Amish I think its called..You csan see a few pix of mine in the gallery.
Alot of you folks on here cut alot of hardwood. I wish we had hardwood. All I cut is pine so it is much easier than your hardwoods to cut unless you get into some ponderosa where you see alot of knots. The small bandmill I use just uses the smaller what I would call "throwaway blades" I am still able to sharpen a couple of times but I just use a thin cutoff wheel in a angle grinder and touch them up. Most of the time I get from 18 to 24 hours running time before they work hardin. They then of course crack and break.
If the push rod doesn't work against the tooth being ground, I can see all kinds of problems that could develop. I wonder why they chose to do it that way?
Joe
Thanks Robnrob, that's the kind of information I needed. I haven't read about anyone not liking the cats claw. The hudson is cheaper but still a lot of money for a sharpener that I may not be happy with. Do you think the one without the motor will just as well or should I just ahead and the the one everyone seems to like so much? Thanks again for everybody's input.
Lpitts,The Cooks cats claw is over engineered very adaptable and worth the extra money.Cooks are good folks to deal with, you could probibly take a road trip and pick it up yourself with instructions for its use. Frank C.
Quote from: logwalker on January 06, 2011, 11:49:25 AM
If the push rod doesn't work against the tooth being ground, I can see all kinds of problems that could develop. I wonder why they chose to do it that way?
Joe
Hudson did it that way because its small,, less then 20 pounds and for economics,,and let me tell ya if the tooth space at the weld is off, and it usually is,, there goes several teeth,,Hudson has a nice video tho,,,
When I bought mine bout 3 years ago at that time it was $1250 ,, its gotta be more today, and is just not worth the money,,, But once I got invested in it I had to keep it, and make it sharpen good,,, and it does o.k. If I could get $400 for mine, I would buy the Cooks w/o the motor,,, I have been there and had them demonstrated,,Is a matter of fact, they had several shelves with 3-4 foot pieces of band blades to put on the machine to fine tune it, before installing the welded band.
It never ceases to amaze me that every time someone asks a question about some product made by Hud-son, that there are usually more negative replies than positive recommendations. This thread is obviously no exception to that rule. In fact if you search for Hudson sharpener, you will find no less than 6 previous threads giving this exact same unit a thumbs down.
Now my intent is not to give Hud-Son any bad press, but you would think that any company that manufactures a given product or product line would want to know what their customers think of the products they are selling and improve upon their products based on the feedback they get. Many of the suggestions appear to be rather simple to incorporate and the cost of making a good product versus a inferior one is often minimal.
It appears that they have some decent ideas that could become good viable products if only the improved the robustness or made some simple modifications along the way based on customer feedback or constructed them of slighlty better materials. Why they opt to ignore customer feedback and continue their reputation as second rate products is really beyond my comprehension. ???
i like the look of the cooks too.
that said '' i dont own one''.
i purchased a sharpener from the manufacturer of my mill and it works well even though it isnt automatic and it only grinds the face. it costs 1/4 of what the cooks costs.
i would like to know (i may start a new thread about it) how much to expect from a blade. many sharpeners that grind the whole profile do a great job of getting the blade sharp, but how long will they last after you get past the hardness of the tooth? is it really cost effective to have a high$ sharpener do it for you or can you learn to sharpen with just a modified bench grinder and get all the goodie out of a blade without all the extra expense. i know what mine will do but what about yours.
avg of 7 sharpenings per blade 300 bd ft avg (in hardwoods)
the blades i use costs $18
my sharpener cost $500
thats an avg of $.0085 per bd ft blade cost.
ps. this is an atempt to highjack your thread. take it back if you like. this is not a paid advertisment either.
pc
I have a Cooks and it is heavily built and does a great job.
GF
I have a cooks and a WM pro CBN sharpener and I like them both. The only thing I will add is there is pros and cons to both.
I am a owner of a hutson sharpener and was not at all happy with it initally. There is a long learning curve that goes along with it. The operating instructions that came with it arent worth having. Yes it will sharpen different profiles and pitchs but it takes many hrs to learn the tool. It does a good job for me now but i would not advise the purchase of this sharpener. I have sharpened many blades with mine and still use it. It is slow it takes 20 minutes to make 1 pass on a 12 ft blade. I cant compare it to anything because i have never used another. I to made modifications to my sharpener. I would advise not buying this tool nor the tooth setter. I would like to buy a new sharpener but really dont know what to buy.Idont want another push grinder. make a good decision based on input from the forestry forum.Very good advice here.I havent had much imput here but i felt i needed to speak on a topic i am knowledgeable about.I know this sharpener very well. DONT BUY IT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Fofsg7HUY&feature=related
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Busy Beaver, Hudson equipment will do what its suposed to but it seems to be built on the light end of the scale.I have looked at it and watched it run but have always come away with the feeling I could build it better,its made to a price. Frank C.
Paul,if your getting 7 sharpenings from a band your doing something right you can't expect much more.Before I got my Cooks I used the bench grinder and had good results problem was theirs a learning curve and its tiring on the hands, also best to sharpen before miller time. Frank C.
I have a Cook's Cat Claw that is 17 years old. 15 of those years I was a full time sawyer and used the sharpener almost daily. Over the course of those 17 years, I have worn out 4 of the push motors, two push rods and maybe a dozen of the little pins that engage the teeth. All were easy repairs. I don't see why I won't get another 20 years out of it. It is still going strong!
Hud-son strikes me as the Walmart of forest equipment. If you want low price, Hud-son is there to serve you. Two quotes from John Ruskin come to mind when I think of Hud-son equipment:
"When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do."
— John Ruskin
There is hardly anything in the world that some man can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.
- John Ruskin
:D
I bought my Cooks Cats Claw sharpener in May '08.
Real easy to use and very heavy duty.
I usually average 6-8 sharpenings on my bands.
I average around 7-8 hundred board feet before changing the band.
I figured if I amortize this equipment out, when I sharpen my 350th band, the sharpener will be paid off.
That is compared to sending them off to Resharp.
i suppose that if you own a $15k to $50k mill the sharpener expense isnt a large initial investment. but if your mill only cost $6500 an automatic sharpener is a big initial investment. what if it took more than 3 years to sharpen that 350'th blade. a lot could change for a part time sawyer in that amount of time. i figured i only sharpened 300 bands in the first 2 years i had mine.
cooks cat claw sharpener looks like a much better and faster sharpener than the hudson. i personally think that either is a little bit extravagant for the part timer. pc
It takes between 5 & 6 minutes for my bands to go full circle on the sharpener.
That is the reason I bought the WM sharpener to speed up my sharpening process. I can clean about 20 blades per hour or set 20 blades an hour and the sharpener can do about 4-5 blades per hour so I bought another sharpener to speed up the process. When you go through 30- 60 blades a week you can get behind if you have other stuff pop up and keep you from sharpening a few weeks in a row.
Customsawyer, what are the pros and cons of the two sharpeners? I like the simplicity of the WM CBN system, but the cook's seems more versatile if I wanted to do sharpening for others. The cook's looks nice and beefy too.
Bender,if your doing the volume Custom is doing with the identicle bands CBN is the way to go.Most of us have several different types of bands with different hook and spacing that would make the Cooks the best choice.Frank C.
The pros to the WM is that you don't lose any time dressing the stone and there is not much chance of messing up the profile it is very simple to operate and has less room for me to make mistakes. The cons is that it is more difficult to get the blade in and out of the machine and it is a bit more messy with the oil and all.
The pros to the cooks is that the rocks are cheaper and you can play with the dressing of the rock a little bit and try different styles to your profile. I use it a fair bit to sharpen blades that have hit metal as I cut all the nail logs from the big mill into the crane mat timbers so I have about 100 blades that I use for nail blades. Most of the time I can take about 6 light passes and fix the blade to where it will cut again and since it will most likely hit a nail with in about 10 cuts I don't try to make them perfect I will keep cutting with them even after they have hit metal if they are still cutting strait so most of them have several nail hits by the time I sharpen them. The cons to the cooks is there always seems to be some little thing working lose on it and you might sharpen 20-30 blades and take them to the mill and they don't cut just right so you go back and try to figure out why and it usually takes about 10 min. to find some little thing that is worked lose. I don't know if you can blame that on the cooks or me for not catching it when it happens but it does raise the blood pressure up a bit. With grinding the blade dry I tend to take many light passes trying to not heat up the blade and change the temper of the metal.
I haven't had the WM sharpener but for a couple of weeks so don't know how many other things I might find that will fall into the pros and cons area.
CS, I know I've not sharpened the numbers of blades you have, but I've sharpened a little over 200 blades on my Cat's Claw.
What are you finding that loosens up. I check mine over every once in a while and find nothing out of adjustment or loose.
Just wondering what to start looking for.
Thanks for the info customsawyer.
The last thing I had loosen up was the set screw that is in the nut you turn to adjust how far the blade is advanced when the cam turns. There is a small screw in the nut that you adjust to keep the big nut from moving a little while it is grinding of course I should have noticed that the sound of the grinding was changing from the start of the blade to the finish. In my defense sometimes I am cleaning blades with a side grinder and a wire brush while the grinding is going on. Like I posted before I don't know how much you can blame on the grinder and how much is my fault for not catching it as it happened. In defense of the grinder it has sharpened heaps of blades and is still going strong.