How well does doubble thooth setters work compaired to every other tooth style ?
Advantages of cbn wheel over drag set up ?
Anyone runing new lennox woodmaster c sharp blades , or the timberwolf cobalt .
pros and cons 0.042 vs 0.055 blades ?
Has any one done back to back test of different mfg's blabes right out of the box ?
I suspect this topic comes round alot ,but techonology is evolving and the bar keeps being raised slowly but shurely .
I cut mainly ultra hard exotics so blade performance and serviceability is really important
I don't sharpen and set my own since I'm 60 miles from a WM resharp. But as far as band thickness the.055 will out cut thinner bands in hard to saw wood if you have the HP to pull them. Down side is short life as far as number of revolutions that the band makes before breaking. At least that's my experience. As a general compromise I run 1 1/2. .045 7deg.
I set and sharpen my own, pretty much stick to wm 1 1/4 .045 10 deg. Good compromise for a wide variety of logs..Don't mess with something that works ;D Sharpener is old (1995) drag type which works quite well, but there is a learning curve. Setter is old wm single tooth, modified with pineywoods dual tooth mod. One of my better brain storms..
I sharpen and set my own blades. I get about 8 sharpening s out of a blade before it has run its life out. I limit the number of settings to only 1 or 2 times. I set to about .028" and mostly cut pine, birch, tamarack, black ash and aspen.
Goodndusty must have a mill. What kind it is it? been sawing long?
I only saw for myself,so I don't count. I have my done by someone else. I probably only have about 20 blades sharpen a year,than may not even start the mill for another year. I went just about 3 years in between once. My Father could do it real easy. I would struggle with it.
Hello, Goodndusty, and Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
In answer to the thread title, I use WM Resharp. $10 per blade sharpened/set which includes shipping both ways. If a blade is rejected, they add a new one at discounted price.
It is simply a personal preference and business decision that we all make for various reasons. When I am not sawing, I spend my time with my family.
I sharpen and set my own. I got a good deal on an old brewco sharpener and I built a pineywoods vise band setter. I Placed an order with Menominee saw a while back and got a variety of bands. I got two woodmizer bands, three Simmons red streaks, three woodmaster c's, and two monkey blades. Before that I had a box of timberwolf. Now I have some unused woodmaster c-sharps I need to try out this weekend. Of the ones I have tried so far, timberwolf and monkey blades are tied for first. I really liked the red streaks as well especially the price. Every mill is different so I would reccomend you do the same thing I did and order a variety pack and decide for yourself. I might sharpen the same band three or four times in one sawing session. That $40 gets to stay in my pocket and I keep a sharper band on average than if I were trying to milk my money's worth out of them to send them off.
For right now, I am going to use the resharp. We used a resharpener service with our previous mill, and now I just need one more dull blade to complete the box of 15 to send WM shortly. However, we do have the old-style sharpener and single-tooth setter, and have never used them. Whenever I have somebody mechanically-inclined available to help over a long period of time, we may get to doing it in-house.
I sharpen my own mainly because it gives me better control over my blades. I seem to get a better edge then a new blade that cuts better and last longer. I have a WM cbn pro series sharpener a cooks sharpener and a cooks dual tooth setter. I have tried hiring helpers to do my sharpening but the quality just isn't there as when you do it yourself.
For Me I use to have the old WM drag type and single setter, and when I had the 1 1/4 x 45 x10 on my old WMs it was ok,
but with the new mill and useing the 1 1/4x55x7 the old one din't make it :D sharpen one blade and have to redo the stone on each blade was a pith
Now with the CBM and dual setter Im doing good, I can set and sharpen a box of blades in just over an hr, I did use WM resharp for a short time and they did good
so with the new WM CBN and after I sharpen all the blades to pay back the money I spent for it , now Im paying my self 70+ an hr to do my blades 8) 8) and I run them till they brake :D :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22511/sharpener_and_setter_002%7E0.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22511/3205/sharpener_and_setter_001.JPG)
I set and sharpen my blades.
I set my blades every time.
I use the Cook's single tooth setter and the Cat Claw sharpener with good results.
I usually average around 8 sharpenings before the blade goes in the scrap metal box.
I use Wood-Mizer .045x1¼x10°
Zomber,if your into milling for the long haul and not just A "puttermiller"doing your own will pay,it is an investment that will pay you back.Disclamer, some don't have the time or inclination to do there own,their option.I started grinding bands on a modified bench grinder and homemade single tooth setter.I now use a Cooks cats claw and a dual tooth setter,boath have paid for themselves and its pure savings now.As suggested each mill has a preferance for a "best" band try em then settle down to what works best for you.Much easier to sharpen and set bands that are all the same.Its all in how much you cut. Frank C.
Cooks has them on sale right now.I think their dual tooth setter is down to $995 .I have them both and very well pleased with them.
I sharpen and set my own. I typically sharpen three times...and "set" on the third time. Works good if I dont run them too long before sharpening.
One good thing about light powered mills they keep you honest with your band maintenance.Big engines you have a tendency to BS your way through and not sharpen as often as you should. Frank C.
I had taken some video of customsawyer's process. His operation is impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJOL0xb6VsY&feature=player_profilepage
sharpen and set when needed, nice set up Jake, thanks moose for the vid,
Pretty SHARP video you made there, Moose. smiley_thumbsup
Uh, dumb question here ??? Is Jake using 2 sharpeners to speed the process or does each blade have to go thru both machines before the setter :-\
It would speed things up, maybe he has two different hook angles, and profiles,
I use two different sharpeners to speed up the process. As you can see in the video that setting is the fastest part of the operation. I have actually been thinking about adding a third sharpener as I have no trouble keeping up with the two sharpeners. Keep in mind that I take multiple light passes so my sharpening is a bit slower than some. The quality you get from the light passes is priceless. All of my blades have are the same hook angle.
so customsayer you go around 2 or 3 times on a blade
On the first sharpening I am going around 5 times. On the following sharpening I can clean it up in 3 passes. The reason for 5 times on the first sharpening is that that (RIP Tom) is what it takes to clean up the very edge of the set teeth. I have and use a magnifying glass. If you use it regularly, it will show you when you need to take another pass. It is easier to take another pass then it is to have the blade on the mill and it not cut right. ;) I don't worry about how long it takes me to sharpen the blades. My main concern is how the blades cut. If you saw the other video that Mooseherder put up of me sawing you can see that I am pushing these blades pretty hard, so they have to be right.
I will be picking your brain Customsawyer. My blades are 229 inches Inch and a half. I have an old old old WM Sharpener and single setter. Slow like a snail.
As soon as my wallet permits, I hope to purchace the cooks cat claw sharpener. So I'm sure I will be in need of some constructive advise.
Thanks guys for the warm greetings. I will try to add some info in my profile later to show my set up.
From what I am reading here it looks like I am getting about average use from my blades. My mill has 24" wheels and I believe that the larger the wheels the longer the blade will turn. Another thing that seems to add to longevity is how close you can have the guides to the wood along with the speed of cut (how aggressive). I have a friend that cuts his cants on a circular mill and uses the bandsaw as a modified re-saw using a powered infeed and return similar to the Baker re-saw unit. Anyway, he gets a lot of life out of his blades. I sharpen and set his blades for him at a cost of $10 per blade cut and set. I do some custom sharpening and setting for the local fellows and has helped me recover my costs for the setter and sharpener. I should add that I have a Dino double tooth setter and a Cat Claw sharpener with 4 different cams to allow for the different tpi.
I sharpen and set my own. I use a Champion single tooth manual setter and a Champion grinder, manual, hand crank, with two cams (one for profile and one for feed). I always clean first, set second and sharpen last. I cut almost exclusively softwoods now, including a lot of Tamarack and Spruce, so I set the teeth to about 0.028". I get about 10 to 12 sharpenings to each blade, but I tend to sharpen early rather than make the mill (and me) work too hard, so the sharpening is pretty easy.
John
Quote from: customsawyer on January 31, 2013, 07:27:08 PM
On the first sharpening I am going around 5 times. On the following sharpening I can clean it up in 3 passes. The reason for 5 times on the first sharpening is that that (RIP Tom) is what it takes to clean up the very edge of the set teeth. I have and use a magnifying glass. If you use it regularly, it will show you when you need to take another pass. It is easier to take another pass then it is to have the blade on the mill and it not cut right. ;) I don't worry about how long it takes me to sharpen the blades. My main concern is how the blades cut. If you saw the other video that Mooseherder put up of me sawing you can see that I am pushing these blades pretty hard, so they have to be right.
Interesting sharpening technique and understandable when you see the video of the mill in action. The set teeth edge corners probably incur the most stress and wear . One question, do the grinding lines across the gullet reduce after each pass or are they still visible with the naked eye after the fifth pass?
We let our old Cook's sharpener and Suffolk Machinery dual tooth setter go when we sold the LT 40. Bought new Cook's to replace them. They work better on the 2 inch wide blades than the old ones. Usually, its one pass only on sharpening. We have a guy come in twice a week and set/sharpen. The thing I like about the Cook's is we can vary hook angle easily. Sometimes that comes in handy. We also have to use more set on cottonwood. It gives us the ability as well to sharpen from 1 1/4 resaw blades up to 2 inch wide blades. If we had only one mill and always used the same hook angle, I think the CBN wheel grinder would be the one.
Unless we hit metal, I don't see multiple passes. Who knows. Maybe we been doing it wrong all these years.
The topic of multi passes with the sharpener is a good one. When my blades are new I just touch the tips to get them sharp. Of course this removes some set so the blade needs to be set after the 3rd or 4th sharpening. After they are set I use multi passes to form the gullet back again. Then its back to sharpening the tips which is the quickest way to get the blades back sharp. Now I have opened up a can of worms concerning the best techniques to sharpen blades. The idea of keeping the same tooth and gullet shape as the blade manufacturer has created (with testing differences) every time you sharpen your blade is a valid point. I find that the blades don't last for too many more sharpening s after I set them. Anyone else have this experience?
Back to the original question. I think I would have let someone else sharpen my blades if there had been someone doing it when I started about 12 years ago. My set up to sharpen and set was close to $5,000.00 with taxes back then. The closest custom grinders were 70 miles away. So to me it was a no brainer. ;D
Tommone the lines are still there but very faint.
One of the reasons that I sharpen like I do is it gives me a larger cutting surface that is square to the blade. This helps the blade cut better and stay sharp longer. I normally only get 2-4 sharpening per blade but they are able to produce a large amount of lumber per sharpening. My sharpened blades cut better than new blades. This has me thinking about sharpening my new blades before I use them, I doubt if I will but sure have been thinking about it.
Custom, I think you are right about the complete square face, I have rushed a few times not getting all the rounded edge off, and it really shows on the length of time the blade will last. As far as the quick fuzz job before running a new blade, it does make one wonder, we know that a fresh resharp is always sharper than the new ones,
Customsawyer:
You said "My sharpened blades cut better than new blades". I've been told that a new blade is punched and a re-sharpened blade is ground. If that is true it is very possible that your re-sharpened blades are sharper than new ones. I am not the best when it comes to sharpening tools, and after attending the seminar that was held at the OSU campus in Piketon, Ohio, I decided to not bother with trying to do it myself as the blade is the heart of the machine. This week W-M personnel were at the VT Farm Show and I gave them 2 boxes of blades to bring back to W-M Re-sharp in Hannibal. Should have them back by mid week.
Gerald
Gab I think that the main reason new blades don't do as well is the cutting edge of the tooth. My new blades are 1¾X.055X10° and are set at .027. If you look strait down on the teeth of a new blade the teeth that are set will not have the cutting edge of the tooth square to the body of the blade. This puts most of the cutting being done by just the corner of the tooth. If you look strait down on the cutting edge of my resharpened blades the cutting edge of the tooth is square to the blade and gives me much better performance.
Very informative thread. Thanks Custom, for sharing your knowledge here :) I have the same mill, so when I get ready to sharpen my own blades I'll have to look this thread up. I didn't know you could run 1 3/4 blades on the 70. 1 1/4 was recommended to me. Is there a reason why you prefer the wider bands? Thanks, Scott
I run the wider bands on the mill that cuts to long timbers due to how hard I push it. The other mill that I do my portable stuff with runs the 1½ blades. It don't get pushed as hard so don't need the extra body of the blade.
Jake,
Good video. I like the new digs ;D.
Custom sawyer, reason that I asked about the grinding lines is that I know of a major commercial mill who used to remove the grinding lines from the gullet of swaged bandsaw blades using a rotating abrasive band like a conveyer belt in the direction of the blade. Claimed they could run mill 15% faster as the surface was smoother.
They later eliminated the process when they changed to Stellite tipped blades. Something to pore over. Tom
I haven't tried nor have I seen a benefit to getting rid of the lines.
Jake, you get better results with the squared blade because it works like a chisel and gouges out the long grain. Same as with a rip blade on a table saw. A crosscut blade has a beveled top angle to slice through the grain and as you said it doesn't cut long grain very well. The best reason for setting and then sharpening. If you sharpen then set you end up with a beveled top angle.
Jake,do you use finer grit wheel or the standard.??Myself I sharpen often and usally just once around the block.I should try your method of multiple light passes.I get very long life from my bands they start off 1 1/2" and start to dive around 1 1/4" when I junk them.I leave the Timberwolf cam on my cats claw as I prefer the deep gullet and that does them all.Hook angle is about 6 degrees.Usally a new band won't get its gullet cleaned til the second or third sharpening,I take the bare minimum off for a sharp band.If I'am getting good straight cuts I don't mess with changing the set or hook. Frank C.
WM CBN sharpeners, do you have any trick for getting the amount face grind vs. back grind (how far the blade advances each time) just right? Do you go by seeing sparks or not off the face? By feeling the wheel rubbing against the face? if not how do you make this setting for each blade?
In my use of the shop series CBN, it looks like to me that the secret to a light grind that is complete all the way up the back of the tooth, is to have very little face grind. That way the grinder is contacting the back all the way up. Sometimes if the setting is a bit off it can go around several times removing 15 thou or more, and the top of the teeth especially the inside set one is not fully ground.
Jake and I had this conversation a while back about finishing up with a finer stone .I would think the profile on each stone would have to be the same.Wonder where someone could find a finer stone and what grit.It might come in handy when your trying to show off with a big old ugly piece of pecan.
Slider,going around the band so many times and taking so little off per pass you could just leave a finer wheel on the machine.Grinder manuf.'s know that average joe muff sawyer is only going to make one or at most two passes so they have to put a courser grit so as not to burn the teeth. Frank C.
Cooks sells 3 different grits. The pink ones are really soft and loose their profile quickly unless you take a super light grind. The blue ones are a little more forgiving but still soft and work well with a pretty light grind. The black wheels are 36 grit, same as the ones you can get from WM. They also sell a 3/8 thick wheel. I never tried one but imagine it would make it easyer to get a complete grind.
I have only used Cook's blue "rocks", right from day 1.
EDIT: The blue rocks are 60grit!
They seem to give a good smooth finish and last quite a while.
I touch up the profile after doing 3-4 blades.
I had made a mark on the cbm wheel when new with a new blade, when I sharpen a blade I hit the mark with the depth and my blade is right on face, back side and gullet in one pass top of tooth is 90 to the blade I set first ,thats what works for me,
Good luck with what works for you :)
I sharpen my blades with a wm cbn and dual setter just learning but is working well
I sharpen my own blades. It sure is nice to be able to sharpen your blades how you like them.I use an older woodmizer drag type grinder with home built tooth setter. I check my set with a sorta clip on dial indicator. Its been working well for me since I have all these great people on here to help when ya just can't figure it out ;D
I use the the grinding stones from Timber Wolf. They are pink and I think they are 80 grit. I will double check on that. I have tried the doing less passes and it works okay on about 75% of the blades. By doing the multiple passes I haven't had a blade not cut right in a long time. When I am at the big mill it is more important that all of the blades work. One of the quickest ways to get by blood pressure up is to put on a blade and it not cut right. I would rather take a little more time in the shop, then loose time at the mill.
I sharpen some blades to day , I went around the blade with the setter then the sharpener but I think I hit a rock or some thing the outher day , one pass was not enough , :D I don't know if you can see it a shiney spot on the top out side of the tooth
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22511/DSCN2762.JPG)
I have to sharpen past that so the pont is there :D
heres a short one, winter is bad on blades :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22511/DSCN2766.JPG)
It's about 1/16 short where the red mark is , I tryed to use the pencil to show it, I use the red die to show me that the cbm is hitting the hole profile on the tooth, I did go around 3 times to get it right,
customsawyer is right your blood pressure will go up when a blade misbehaves :D :D
now I have to something with this mess, I have to get the oil to run back it the oil bath and not on the floor :D It drips off the blade
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/22511/DSCN2764.JPG)
The pics that I posted here were supposed to be in a different thread. So I have removed them as they had nothing to do with this topic.
Peter, you might want to play around with some home-made blade wipers.
I recently gave up on my sharpening service, partly because he would not wipe the excessive oil off the blades. I have a grand total of 9 sharp blades to my credit ;D using a borrowed LTAGA grinder. I was already getting annoyed at the water dripping off the blade so this morning I knocked off a couple of make-shift wipers. It took about an hour.
Here's a side view of the installed wipers.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3149_opt_side_view.JPG)
On each side of the blade is an HDPE mounting block with a flexible plastic wiper fastened to it. I used a large spring clamp to hold the mounting blocks in place against the blade clamps on the sharpener.
Here's what it looks like from the end.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3151_opt_end_view.JPG)
A real sandwich. Spring clamp on the outside (black & orange), mounting blocks (sort of white), sharpener blade clamp (steel grey), and in the center, the blade. Toward the camera you can see how I attached the flexible wipers to the mounting blocks. This was very experimental so I tried a socket head machine screw on the right and a slotted machine screw with washer on the left. The left hand one is easier to fine tune.
Here's a side view without the clamp.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3158_opt_wiper_mounting.JPG)
It only looks like the mounting block is bolted to the sharpener clamp. It isn't, though. The clamp has three staggered holes at each end to support different blade widths. Since I'm using 1-1/2" blades the blade support bolt (silver bolt below the mounting block) is in the bottom hole. The black socket head machine screw on the right is threaded through the mounting block but simply slides into highest unused hole. The mounting block can't swivel down because it's resting on the silver support bolt.
Below the clamp you can see the standard aluminum blade wiper that's supplied with the sharpener. It's supposed to be bolted under the clamp adjusting bolt but I just cut it short at the mounting hole and I hold it in place with a larger rare-earth magnet. The magnet is the big black blob below the aluminum wiper (it's completely covered in metal filings and grinder debris).
The side wipers are drawing fluid down the blade so it's important that the bottom wiper contact the blade to the left of the side wipers.
Here's the mounting block and wiper removed from the sharpener.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3154_opt_wiper_front.JPG)
On the left is my first attempt at shaping a wiper. It actually worked but it wasn't wide enough to cover the whole blade. The first hole was in the wrong place as well. On the right is the wiper-mounting block assembly for the back side of the blade (it's upside down in the picture).
Here's the same assembly seen from the back.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3155_opt_wiper_back.JPG)
You can see how the machine screw protrudes through the back. I wanted it as deep as possible into the unused blade clamp bolt hole, but not so far that it touched the blade.
And here's the answer to the question on everyone's mind -- what did I make the wipers out of. In this case it was the lid from an 4 oz (or 125 ml) cream cheese container. All sorts of dairy products come in these containers -- cream cheese, yogurt, sour cream, etc. The lids make great wiper material -- it's soft but flexible, cuts easily with scissors, is easy to punch holes in, and is waterproof. I don't know how it will stand up to oil-based fluids but the stuff is so easy to find you can easily make up spare wipers. Just keep your first designs as a template.
The mounting blocks were cut from a single piece of 3/8" x 1" x 3" HDPE (High Density Polyethylene). You only have to make one cut -- the two pieces are perfect mirror images. HDPE is great to work with -- you can drill it, cut is with a hack saw, tap it, trim it with a utility knife or chisel, or use just about any metal or wood-working tool with it. You could also use brass or aluminum, or bend something out of heavy gauge sheet metal.
I tapped the holes for the machine screws (1/4" fine thread) but I didn't bother tapping the holes for the smaller screw that hold the wipers in place. Just drilled the holes slightly undersized and ran the screws in.
This thing worked really, really well. There's a film of moisture on the blade but it doesn't drip any more. I do have to remove the blocks when I'm changing blades but it's very easy to do.
Even if you don't have a lot of machine tools never underestimate the power of duct tape ;D.
Clever idea , Brucer. Can you bond or otherwise fix a piece of foam or other material to the wiper to absorb the remaining moisture from the blades . May even come out dry. Just a thought!Tom
Brucer , look good and thanks for the food for thought, I do have to do some thing :D :D
Tom: There is a very, very thin film on the surface of the blade. It's already evaporating by the time it gets back around to the sharpener. I would tend to put any absorbent material on separately, positioned after the wipers. Otherwise it would be absorbing all the fluid that the wipers remove. There is more fluid on the sides of the teeth but an absorbent material there would get torn up by the teeth. Perhaps a pair of absorbent rollers outside the fluid tray would work.
Peter: This was very much a seat-of-pants effort. Originally I was going to replace the blade support bolt with a longer one that ran through a pair of 1/16" aluminum mounting strips (which I salvaged from the frames of some old floppy drives). A light spring slid onto this bolt would press the back mounting strip against the rear blade clamp and would pull the head of the bolt against the front blade clamp.
The leading edges of these two strips would be bent back away from the blade at the same compound angles as I used on the HDPE blocks. That would give me a couple of flanges that I could clamp the wipers to. To clamp the wipers I was going to use a couple of those black paper clips that have folding "handles" to open them.
Since I only had one paper clip on hand, and a block of HDPE, I ended up with what you see in the pictures.
I've run 5 blades through these wipers now and I found the wipers tend to take a bit of a "set" so they don't press as tightly against the blade. That turned out to be easy to fix -- just bend them by hand the other way :D.
I've read a few comments about problems setting the hook angle on the older LTAGA grinder and also on the earlier CBN grinder. It seems the head will sometimes slip.
When I was rebuilding my borrowed grinder I found the mounting/clamping bolt was incredibly tight. Not only did I need to hammer the wrench to break it free, I had to hammer it all the way off :o. When I finally got the bolt undone I discovered the threads on the bolt and on the head mounting plate were grossly distorted. I have no clue how the operator ever got it all the way on ???.
I fixed it, but I didn't figure it would stand up to extreme tightening. I also found it difficult to position the head just so and get the bolt nice and tight without shifting the head. So I made a small addition.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11885/3136_opt_jack_screw.JPG)
This is a simple jack screw that let's me adjust and hold the angle of the saw head while I tighten the clamping bolt. It's just a small piece of keystock -- 3/8" square by 1-1/2" long -- attached to the mounting plate with a couple of #10-32 machine screws. A 1" machine screw presses against the base to hold the head in place.
The threads are coated with "Never-Seez" to keep them from rusting up. I just take some pressure off by lifting the grinder motor slightly and then turn the jack screw by hand. A full turn of the screw will change the hook angle by about 1-1/2°.
It's very easy to hold the angle guage under the motor and make fine adjustments to get it just right.
Best of all, I can tighten the clamping bolt and the grinder head simply won't move.
nice job :)