Trial a Blade?

Magicman · August 16, 2024, 03:22:50 PM

This blade came today for me to trial:

Chris even sent a pair of gloves.

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. ??

doc henderson · August 16, 2024, 04:10:05 PM

Nice. let us know!

Magicman · August 16, 2024, 04:24:06 PM

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.

DocGP · August 16, 2024, 05:23:56 PM

Can't think of a better person to test it for us either!!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Doc

jpassardi · August 16, 2024, 07:28:10 PM

Yes, ideal conditions for testing, thanks for sharing Lynn.

Nebraska · August 16, 2024, 08:17:31 PM

That's pretty cool.

Old Greenhorn · August 16, 2024, 08:45:27 PM

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.

Old Greenhorn · August 16, 2024, 09:13:06 PM

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.

Magicman · August 16, 2024, 10:04:00 PM

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.

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.

YellowHammer · August 17, 2024, 12:50:15 AM

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.

doc henderson · August 17, 2024, 01:56:56 AM

maybe it clears the sawdust better. Robert, you know how you hate sawdust on a board.

Old Greenhorn · August 17, 2024, 08:24:00 AM

Well at about $45/ea one would want to justify their value. Here is the LINK 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.

NewYankeeSawmill · August 17, 2024, 08:35:24 AM

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.

Magicman · August 17, 2024, 09:00:05 AM

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:

Part Number 065691

I'll add a splash of Paint and also talk to Marty Parsons before I send it to him for Resharp.

Cdaniels1377 · August 17, 2024, 12:53:49 PM

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.

rusticretreater · August 17, 2024, 02:27:23 PM

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.

Stephen1 · August 18, 2024, 08:37:07 PM

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.

Magicman · August 18, 2024, 09:02:28 PM

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.

Magicman · August 19, 2024, 07:11:55 PM

The trial is ongoing so no report yet.

Magicman · August 21, 2024, 04:33:55 PM

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.

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....

Yup, fence wire destroyed the blade. End of trial.

rusticretreater · August 21, 2024, 04:45:11 PM

That fence wire appeared like magic, man.

Magicman · August 21, 2024, 05:35:07 PM

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.

Stephen1 · August 22, 2024, 07:54:44 AM

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.