bandmill blade questions

[chainsaw_louie]

Made some progress...

Cleaned off what appeared to be a combination of pitch and rust, with a light touch of an orbital sander , only the blade body , didn't sand the tips.  Discovered the WoodMizer M4XM label after cleaning the blade.

Next, put the blade back on the Woodlandmills sharpener and played with the settings until I got it to grind the back of the tooth all the way up to the cutting edge.  I discovered that the pusher was set up to push the current tooth, I changed it to push on the 1 ahead , the on-deck tooth. This gave me the control needed to reach the back of the teeth all the way up.

I'm hoping that these sharp, square corners are going to make a big difference in how much the blade gets pushed around by knots etc resulting in wavy cuts or straight.

I did notice a bit of blueing on the tips from the heat of grinding , not every tooth, hard to control and not do that. 

I

[Bradm]

I've been sharpening bands, blades, and cutters for 20+ years and here's my thoughts on what I'm seeing in your pictures.

Top image looks like you have a negative hook angle.  In my experience, this is what I have seen when a customer brings in bands for sharpening and they say "bands aren't cutting".  This is caused by excessive wear on both the corner and side of the grinding wheel that contacts the tooth face.

If I increase the size of the bottom image, though I lose resolution, it really appears that the grinding wheel has the same shape to it that I think I'm seeing in the gullet.  I would recommend trying either a new grinding wheel or reducing the diameter of the one on the grinder until the side of the wheel is straight (probably close to 1/2" so if you need a radius rather than a sharp corner, put one back on afterwards).

Edit - formatting.

[chainsaw_louie]

Good point , I'll check the hook angle with a square and angle measuring tool.

[OnParr]

Great job. I am a newbie on here, but have that sharpener and setter.

When setting the teeth, bend them a few thou more than you want the final set to be as the teeth spring back a bit. On mine where I have the gauge measuring the tooth from I get 39-41 thou when I set the tooth, and then it is 21-24 when I just touch the gauge to the tooth. I may be pushing on the tip of the tooth where there is maximum spring in the tooth.

With the sharpener, watch the left edge of the grinding wheel. It will wear and not cut to your desired angle. Try and measure the angle on the face of the tooth every 3-4 bands and you will likely see they are closer to straight up and down than having the positive attack angle. You will just need to dress the wheel a bit. You can also upgrade it to the cbn wheel so that you no longer need to worry about dressing the wheel.

If you wanted to try to grind the entire tooth profile, Woodland mills sells multiple cams that are better fits for specific tooth shapes.