Professional saw sharpening vs Harbor Freight sharpener

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Tue May 14, 2013 9:42 am

With my Sawsmith RAS acquisition, I now have a decent collection of old saw blades, a lot of which are NOT carbide tipped. A lot of them are Magna/Shopsmith blades. And they need to be sharpened.

If I were to take them to a local saw sharpening service, what should I look for? What do they typically do? Do they sharpen as well as adjust/correct the set of each tooth? What's the turnaround time and average pricing? What questions are they going to ask of me?

And what about the Harbor Freight saw blade sharpener? While it might not do as good a job as a professional service, at $50 would there be enough cost savings to justify it? The reviews I've seen on it aren't completely terrible.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue May 14, 2013 9:50 am

heathicus wrote:With my Sawsmith RAS acquisition, I now have a decent collection of old saw blades, a lot of which are NOT carbide tipped. A lot of them are Magna/Shopsmith blades. And they need to be sharpened.

If I were to take them to a local saw sharpening service, what should I look for? What do they typically do? Do they sharpen as well as adjust/correct the set of each tooth? What's the turnaround time and average pricing? What questions are they going to ask of me?

And what about the Harbor Freight saw blade sharpener? While it might not do as good a job as a professional service, at $50 would there be enough cost savings to justify it? The reviews I've seen on it aren't completely terrible.

Since you have a lot of blades to sharpen and since many of them are inexpensive blades to start with, I believe you would do good to develop the ability and facility to "do it yourself".

I cannot speak for the HF device because I have no experience with it but there have been some favorable comments made here on this forum about it. It is inexpensive and therefore, in my opinion, a viable option and especially for the non-carbide blades.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Tue May 14, 2013 10:43 am

I think way to many of us in a effort to save a buck shoot ourselves in the foot. I remember Nick (sawdust session fame) once saying we will pay hundreds of dollars for drill motors and use cheap bits and it is bits that do the work and decide the quality of the job.

The blade you use will effect the quality of the cut more than any other one thing.

Also it seems like many often ask where to find quality blade sharpening. What better way to find an excellent blade sharpener than to start with less expensive blades.

A good sharpener in my opinion always improves a blade's qualities over its original state. And I hunt for a sharpener that does just that. If I get a blade sharpened and I feel it is only equal to the blade cut when new I look for a new sharpener.

While you don't need a sharpener to do your blades, you probably will in the future need someone to reweld a tip back on a carbide blade. Why not find that person now using your cheaper blades?

And don't be afraid to ask questions, ask for a demo, talk about blade construction and why various relief cuts are made in the blade. A good sharpener will be glad to talk to you about it.

When I first met the sharpener I use today he tolok me for a tour of his shop. He showed me the grind machines he invested in, what the carbide tips looked like when he got them. The jigs he manufactured to improve the saws he did. He was more than happy to show off. And as he talked I realized this guy knew a lot more about blades than I did. So over the years I have used him as my teacher/tutor. We talked about magazine articles I read and what he felt about their sharpening techniques. We talked about blades and new blade designs and why they would be good or bad.

You don't get that kind of info from a $50 harbor freight sharpener.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Tue May 14, 2013 10:49 am

I had bought a used Mark V (aside from my main 'mule') a few years back. The seller guy had superb woodwork he had done throughout his lakeside cottage. One thing he mentioned, and is actually also mentioned elsewhere in hand-tool articles, is that you can get a non-carbide steel blade sharper than a carbide blade, due to the grain size. This fellow swore by an all-steel hollow-ground blade he used -- when sharpened, it would go through a workpiece "like thin air."

frank81 · Post by **frank81** » Tue May 14, 2013 10:51 am

I went and checked out that sharpener on the website. Have you read the reviews? They all basically say the same thing, its not a precision machine and it takes a lot of adjustments and shade tree engineering to get it to do a "good" job but they still don't come back as good as factory and leave sawmarks and whatnot.

That doesn't disqualify it from being a good idea, it all depends on the application and your expectations of input and output.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue May 14, 2013 12:00 pm

heathicus wrote: . . .

If I were to take them to a local saw sharpening service, what should I look for? What do they typically do? Do they sharpen as well as adjust/correct the set of each tooth? What's the turnaround time and average pricing? What questions are they going to ask of me?

. . .

Last time I 'watched', yes.

You do not want to know 'how'.

Gullets were deepened, each tooth was ground at two angles.

Gullets were used as reference points for those grinds

Was a steel combo blade.

Was a long time ago!;)

reible · Post by **reible** » Tue May 14, 2013 12:49 pm

I cringe when I think back to the days when all we had was straight steel blades. I also cringe thinking of doing the sharpening down in our basement for what seemed like hours and hours.

You guys have it so much better now, you don't have to have your TV in the same room as the TV outlet..... oh, sorry.....

Give me good quality and for the most part expensive modern blades any day! You want to improve your cutting just pay the price of good blades. Been there and done it.

Ed

TV outlet????

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue May 14, 2013 1:10 pm

reible wrote:I cringe when I think back to the days when all we had was straight steel blades. I also cringe thinking of doing the sharpening down in our basement for what seemed like hours and hours.

You guys have it so much better now, you don't have to have your TV in the same room as the TV outlet..... oh, sorry.....

Give me good quality and for the most part expensive modern blades any day! You want to improve your cutting just pay the price of good blades. Been there and done it.

Ed

TV outlet????

We just had lead in wires!:D

reible · Post by **reible** » Tue May 14, 2013 1:19 pm

JPG40504 wrote:We just had lead in wires!:D

Yea I really miss those old days. Spend a couple of hours sharpening blades in the basement then coming up to the smell of fried selenium rectifiers.

BTW I believe that some of the older PTWFE had information on sharpening circular saw blades. I leaned from an old craftsman sharpening book....

Ed

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue May 14, 2013 6:11 pm

reible wrote:Yea I really miss those old days. Spend a couple of hours sharpening blades in the basement then coming up to the smell of fried selenium rectifiers.

BTW I believe that some of the older PTWFE had information on sharpening circular saw blades. I leaned from an old craftsman sharpening book....

Ed

'Orange' PTWFE page 306 - 308.

1955 PTWFE 324 - 326

'Blue' 261 - 264