Bandsaw Sharpening

gr8mesquite · Post by **gr8mesquite** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:49 pm

I searched without seeing this here, but I have seen and read stuff on the net, including YouTube: does anyone have experience with bandsaw sharpening? Is it worth the trouble, i.e., does it work and does it stay sharp for a while. Or, once dulled does a bandsaw blade never really recover? I bought a couple of diamond points for my Dremel and thought I would give it a shot, but not if your experience has been negative.

Many thanks

Jerome

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:23 pm

gr8mesquite wrote:I searched without seeing this here, but I have seen and read stuff on the net, including YouTube: does anyone have experience with bandsaw sharpening? Is it worth the trouble, i.e., does it work and does it stay sharp for a while. Or, once dulled does a bandsaw blade never really recover? I bought a couple of diamond points for my Dremel and thought I would give it a shot, but not if your experience has been negative.

Many thanks

Jerome

Lotsa teeth in 6 ft!

damagi · Post by **damagi** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:49 pm

FWIW, the guy at the blade sharpening shop near me said that they don't do blade sharpening anymore on bandsaw blades due to the economics...ie: time to sharpen, time to clean, etc. Unless you have a super nice blade, paying $20 to get a new one is probably cheaper.

I have seen the videos on how to sharpen...haven't tried it myself yet, but thought the same thing.

Gene Howe · Post by **Gene Howe** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:44 am

Although I am retired, my time is precious and a new $20 blade makes makes more economic sense, time wise and dollar wise.
Now, if Work Sharp had a gadget similar to the knife sharpener..........

gr8mesquite · Post by **gr8mesquite** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:24 am

Well, I watched several YouTubes, i.e.,

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AnDvUqe1Ac)

and they say it's quite easy and takes only a few minutes. In fact, in one video the fellow said he can do a tooth per second (he was working on a 600 tooth blade.)

So, a resaw blade, with a bit of experience, could be done in as little as 4-5 minutes. At $20 per blade (my blade was $29 plus shipping), that's $250-$300 per hour. My time is worth that.

I'm more concerned with the quality of the final result...whether that's worth the time. Does the sharpening last, or will it have to be repeated after a couple of cuts.

Thanks

Jerome

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:13 am

As a user of hard mesquite you may have an extra incentive to sharpen your own blades.

Hey, why not try it the next time they're dull?

I just sharpened the 4th of my handsaws I've been tuning up lately. It makes a huge difference in the cut. If you have the patience it's a little bit meditative, too.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:27 pm

When I was a kid my neighbor cut chair bottoms from plywood and then upholstered them before taking them to a chair factory to be mounted on chair frames.

He cut the plywood chair bottoms on a band saw and had machine the sharpened the blade. I would watch the machine work. It had a dog that went forward and moved a blade three teeth back and then a file went across the blade. Then the dog would more another three teeth forward and file would draw across the blade. The blade had to go around three times for all the teeth to be filed.

There were two adjustments one to set the number of teeth the dog went forward and angle and pressure of the file on the tooth. Worked with two cams (it might have been one cam with a cam follower and a bail crank) one to lift the dog move it forward and down and back. And the second lifted the file, moved it right lowered it and moved it left to file the tooth.

Blades were coarse but I have no idea of the number of teeth per inch.

Fascinated a young boy. Made an interesting noise that kept me entertained for some period of time asking all kinds of questions.

If I remember right they cut about five bottoms at a time. We kids would take some of the cut offs, sort of triangles with a curved bottom. We build many a boat to sail the creek with those cut offs. Tried our hands at boomeranges but they were too small.

foxtrapper · Post by **foxtrapper** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:30 am

Certainly it can be done. Build/cob a nice enough jig, and you could go along at a pretty good pace.

Hardness of the blades teeth will dictate how long it takes you to actually sharpen one, and how long the tooth will hold the edge. A harder tooth will hold its edge longer, but take you longer to sharpen.

As well, what you cut and how you dulled it will affect how long the edge lasts, and how hard it will be to redress it after it dulls. Trying to cut through nails for example will do a lot of tooth damage, and be far more difficult to redress than simple dulling after cutting many boardfeet of oak.

jm51 · Post by **jm51** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:50 am

This might be of interest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AnDvUqe1Ac

fishinbo · Post by **fishinbo** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:19 pm

Jerome, I would not recommend band saw blade sharpening based on my experience. I’ve seen other forums where pro’s like yourself talk about it or say how much success they have doing it – but I’ll pass.

My reason is this. You don’t want to inadvertently change the tooth geometry of the blade, thus, altering the finished product. If you change the shape of the tooth or the gullet, you’re only making additional problems for yourself.

What I try to do is more prevention. I prevent my blade from dulling. I learned the do’s and dont’s by asking questions on different forum sites as well as reading from the authorities. I came across a blog entitled How To Make Band Saw Blades Last Longer. You can find it at http://www.bandsawblog.com. I found that one to be very helpful. Get time to check that site. You might have other questions that their articles can answer.

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