WM CBN blade shapener and dual-tooth setter?

[paul case]

yes i am sure it is better ,but do a pineywoods dual tooth conversion and it would give you a run for the money. pc

[Bibbyman]

yes i am sure it is better ,but do a pineywoods dual tooth conversion and it would give you a run for the money. pc

Great idea but he didn't come up with it before I already bought the dual-tooth setter.  And I sold our old single tooth setter years ago...

[Peter Drouin]

I set up my cbn like Bibbyman did, sort of I put the magnets on the bottom out side with hot glue works good. thanks Bibbyman    I allso set my setter up too.

[Bibbyman]

Way to go!  I didn't think of mounting the shelves to the frame tubes - being only three of them and round and at an angle.

I mounted the magnets to the board instead.  That way when I pop the yellow parts tray off, the slag comes off pretty easy and clean.  I remember how hard it was to clean any slag off the magnets around the pump tray.

You do still use the two magnets around the pump tray?  Even with my setup, they pick up a lot of slag.

[Peter Drouin]

The oil gos over 3 magnets (top tray) and drains in the back.just below that I have 2 magnets on the out side (bottom tray). seems to get most of it.

[Bibbyman]

 



We bought some disposable jumpsuits through Grainger for me to wear while sharpening blades.  First experience has been good.  They are made of DuPont Tyvek and are model number TY125S.  They cost about $50 for 6.  They have some that are much cheaper but I didn’t think they’d stop oil from penetrating.  Looks like these do a good job of that.  Plus they have so far held up to being nicked by blades.  I sharpened 22 blades on Friday with this pair and I think they’ll hold up for a good many more uses.  They fit well, the zipper works better than I expected and the elastic around the wrist and ankles work well.  They may tend to be hot in the summer as they don’t breath.

We also got some vinyl gloves from Harbor Freight.  They were all right for dunking my hands into the oil to dig out the magnets but they didn't hold up at all for handling blades.  They were not the cheapest HF had but they are very thin and rip easily.  They say they’re XL but they are very tight on my hands and a bit of a struggle to put on.

The metal pan causes one problem I didn’t think of.  The pan makes it very difficult to pull the bar magnets that are on each side of the pump tray.

[Bibbyman]

I’m sure I reported in this topic that we had maybe a 100, maybe more miscellaneous old blades I was not sure were worth trying to salvage or not.  I’m proud to announce that this summer I’ve worked through all of them.  Many are in their final resting place.  As the old drag strip commercial on the radio said, “Some go! And some blow!”. 

We have maybe 20 1-1/4” blades from that old batch still in cycle and 5 more 1-1/2” blades to use up.  The .055 blades went fast!  But I found I had a lot of blades with a lot of life left in them.  It was time and effort to rehabilitate these old blades but it was like finding free money.  We’ve sawn all summer and up until now on these junk blades. 

I have to make a confession.  (If I were Catholic,  I’d be saying, “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”) 

Years back I found out that an Amish sawmill north of us would sharpen blades for other people.  I already knew and had done business with him.  So I talked it over with him and yes, he would sharpen and set our blades for $3.00 each.  We left him a box to give him a try.  A week or so later he sent us a post card saying they were done.  We took a couple of boxes up and left them and brought back the ones he’d sharpened.  They were ok.  They were sharp.  Just not clean and lightly oiled like they come back from Wood-Mizer ReSharp.   They sawed ok.  When we left the two boxes, we agreed that we’d be back the first week of the next month to pick up the next boxes up and leave more.  This would give him a whole month to work them in. 

We made a couple of turnaround taking and getting blades done.  They were not as good as ReSharp but for $3.00 a pop they were Ok.  He raised his prices to $3.50.  Still not bad.  But then he got to where he wasn’t getting to the blades.  We’d go to get them and they’d not be sharpened.  Too busy. That went on for a while then he said he didn’t have time to sharpen blades for others but his cousin at another mill would.  We started taking blades to him.  He charged $4.00 per blade.  We had him sharpen blades for us a number of times.  Even though he said he set them, they didn’t cut well.

Because of the poor quality of these Amish sharpened blades, we went back to Re-Sharp.  We knew they would not sharpen the blades that the Amish had sharpened so they just set in the shed.

When I got to looking at them, I could tell they were not set. I had the gauge and could check them.  The gullets were very shallow on many of them – evidence that they had just ground the top of the tooth and not the whole contour. 

I re-ground these blades on the CBN sharpener with the 9° profile. It would take at least 3 times around to get a reasonably clean gullet.  I would have liked to use the 7° but I wanted to save that wheel.  The 9° wheel was bought to use up the 9° degree blades and to re-furbish these junk blades. 

We plan to standardize on the 7° degree blades.  We have maybe a 100 1-1/4” .045 7° degree blades ready for winter – most have been sharpened one time by Re-Sharp.  So this winter when it’s too cold to run the sharpener, we’ll still have blades.

[terrifictimbersllc]

Just sharpened about 25 out of 75 blades which accumulated.  Was sorting them by measuring width with a micrometer, but something happened which I'd like to report that makes it easier to adjust the grinder and for me , not necessary to measure and sort any more.  I was making sure I got a good face grind and was also disappointed about having to grind either deeply or twice to get a sufficient back grind to take off all the metal on the top of the inside set teeth.  Like 15-20 thousandths.   I was blaming this on the 26 thousandths set (for my 10's), tilting the tooth down a bit.  Then I found that much less face grind would grind the whole profile clean including the back of the inside set teeth, with as little as 5 thousandths of metal removed. Turns out I had sometimes been doing too much face grind which resulted in too little back grind (I am talking about using the profiled CBN wheel of course).  So here's what I do now.   I marked the cam with two marks where the wheel touches down to its lowest point.  I mount a blade and easily run the wheel to its lowest point using one of these marks, regardless of the height the grinder is set or the width of the mounted blade.  Look at the "fit" with a light and adjust the "pusher", if necessary,  so it fits perfectly.  Now back off the wheel height adjuster till the wheel sets in the profile and I feel it getting loose, then take out the slack by turning it clockwise till I feel it just getting tight.  That's it.   Turn up the speed, turn on the oil and the wheel, and listen to the sound. If the grind sounds a little too heavy just turn the speed up a hair.  Adjusting the speed can take the grinding depth a few thousandths one way or the other.  

[Bibbyman]

.....  So here's what I do now.   I marked the cam with two marks where the wheel touches down to its lowest point.  I mount a blade and easily run the wheel to its lowest point using one of these marks, regardless of the height the grinder is set or the width of the mounted blade.  Look at the "fit" with a light and adjust the "pusher", if necessary,  so it fits perfectly.  Now back off the wheel height adjuster till the wheel sets in the profile and I feel it getting loose, then take out the slack by turning it clockwise till I feel it just getting tight.  That's it.   Turn up the speed, turn on the oil and the wheel, and listen to the sound. If the grind sounds a little too heavy just turn the speed up a hair.  Adjusting the speed can take the grinding depth a few thousandths one way or the other.  

 



I made the same marks on the cam too and make the adjustments the same way on the first blade of the run.  But I still find it better to sort by tallest first - thus not having to make a great deal of adjustment for the next blade.

[Bibbyman]

 

Who says a cold rainy day spent out in the shed sharpening blades has to keep you away from a good western.

I took our mobile DVD player out and a few old westerns to watch.

[tommone]

Bibby, are them guys in the DVD sharpshooters?   

[Bandmill Bandit]

I have question that I need some feed back on BEFORE I do a minor mod to fix what I think has cost me a few blades over the last 6 ish months be cause of improper sharpening.

Note that I was not sawing for about 3 and a half of those 6 months and most of the bands(2 of 3) that broke before they should have were in the last 2 weeks.

When I was sharpening a band on the week end I just felt like the hook angle was not right and I think I picked up on it be cause of the way the light was glinting off the sharpened teeth and not off the un sharpened ones from the point I was standing at. When the band was done i took it off the sharpener wiped it and laid it inside a new band and it was very obvious that the hook angle was not just off a bit it was gone. Got the gauge out and checked the set on the grinder and my jaw about hit the the edge of the oil pan on the sharpener. Took a protractor and measured angle and it was about 90*

Went back to the sharpener and gave a gentle, but firm push up on the motor and the grinding head moved with what I would say was about enough force to easily move 15 ish lbs. I Reset every thing back to proper setting, tighten every thing up and re sharpened that band, re set it and life is good again. Checked that angle set AFTER the sharpen job and it was fine too

My my fix idea to mitigate  this happening again is to drill a 3/16 hole through the 2 plates and drive a roll pin or a dowel pin in place to eliminate the recurrence of this issue. I can see where the combination of the the oil and the vibration from the ginder head possibly creating this rather minor but significant issue.

Your thought on my fix idea or any others that have worked will be appreciated.

Unless you tell me to use a vise grip.           

[Peter Drouin]

Do you have the old WM shapener?  just reset and tighten the bolt good

[Bandmill Bandit]

Hi Peter
Mine is a 2007 CBN sharpener so I am guessing it would be the old one? i did tighten everything up good. Guess i will just have to check it when I sharpen to be sure.

[Peter Drouin]

The wheel on the cbn charpener makes the profile. like mine is 7. the old rock charpener you would turn to 7degrees.

[Peter Drouin]

Bandmill Bandit Did you use the 15a plate to reset the sharpener, that will put you right on then with the cbm wheel your good. 

    I charpened some blades to day but I had to grind alot on them . I think I leave them on to long , this new one right out of the box will need some work

     You know I have sharpen more then 220 blades and that cbn wheel looks like new.

[nomad]

     Dang!  You cut through a dog kennel with that thing?!?

[Bibbyman]

I’m still not consistently producing good blades.  The learning curve continues.

We have about 10 9° blades left.  Over the rainy weekend I got caught up on sharpening the 7° blades and put the 9° wheel back on and sharpened them for, I hope, their last time. 

I tried to cut a few steps and didn’t set every blade.  I did check the set on every blade and if it looked “good enough”,  I’d just run it around the sharpener and let it go.  I was planning to use them up sawing ERC anyway and I figure I could cut that with even a marginal blade.

We had a mountain of ERC coming up.  Mary started out with the 7° blade that was still on the mill.  When it got dull,  I pulled out one of the 9° blades.  I cut the slab off a fairly large cedar log and was disappointed.  It was clearly riding up on the large knots and crowning a bit.  I pulled that blade off and put on another 9° blade.  I made a cut about 1/4” below the last one to clear up the wavy cut.  It didn’t do as bad but it also rose up on the knots.  Put on yet another 9° blade and it did about as bad as the first two.  So I put on a 7° blade and turned the mill over to Mary.

I took the blades back to the sharpening station and checked the set on the first blade. .020 on the inside and .022 on the outside teeth – pretty consistent.  The blade looked and felt sharp. There were no damaged teeth and there was no warp or kink or bend or cup or anything else wrong with it.  I thought I could see some wear on the outside of the teeth that left the tips a little narrow on some teeth.

I set the blade at .024 on both sides using the most consistent methods I could apply.  I then ran it around the grinder one more time.  DanGed if I could see any reason it wouldn’t cut.

At the noon break I swapped out the blade on the mill for the 9° I’d just worked over.  It cut well and pretty smooth.  We sawed for an hour or so when it broke. (It had been sharpened quite a few times before. It’s time was up!)

I went back to one of the other maladjusted 9° blades and checked it.  The set wasn’t consistent with it either.  I ran it though the setter and for good measure,  I cranked it around twice.  I then ran it over the grinder one more time.  I put it on the mill and so far it’s cut nice and smooth.

Conclusion:  There are no shortcuts.  I think the problems were a combination of not taking enough grind off to get a full width at the tooth tip and not setting the blade.

I’ve often noticed that about every blade I sharpen and set ends up making a little tooth mark even though I can’t find any damaged tooth or any tooth out of set.  I’m thinking it may have something to do with where I start and where I stop setting.  I think maybe by running the blade around the setter twice, I may get smoother cuts.  That’s hardly an investment in time as once the setter is set, it’s just a matter of turning the handle 120 times instead of 60.

[customsawyer]

I will agree with you in the fact that every time I have tried to take a short cut it comes back and bites me.

[Bibbyman]

All three of the blades I reworked sawed well until they broke. I put on a forth 9° blade to finish up. It sawed well but had a damaged tooth so it left a mark.

The only way to justify putting this much effort in well worn blades is to figure you didn't have anything else to do.