Sharpen your own bandsaw blades??

[lynn smith]

Anyone here setup to sharpen your own bands?
If so what did it cost you and what brand of grinder do you have, and how are you re-setting the teeth?
Do you think it is worth the cost to do your own, instead of buying new blades
Thanks for any info you might have

[Dick Strauss]

Lynn,
I've thought about trying one of those HF chainsaw sharpening machines for my bandsaw blades. I won't be able to put the tooth set back in the blade but may get some extra life from a sharp edge.

[andy Needles]

If I was sharpening my own bandsaw blades, I would have far too much time on my hands.

I kind of chalk that one up with growing my own wood.

[Myk Rian]

I've also thought of this.
It would depend on the blade. 1/4" 6tpi would be a hassle. A 1/2" 3-4tpi might be worth a look with a magnifying glass to figure out a way to do it.

[george wilson]

I've touched up 1/4" X6 tpi. bandsaw teeth before freehand. I just mark the blade where I start,and barely touch every other tooth on a bench grinder wheel.Then,turn the blade inside out,and do the same thing to the in between teeth.

This takes personal skill,and is only good for 1 sharpening. I don't grind the set off in 1 sharpening. The sharpened blades are actually sharper than when new,and cut real well. I've done this when I had no replacement on hand. Unless you can be real consistent,I cannot recommend this process,though i've made it work just fine.

[Larry Fox]

If I was sharpening my own bandsaw blades, I would have far too much time on my hands.

I kind of chalk that one up with growing my own wood.

+1 here. Seems like way too much trouble for the benefit. The TriMaster is $150ish, it has 3tpi and my saw takes a 149" blade. That's about 447 teeth which works out to $0.34 per tooth. Given the amount of time I get in the shop buying a new one is a no-brainer for me.

[Frank Drew]

I've done it like George, on a bench grinder; I only ground the tops of the teeth, not the insides (if you get what I mean). Not so difficult if you pay attention and maintain a light touch, but it is pretty tedious, more or less so depending on band length.

[Steve Thomas]

I have a jig set up with a little Elu router and carbide bit. I use it to sharpen the teeth on our 1 TPI band for resawing. it works a treat I have a blade that has been done 5 or six times so far and it's only now losing its set. (too much to start with i think. Cameras out at the moment but wil try and get picks this week for you.

[Craig McCormick]

Several years ago there were discussions on band saw blade sharpening on rec.crafts.wooturning. the guys were using a cut off wheel in a dremel tool to sharpen the teeth. They claimed great results.

Azcraig

[Phil Thien]

I've tried it a little bit. I've used a small round diamond bur in my Dremel, pushing it into the gullet of the blade. The bur typically has two contact points: the bottom of the tooth and the front of the band. I place a little pressure in the direction of the tooth and away from the band.

I start at the weld so I'd know where to stop. I experimented with matching the existing grinding angle, and just keeping the bur 90-degrees to the band. I didn't do enough testing, though, to come to a conclusion about which worked better. If matching the angle of the existing grind, it makes sense to skip each other tooth and go around once, then change your angle and go around a second time.

It only takes a second to get each tooth sharp. For my small (10") Delta bandsaw with short (72-1/2") blades, it goes very quickly. When I was done I had substantially improved a couple of blades that came with the saw. I think the blades were essentially new (purchased the saw used but the owner never did anything with it), but cut like carp. The home-sharpened blades cut substantially faster. Again, I'd have to do more testing, but I feel they cut as good as any new blade I've used save for the Blade Runner from Iturra.

I don't know if I'll do this a lot. I have really stocked up on blades whenever I saw a good deal and it will be quite a while, at my rate of use, before I'll exhaust my supply of new sharp blades.

But I wouldn't hesitate to use the technique again if I were caught with a dull blade, no replacements, and a project I wanted to get done. Or if blades were substantially more expensive than I've been able to find them.

[Bruce Wrenn]

A thousand dozen years ago, or so it seems, FWW had an article on sharpening your band saw blades. Author built a set up using an inexpensive bench grinder, and narrow grinding wheels to sharpen teeth. It included a spring loaded stop to allow for exact positioning of each tooth. Thing that sticks out most in my mind was his statement about band saw blade teeth being set and sharpened as a cross cut saw, instead of as a rip saw. Last week while looking for the manual for a saw that I gave away, I ran across my copy of the article. But for the life of me, I can't remember where it is. Maybe someone who has the FWW CD can look it up for you.

[Mike Wilkins]

Forget about trying to sharpen 1/4" blades-too many teeth and your frustration level would spike. However, I have sharpened the 1" blades that I use on my Laguna LT18. I use a Dremel tool with a long round stone that is the same radius as the gullet on the blade. I think chainsaw blade stones are the correct size. Use a light touch, just touching the flat part of the tooth, then placing the stone into the gullet. Be sure to mark the starting point to keep from sharpening the same tooth over again.

[Prashun Patel]

A good tsaw blade can be upwards of $70 and has few enough teeth that it's debatable whether it's a good value to resharpen it.

But a bandsaw has HUNDREDS of tiny teeth, and even great ones can be had for under $30 - delivered. T'ain't worth it, IMHO.

[Andrew Joiner]

I think the blades were essentially new (purchased the saw used but the owner never did anything with it), but cut like carp.

.

Hi Phil,
Did you mean to say crap? Funny carp is an even better description of a poor cut!

[jared herbert]

I use a 3 tpi blade to cut turning blanks with. I have sharpened them many times with a dremel tool with a cut off blade, as mentioned above,, just touching the top of each tooth. It works good, you can sharpen the blade several times before the set is gone. It takes less than 15 minutes to sharpen a 105 inch blade. I havealso sharpened blades with more tpi and it takes a little longer but it still works good. Jared,

[jim carter]

i sits and thinks quite a bit . i read that post about turning copper patina green and thought that might be a good look for a project i have going so i started drinking to piss on it. anyway, like i said i sits and thinks alot. i have know idea if this is even feasible but is there a way of putting the bandsaw blade on backwards, clamp a sharpening stone to the table so just turning the bandsaw on would sharpen the teeth. i know every other tooth goes the other way and dont know if it would even work but like i said , i sits and thinks quite a bit

[Phil Thien]

It seems some guys do the face, some do the face and gullet, and some do the gullet only. With my round file I did the gullet only. The diameter of the file was larger than the diameter of the gullet, so the file hit the inside tip of the tooth and the front of the band.

It will be interesting to test the other techniques next time I need to sharpen a blade.

[lynn smith]

Thanks Ya'll
My blades are 131.5" and I use 3 TPI 1/2" mostly but sometimes will use a 2 TPI 1" blade for resawing.
So if I got this right I can use my die grinder with a cutoff blade
to touch up the teeth.
So I just touch up the top of the tooth?

At $20+ per band it seemed worth checking into.
If I can get a little more mileage out of a band I would be happy.

Thanks again

[Tom Veatch]

... i have know idea if this is even feasible but is there a way of putting the bandsaw blade on backwards, clamp a sharpening stone to the table so just turning the bandsaw on would sharpen the teeth....

If you're going to toss the blade anyway, it's certainly easy enough to turn the blade inside out so that it runs backward. In fact, I seem to remember a recent thread in which the question was asked about how to fix a blade that was turned backward out of the box.

[Steve Thomas]

crude. but the results are fast and good.
10-15 minutes and where running again.

I clamp a stop black onto the table and feed the jig inand out with my right hand and apply pressure on the wheel. the stop black and the jig ensure that all teeth recieve a similar amount of grinding.

works a treat.

[Steve Thomas]

another pic

[Dewey Torres]

As other have said above...just buy new ones.

My .02