Jointer Knives

[Kirk Simmons]

The Ridgid 6 1/8" knives that came in my used Jointer need sharpening or replacing. I can buy brand new Freud C400's from Amazon for $23.35 plus free 2-Day shipping via Prime, or I can get my current ones sharpened.

Q: What does it normally cost to sharpen 18 3/8" worth of Jointer blades?

Q: Anyone in the Minneapolis area have a favorite local place for sharpening services?

Q: Am I better off just buying new ones?

Q: How hard is it for a novice to sharpen his own blades?

[Gary Radice]

I send my knives to Bull Sharpening in Chicago. They charge $0.50 per inch, so less than 10 bucks total for your knives (plus shipping). Turn-around is a few days.

One common approach is to buy a second set that you can swap out while one is off being sharpened. I like knives from Amana but I haven't tried others.

I haven't tried sharpening them myself because it is easy, cheap, and reliable to send them to a place where that is all they do.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I bought a set from Amazon. They're still spares for me.

The blades are not hard to sharpen. You can do it with wet sand paper, WD-40 and a few hours. Use the jointer bed as a flat plate, (or table saw) and use WD-40 or your favorite spray lube. Cut a scrap of hardwood the same angle as the bevel, and sharpen the blades against the sandpaper. I go 180/220/400. Like I said, the new set is still my spares. If I run into staples (again) and need to finish a project, I'll swap them out for less down time.

A lot of people say that you should hone brand new blades too.

[Dave Sweeney]

Delivery may be a little longer than 2 days, although not much longer, but you'll pay less than $23 for brand new knives from Holbren.

[Kirk Simmons]

Holbren looks to be $19.72 delivered (3-8 days). Not a bad deal.

[Jeremy Killingbeck]

I'm sure this is not normal, but I took my jointer knives to the local Rockler (Indianapolis, IN) and had them send them out to be sharpened. It is a normally 1 week turn around and only $10 for 6" blades. Well that is what I thought 4 weeks ago. I got the knives back after 1 week & opened the package. One of the knives had 2 low spots that must have been at lest .030" low and about 1" wide. I went back to Rockler and showed them the blade, but they just said they would give them back to the sharpener in 1 week. I was not very happy. Long story short, they ended up buying my a new set of jointer knives & they are going to arrive tomorrow (so they say).

I definitely 2nd having a spare set of knives if you plan to send them out to be sharpened. Otherwise I would not have been able to use my jointer for over 1 month. Rockler said that this has never happened before, so I must have just got lucky.

[keith ouellette]

I've used Holbren to buy new knives and was very satisfied.

[Chip Lindley]

Jeremy, sorry you had a bad experience with an unreliable sharpening service! Your local Rockler store isn't making any friends, being the go-between.

It takes longer to reset three knives in a jointer than to resharpen them in the shop! Check out this old thread for more details: http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1033647#poststop

If I can put $10 in my pocket every time I sharpen a set of three 6" jointer knives, I'm saving BeauCoups $$$ now that I have a 20" planer with FOUR HSS knives! I did the math for you: $.50 x 80" = $40.00!!!!

[Frank Drew]

It absolutely makes sense to have more than one set of jointer and planer knives (and table saw blades, band saw bands, etc.).

And if the blades are the kind that can be sharpened many times, it seems dumb and wasteful to chuck them when they get dull and buy new ones. IMO.