Bandsaw Blade Sharpening

[Tom Winship]

Saw a couple of YouTube videos on sharpening your own bandsaw blades today. Do many of you do this? Looks fairly simple to me.

[Jim Sebring]

I haven't tried it yet. I can't figure out if they're sharpening the face or backside of the teeth.

[Mike Peace]

I sharpen my 3/8" 3 TPI woodturners blade. I hit the top of each tooth with a dremel cut off wheel.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I hit the top of mine with a dremel tool and round stone. It surely does make a difference on my 3 tpi blade.

[Sid Matheny]

I have had mixed results but mostly good or at least better than before sharpening.

Sid

[Reed Gray]

I found a good saw shop that can do them faster and far better than I can, and they are cheap. Not worth the effort.

robo hippy

[Tom Winship]

I found a good saw shop that can do them faster and far better than I can, and they are cheap. Not worth the effort.

robo hippy

Reed, I have a hard time finding someone here to sharpen a circular saw blade, let alone a bandsaw blade. Circle saw blades have to be sent out to somewhere.

[Roger Chandler]

I do the same as Mike in the above post..........use a dremel and a fiberglass reinforced cut off wheel and hit the top and bring it down to the point of the tooth..........make sure you account for the set in the teeth, by changing the angle of the wheel to match the set, otherwise you are asking for a blade to track off line.

It does work and can extend the life of the blade..........I have a 1.25" wide x 1.3 tpi blade I have sharpened 3 times.....the teeth are getting a little small now..........probably has one more sharpening, but the blade still cuts fairly good.........have to use a little slower feed rate in order to make sure the sawdust clears the kerf.

[Richard Allen]

I have sharpened my 1/2" x 3tpi bandsaw blades a few times. I grind the flat side of the tooth with just enough of a touch to brighten the top side of the tooth (if it shines to the tip of the tooth it's sharp it just take a small quick flick on each tooth to sharpen). The problem is that the blade cost great after sharpening but fairly quickly the blade doesn't cut very well. If I can cut 30 blanks with a new blade I can cut 5 to 10 blanks with a "sharpened" blade. I think the problem is that the set of the blade is closed as I use the blade. The closed set isn't widened with sharpening. It appears to me that the set of the blade is important to the cutting performance of the blade. The effort to sharpen is not great and the time it take is fairly short. I can make a bowl which could be sold to more than the cost of a new blade in less time than it takes to sharpen. Your high speed grinder (drimel or other) will be on for an extended period of time. There will be a fair amount of wear and tear on the grinder. This is to say that my drimel sound worse now that I have sharpened bandsaw blades a few times. I don't think that a drimel is designed to run for more than a few seconds at a time.

To recap:

Sharpening a bandsaw blade is easy.

The set of the blade (width of the curf) is not improved.

The values of the time to sharpen is higher than the cost of a new blade.

The wear and tear on a drimel can be noticeable.

[Jamie Donaldson]

I "touch up" my hook tooth 3/8" and 1/2" 3 TPI saw blades with a Dremel and round chainsaw stones, cleaning up the gullet of the hooks. Select the correct diameter stones and the blades can be sharpened about twice before replacement. It is time consuming, especially on a 148" blade, but no more so than replacing with a new blade. The Dremel stones are much less costly than a new blade, and I am known to be phrugal when I can! Sharpening the tip/top of the tooth with a disc isn't significantly sharpening the actual cutting area of the tooth, and I wouldn't consider that process very productive for the effort expended.

[steven carter]

I hit the top of mine with a dremel tool and round stone. It surely does make a difference on my 3 tpi blade.

I do the same as Bernie.

[Michael Menzli]

Same as below...works pretty good..takes close to forever but well worth the $$


I do the same as Mike in the above post..........use a dremel and a fiberglass reinforced cut off wheel and hit the top and bring it down to the point of the tooth..........make sure you account for the set in the teeth, by changing the angle of the wheel to match the set, otherwise you are asking for a blade to track off line.

It does work and can extend the life of the blade..........I have a 1.25" wide x 1.3 tpi blade I have sharpened 3 times.....the teeth are getting a little small now..........probably has one more sharpening, but the blade still cuts fairly good.........have to use a little slower feed rate in order to make sure the sawdust clears the kerf.

[Bob Bergstrom]

Gave up cutting blanks on a bandsaw. I would get about two sharpenings and the kerf would be gone. Bought a Makita electric chainsaw and just cut the corners off eight times. What is left comes off with the lathe and a gouge. Some of my blanks were too big to try and cut on my 14" Delta and bent a few blades trying to balance it on the small table. I paid a little over $200 for the Makita and love it.

[Jeff Nicol]

I sharpen mine with the little fine diamond coated bits that can be bought in sets from HF or many other outlets. These cut very quickly and are such fine grit, I use a pretty slow speed with my dremel and a flex shaft which is much eaiser to handle than the whole machine. I start in the gullet of the blade with the barrel shaped bit that is closest to the blade I am sharpening, and at the slow speed I touch the face of the tooth down through the gullet and of the top of the next tooth. I try to start at the weld and that gives me a start and stop point. I make sure to alternate on the teeth for the set and the straight raker tooth if that is the type blade being sharpened. I can sharpen a 105" blade in about 10 minutes and if I don't hit any dirt or other things that will dull the blade, I will get virtually the same cut as new on the 1st and second sharpenings. I think the best I ever got was 5 sharpenings out of a blade and that was a tie for a Carter blade and a TW blade, so my time sharpening the blade is well worth the effort. It takes a steady hand and good eyes or a magnifier and soon I will need the cheaters to do the job!

I have drawn a little sketch up to try and make a universal jig to use a dremel type tool for sharpening bandsaw blades, but like a lot of my plans they are still on the drawing board, some day soon I hope.

A penny saved is well........today about 1/10 of a cent!

Jeff

[Jim Sebring]

Thanks for the detailed info, Jeff. Sounds like you're sharpening mostly the face.

[Tom Winship]

The video I watched was done off the machine on a fixed grinder. Only the top of the tooth was touched and barely. I tried it on an old TW 1/2" x 3tpi blade yesterday and it cut rather well. The finish might not have been as good as new, but it cut well.

[Michael Menzli]

I wouldnt consider my blade as new after sharpening and would not use it for resawing as there is some variance and or wander. I simply use it for cutting blanks and does a solid job. Im using a 105" TW 3 tpi blade and on my 3rd sharpening . I do like the flex shaft idea as my hand begins to cramp after the 1st 5 minutes..will look into that. I will say Ive avoided the gullet as this seems to be a make or break part of the blade. My hand is not very steady so i hit the top of the tooth and keep on rolling.