Sharpening Jointer Knives

[Butch Collins]

I have a Powermatic PM-54 and am faced with my first sharpening. The blades have 3 tiny nicks in them. I read the manual where it talks about jointing the blades, is that all I need to do? Or, do I need to remove sharpen and try to reset the blades? I have read posts where people have had difficulties in setting the blades. Any help and suggestions would be appreciated.

[Mark Singer]

I do a good job with the Tormek

[JayStPeter]

If the blades are still basically sharp, you may get away with just shifting one of them a little so the nicks don't line up.

Overall, jointer knife sharpening is one of those jobs that I put off until it basically gets dangerous. My current blades are dull and have nicks. I'm awaiting the arrival of my latest gloat to take care of this once and for all (at least for this jointer).

Jay

[Maurice Ungaro]

I have the Makita sharpener, and it's a breeze with that machine.

Maurice

[Ted Shrader]

Butch -

If you have a Tormek, it will do a great job. Before purchasing got my Tormek, I got an extra set of knives so one could be at the sharpeners and one in the machine.

Reseting the knives takes a little bit of a special touch. Once you do it a couple of times, it goes very quickly.

Ted

[tim langford]

Like you, I was afraid for years to remove my blades from my 15" grizzly planer for fear I'd never get them back in right. Earlier this week I finally decided to do it. They came out easy. I bought some rolls of different grit psa (120, 220, and 1000) sand paper because I could cut them longer than 15" and stuck them to my table saw top. After getting the nicks out with the 120, I worked my way through the grits just holding them with my hands. The large surface area of the bevel makes them pretty easy to keep at the right angle while sharpening. (One trick I learned is to lean your body a little backwards when pushing the blade forward across the sand paper so that you don't rock the tip of the blade over and rounding it when you get to end of your stroke.) Putting the blade back into the planer was easy because the grizzly has some little springs in the planer head that push the blade up. It comes with some guides to set the height right. I'll never be afraid to take them out again. I'm sure I didn't get everything perfect but it seems to be cutting as good as new.

I'm about to do my Delta joiner. Of course it doesn't have those cheap little springs that made the Grizzly so easy to do. So I've ordered some magnets from http://www.kjmagnetics.com/ 3"x1/2"x1/4" ($7.95ea plus $4.50 shipping) that I think will make resetting the blades a snap (I hope).

The psa paper rolls are $15 ea and the magnets were $20 so I've spent $65. Of course you can use the psa with those little rubber sanding things which are really great for sanding odd shapes.

Be careful with the blades though. I managed to slice my finger pretty good on one of the sharpened blades. Not the best way to check them I think.

Good luck!