Uh - Need a little help with sharpening...

[Raymond Fries]

How do you sharpen THIS?

303193

[Matt Day]

Whoa! Is that for a huge mill or something?

[Raymond Fries]

Matt

The picture came from this site:

http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2011/02/25/hull-oakes-sawmill/

Check out the size of the saw they use.

[Dave Cullen]

Awesome article. Thanks for posting this.

[Dave Cav]

How do you sharpen THIS?



That's what he's doing, loading it on the sharpening machine. Once it's loaded on the machine it runs slowly through the sharpener and automatically stops at each tooth where a grinding wheel sharpens each tooth. Once it's completed a circuit they turn it over and do the other side. I believe the teeth are also swaged to provide the appropriate set.

The sawmill where I buy my lumber for my school shops uses a similar but somewhat smaller head saw, also double cutting. If you look at the saw blade you'll see it has teeth on both sides of the blade. That way they can cut in both directions, saving a lot of time. My mll's head rig blade is about 6 or 8" wide, maybe 2/3 the size of the one in the picture. They cut alder and cottonwood logs up to about 24 or 30" in diameter.

[Raymond Fries]

Guess I should have went to the site before I posted the question. I came across the picture doing bandsaw research. Found the site later. What an amazing process with such big machinery.

[Jim Becker]

"Very carefully".... ;)

[Bill Orbine]

That's what he's doing, loading it on the sharpening machine. Once it's loaded on the machine it runs slowly through the sharpener and automatically stops at each tooth where a grinding wheel sharpens each tooth. Once it's completed a circuit they turn it over and do the other side. I believe the teeth are also swaged to provide the appropriate set.

The sawmill where I buy my lumber for my school shops uses a similar but somewhat smaller head saw, also double cutting. If you look at the saw blade you'll see it has teeth on both sides of the blade. That way they can cut in both directions, saving a lot of time. My mll's head rig blade is about 6 or 8" wide, maybe 2/3 the size of the one in the picture. They cut alder and cottonwood logs up to about 24 or 30" in diameter.

Dave, not meaning to knock you over, but my curiosity got the best of me. I was curious to the scallops on the opposite side of the blade. You mentioned that the sharpener there at the mill turn the blade over and do the other side. Well, I went to the OP link and read thru the article and in the end, were feedbacks. One poster asked about the scalloped edge on the other side and here's what the fellow who wrote this article had to say:

The ‘teeth’ on the back of the blade seem to be used only by the sharpening system, which registers and automatically advances the blade to the precise location for sharpening each tooth.

However, in looking thru many of the pictures in the article, I see extra blades in storage. You'll see these blades in storage above the sharpening machine. These blades appear to be new with freshly sharpened teeth and no scallops on the other side.... maybe they apply the scallops during the first re-sharpening????

It's nice to know they still do "back in the day" work!

[Gene Takae]

Raymond,
Thanks for the share. That is really cool that a mill like that still exists.
Gene

[Dave Cav]

The ‘teeth’ on the back of the blade seem to be used only by the sharpening system, which registers and automatically advances the blade to the precise location for sharpening each tooth.


Ok, thanks; I went to the original site and went through the pictures and see that it is a single direction head saw. Originally I only looked at the small picture at the beginning of the thread. I can't account for the scallops or lack thereof; it seems like they would come with them and not ground on later.