Please help with my TS blade sharpening nightmare!

[Adam Gerlach]

I recently helped a fired do a project, and because no good deed goes unpunished, I nipped the head of a brad nail with my WWII ( despite my friend's claim that the wood was clean.) I inspected the blade and the carbide looked fine, but it was dull. I couldn't even cut a pine 2x4.

I usually send my blades to Forrest, but the last time I sent it in, it took over 1.5 months to get it back. I heard good things about a local cnc sharpening place, so I decided to send it to them. I asked them to inspect the blad. They called and said there was no damage, so I had them resharpen it. I had the blade back in less than a week.

I did a test rip cut with some 6/4 maple. The results were terrible.
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I did the same cut with my $20 back up blade ( also full kerf 40T) and the results were much better.
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I called the company and they said they would "make it right." I just recieved it back today with a note saying that they inspected the blade, found nothing wrong with it, and resharpened it again just in case. They also said they made some test cuts and it worked fine. They send me a 2"x3/4" piece of oak they cross-cust as proof. I did another test with the same piece of maple. The quality is better, but not near as good as what I've grown to expect from the WWII.

I plan on contacting the company again later this week, but I'm wondering if any of you may have any insight on what may be causing this issue. I checked the alignment of my fence and it was right. I also checked how true the blade was when moved by hand on the arbor. It was 0.0045" out of true. Could this be the issue? What is a reasonable number? I checked my other blade and it was 0.003"

[Andrew Hughes]

I've also learned that no one sharpens a Forrest blade like Forrest.
I do remember one service near me that made my woodworker 2 cut very fast but the surface was not great.

[David T gray]

my bandsaw cuts smoother then that.

[Van Huskey]

There are plenty of saw shops that can sharpen Forrest or any blade just as well as Forrest, I discovered several over the years as Forrest's turn around got longer and their prices went up. There are also a TON of shops that are just plain poor.

Some great ones:

Snook's Saw Service in OR, Cook Industrial Tool in TX, Ridge Carbide in NJ and Dynamic Saw in NY there are more but these offer reasonable turn around (~1 week) excellent work and good pricing. If you need a blade quick then it pays to give several a call to see what their current standard turn around is since it varies, some offer expedited service.

[Ray Newman]

"...no one sharpens a Forrest blade like Forrest"

--Andrew Hughes

Agreed!

[Jerrimy Snook]

It is possible that you have a bent tooth. .003" is paper thickness but is fairly easy to see in a saw cut. Forrest Woodworkers have a different grind geometry than most industrial blades. It may have been serviced with the typical side grind and not a "Forrest" grind.

Van Husky... Thanks for the shout-out.

[Chris Hachet]

Find another sharpening service that knows what they are doing. The people you are using ahve shown themselves to be mildly incompetent.

[eugene thomas]

You only can sharpen sawblade so many times . You keep sending blade back to the hacks you will have a big paper weight. Find new sharpening service.

[Lee Schierer]

If you add your general area of the country or a city to your profile so it shows up in your posts, other members near by can probably lead you to a good sharpening service near you.

[lowell holmes]

I use Forrest to re-sharpen the blades they made. I've never regretted it.

[John TenEyck]

Van is right, there are several excellent sharpening services. I know first hand that Dynamic Saw sharpens blades extremely well; I swear the blades I have taken there cut better than when new when I got them back.

The comment that you might have one or more bent teeth could be the cause. Normally, glades only get sharpened on the face of the tooth. They only sharpen the sides when a tooth gets replaced or there's some obvious need to do so.

For what it's worth, 0.0045" runout seems like a lot to me. I measured less than 0.002" on a Freud rip blade, not a high end Forrest blade. But the runout you measure is the sum of the blade, the arbor flange, any dust you got trapped in between the blade, flange, and nut, and probably some other things. I found I could cut the runout down quite a bit by making sure all mating surfaces were perfectly clean, checking the runout, then rotating the blade a few degrees and checking it again until I found the least runout. I don't do that routinely, but it was interesting to see how you can minimize (or maximize) runout.

John

[Bruce Wrenn]

I use Forrest to re-sharpen the blades they made. I've never regretted it.Remember that Forest is a sharpening service that sells blades to create more sharpening business at an inflated price. My WWII lost a couple teeth when it hit a hidden SKU staple in the end of a board. When Forest finished raping me, it cost almost as mush as a new WWII. Sent a friend's 100 tooth melamine blade to Dynamic with a few more teeth damaged, and cost was less than half of what I paid Forest. I think Forest's products are over - over priced and over rated. They business model is to sell to snob hobby wood workers. I have yet to visit a local cabinet shop and see a Forest blade. Mostly Freuds, with some Amanas.

[Van Huskey]

They business model is to sell to snob hobby wood workers. I have yet to visit a local cabinet shop and see a Forest blade.

We do live in somewhat of a hobbyist bubble. In industry you will basically never see a Forrest saw you see true industrial saws from companies like Royce Ayr, Leitz, FS Tool, Leuco, Everlast, maybe a Popular or two and possibly one of the Cermet tipped Carbide Processors blades.

[Chris Hachet]

Remember that Forest is a sharpening service that sells blades to create more sharpening business at an inflated price. My WWII lost a couple teeth when it hit a hidden SKU staple in the end of a board. When Forest finished raping me, it cost almost as mush as a new WWII. Sent a friend's 100 tooth melamine blade to Dynamic with a few more teeth damaged, and cost was less than half of what I paid Forest. I think Forest's products are over - over priced and over rated. They business model is to sell to snob hobby wood workers. I have yet to visit a local cabinet shop and see a Forest blade. Mostly Freuds, with some Amanas.I actually like the way Freud cuts better. Call me strange...I do not use Amana blades. Agree Forrest is over rated. I took a blade into my local sharpening service with two missing teeth and it was still under twenty dollars.

[glenn bradley]

Unfortunately a shop near me does similar work. I send my cutters to a place in the next state. Its an extra few bucks in shipping but, everything comes back perfect so far.

[Van Huskey]

Unfortunately a shop near me does similar work. I send my cutters to a place in the next state. Its an extra few bucks in shipping but, everything comes back perfect so far.

Have you ever tried Daily Saw in LA?

[Bill McNiel]

FWIW - Last year I sent several of my old Freud blades to Dynamic Saw and the results were fantastic. Approximately a two week turn around.

[Ole Anderson]

So if they only sharpen the face of the tooth, not the sides, only a burr from sharpening or a bent tooth could make a rough cut like your test piece if the blade previously cut clean. Correct? I am surprised that just hitting one brad would dull a carbide blade to the point of not cutting pine.

[Bruce Wrenn]

The one problem you can run into with improperly sharpened blades is next guy takes readings off existing blade to set up grinder. You need to send the blade to a shop who knows what the tooth angles are SUPPOSED to be. The more blades they do the more likely they are to have this info stored in computer. No matter where you send blade, TELL them about problem so they don't duplicate it.

[Martin Wasner]

My first question is a tooth bent?

As far as grinding goes, if they're doing it on a cnc, they punch in the grind, the angle, and the tooth count plus a couple.

If they aren't top grinding, it won't be right. It also depends on what grit they run to for cut quality.

Shipping blades somewhere to be sharpened is foolish in my book. I had a dude working for me trying to talk me into sending blades to somewhere in New York because he thought my carbide guy wasn't doing a good enough job. No. By the time I go somewhere to ship, pay to ship, pay to sharpen, pay to ship back, I can't justify it. Just pitch it in the can and order a new one. But my carbide guy picks up and drops off, and I have zero time for it any other way.

[Justin Ludwig]

I can ship (with a return label included) from my shop to Carbide Processor's and have a blade sharpened for $30, plus $5 per broken tooth. I have a 12" Forrest Chopmaster on my SCMS sharpened by Carbide Processors that had 2 broken teeth in June 2016. Total cost: $44.50 and $15 in shipping. Still cuts like butter.

Anyone who says "no one sharpens a Forrest blade like Forrest" has never had a blade properly sharpened by another vendor (I'm not knocking Forrest - but I will not wait 75 days for a blade to be returned). It's not rocket science - it's a vendor just carrying about their work.

[CPeter James]

I like Ridge Carbide in Lyndhurst, NJ. A little pricey, but he blades come back really sharp. Also, I prefer their blades over Forrest. I have both and really feel that theirs are better.
CPeter

[lowell holmes]

Adam,

I don't know your location, so this probably will not help.

"Circle Saw" in Houston has successfully sharpened 10" table saw blades for me.

[Bruce Wrenn]

My first question is a tooth bent?



Shipping blades somewhere to be sharpened is foolish in my book. I had a dude working for me trying to talk me into sending blades to somewhere in New York because he thought my carbide guy wasn't doing a good enough job. No. By the time I go somewhere to ship, pay to ship, pay to sharpen, pay to ship back, I can't justify it. Just pitch it in the can and order a new one. But my carbide guy picks up and drops off, and I have zero time for it any other way.I guess you never heard of flat rate boxes from USPS. Postman drops off box, picks it up and UPS guy brings them back. Unfortunately most of don't have a guy who comes and picks up blades, so we use USPS flat rate boxes.

[Van Huskey]

I guess you never heard of flat rate boxes from USPS. Postman drops off box, picks it up and UPS guy brings them back. Unfortunately most of don't have a guy who comes and picks up blades, so we use USPS flat rate boxes.

For the pro with pick up drop off service it is great for hobbyists like myself shipping is easier than dropping off and picking up myself. My closest drop off is 30 minutes away in normal traffic, 2 hours of my time (plus gas and car wear and tear) during business hours is worth more than my best blades I would have to wait until I had 6 or so to sharpen to be worth my time to make 2 round trips. I can pack and print a label in about 5 minutes and can have it picked up or drop it off at the post office which I drive past at least 5 days a week. That said a retired guy might welcome the excuse to get out of the house, everyone has a different cost benefit analysis.

[Martin Wasner]

I guess you never heard of flat rate boxes from USPS. Postman drops off box, picks it up and UPS guy brings them back. Unfortunately most of don't have a guy who comes and picks up blades, so we use USPS flat rate boxes.

I still have to pay for that box and get that box. Say it takes half an hour if it goes well. I'm basically out a hundred bucks at that point, I might as well just order another blade online while sitting on the throne

[Dan Hahr]

I still have to pay for that box and get that box. Say it takes half an hour if it goes well. I'm basically out a hundred bucks at that point, I might as well just order another blade online while sitting on the throne

Or with a little planning, you could order priority mail boxes online and have them dropped off at your shop or home. You can stuff at least 8 in one with cardboard in between them and ship it for $12. You will probably save $10 or more a blade and be money ahead. You could even have your helper do it if you can't handle that kind of hassle.

But it is likely that your current way of doing things is just fine...for you. A "carbide guy" needs folks like you to stay in business and put food on his kids' plates. Shops like yours and others keep him in business. But for the rest of us that can't even find a guy, we can simply pack up a blade (or three) and send it off for sharpening and wind up with a much better blade for less money. I gave up on the local carbide guy when he charged me 50 cents an inch for 6" jointer knives and ground them to about an 80 grit finish. Before I learned how to sharpen them myself, I just bought new ones.

For what its worth, Dynamic Saw sharpened an industrial Freud 50T combination blade very well, but ground off the anti-kickback things a little. It was wicked sharp though. Approx. 25 dollars a blade shipped to and fro, including a couple of broken teeth. I'll be sending three or four next time.

Dan

[John Sincerbeaux]

In my wood working world, nothing in this thread would fall into "NIGHTMARE" category.

[sebastian phillips]

In my wood working world, nothing in this thread would fall into "NIGHTMARE" category.

Amen Mr. Sincerbaux.
We (the U.S.) have become Exaggeration Nation.
Or Indig-Nation.

[Rick Whitehead]

Getting back to the original post, I'm among those whom think it might be a bent tooth.
Since the PO measured the run-out of the blade, I'm assuming that he has a dial indicator and stand. If so, he can set it up to indicate on the sides of the teeth and actually measure to see if one is bent.Then he could mark it and take it back to the saw shop and ask them to correct it.
Just an idea.
Rick

[Van Huskey]

Amen Mr. Sincerbaux.
We (the U.S.) have become Exaggeration Nation.
Or Indig-Nation.

Or maybe, just maybe "we" have lost track of the fact English has many words with subtle or even markedly different meanings and/or connotations. My OED lists "ordeal" as a synonym to nightmare which seems perfectly apropos here and not an exaggeration at all.


Back to the thread, we have had exactly one true professional in this field, probably worthy of the term expert (if you have seen his work) comment on the thread and his initial "guess" was a bent tooth and it makes sense if you look at the test cut.

Rick, I am pretty sure I wouldn't let them take another shot at it, if I don't plan to go back to them I would move on to someone I felt more confident could solve the issue versus making it worse and grinding away more carbide in the process.

[Ole Anderson]

Getting back to the original post, I'm among those whom think it might be a bent tooth.
Since the PO measured the run-out of the blade, I'm assuming that he has a dial indicator and stand. If so, he can set it up to indicate on the sides of the teeth and actually measure to see if one is bent.Then he could mark it and take it back to the saw shop and ask them to correct it.
Just an idea.
Rick So if he can ID the tooth and if he has a diamond file, just take a bit off the side of that tooth and be done with it. Hence the other thread of DIY sharpening. With so many YouTube videos of the HF saw sharpener, it must work for some people. And aren't woodworkers, almost by definition, DIY'ers? It isn't CNC sharpening, but for some, the hassle of sending in a blade to get it sharpened almost sounds like too much. Folks resharpen most everything except for carbide saw blades. Chain saws, turning tools, planer and jointer knives, drill bits, some router bits, plane irons and so on.