Sharpening planer knives??

[Scott Braun]

So how do most of you guys go about this task? Do you just send them out, or do you do it yourselves?
I just picked up a JET WP160s that came with a couple extra sets of knives so I need to tend to them. Grizzly has a machine for $299 but I'm not sure if I need to go that route. Then there are the Deulen jobs but it doesn't look like anyway to adjust the angle, or is that not that important?
I'd really like to not have to spend $300.. so whats your recommendations, get something or send them out?

Thanks

[Al Launier]

I sharpen the knives myself. I do this by using a thin blade in my table saw to slit (2) sets of slots 1/2" apart at the primary & secondary angles recommended by the planer or jointer manufacturer. The depth of these slots is just enough to have the cutting edges protrude about 1/8" and are spaced 1/2" apart to provide a steady base to slide my Arkansas stones on. works well & doesn't cost anything.

[Scott Braun]

I sharpen the knives myself. I do this by using a thin blade in my table saw to slit (2) sets of slots 1/2" apart at the primary & secondary angles recommended by the planer or jointer manufacturer. The depth of these slots is just enough to have the cutting edges protrude about 1/8" and are spaced 1/2" apart to provide a steady base to slide my Arkansas stones on. works well & doesn't cost anything.

I wonder if you have a pic of this set up you could share please?

[Andrew Hughes]

Send them out. It’s nearly impossible to get a straight sharp edge. You want the edge to be very straight or setting them will be difficult and your machine will not perform as good as it should.
The angle of the bevel is important but don’t worry the sharpening service will make it right. Usually 40 to 45 is fine for the hook angle of the head.
If you have a protractor check them when they come back from a saw service. If they are at 40 you can experiment with adding a 3 or 4 degrees to the edge of a dull knife.
Let us know if you need a place to send them. The place I send my knifes charges 65 cents a inch.

[Warren Lake]

send them out. Ive once or twice had them come back not straight from sharpening service. 14" blades that were out .015. They went back. Seems to me in the old days 30 plus years ago my knives were hollow ground, I really cant remember now but sort of have that memory when honing them before they went it.

[Mike King]

I have never done this, but here is a video of William Ng and his method.

https://youtu.be/pUoEPgcqUFc

[Robert Engel]

I send them out BUT .... I'm looking hard at making a jig and doing them myself.

The only thing about that is whether the blade will stay perfectly straight.

[Mike King]

William Ng's method will keep them perfectly straight. It's a pretty exact process to build the jig though...

[Mike Cutler]

Make the jig in William Ng's video. It's not as exacting as it seems to be. It's quick and it works. You will need to buy some basic stones to do it if you don't already have them. William takes his to 8000grit, which is cool, but the OEM grind on your stock blades were probably 400 grit.
It sounds as if Al has made some refinements to William's basic jig. Maybe Al could post a photo showing the dimensions, and spacing. to make it quicker to build.

[Matthew Curtis]

Send them out. It’s nearly impossible to get a straight sharp edge. You want the edge to be very straight or setting them will be difficult and your machine will not perform as good as it should.
The angle of the bevel is important but don’t worry the sharpening service will make it right. Usually 40 to 45 is fine for the hook angle of the head.
If you have a protractor check them when they come back from a saw service. If they are at 40 you can experiment with adding a 3 or 4 degrees to the edge of a dull knife.
Let us know if you need a place to send them. The place I send my knifes charges 65 cents a inch.

Where do you send them out to?

[Brad Shipton]

I send them out too. Look for an industrial sharpening service near you. They usually sharpen all sorts of things, and shipping is sometimes almost more expensive than sharpening.

[Carl Beckett]

I put a friable wheel in the table saw.

Then clamp my incra positioning 90 degrees to this. The blades get held in a block of wood that I cut a slot in and tapped some screws to hold it in. Blade simply pushes to the back of the jig so depth is the same on all.

Then this jig, with the blade, I just pass back and forth on the front edge of the grinding wheel with the back against the incra fence. I can increment the incra, or raise the arbor to adjust depth (and angle) of cut.

It takes about 30 seconds to sharpen a blade. Mounting the wheel and clamping the incra is about 2 minutes. I have a spare set and do all 6 at once when I do this.

This does make grinding dust, which many balk at but it works for me.

(btw, this method I learned on this site. Another similar method used a cup grinding wheel on the drill press, this would be my second choice)

[Al Launier]

I wonder if you have a pic of this set up you could share please?

The video referenced above is the idea. If your saw blade is a bit wide for the planer or jointer blade, you can shim the blade against the side of the slot. Since the video shows a strip of wood on the block to get the angle of 40°, I use 45° instead. I like being able to do three blades at the same time. For the secondary angle I just back off a couple degrees if I'm so inclined.

[Scott Braun]

So I'm liking some of the ideas on here, but my planer manual (JET JWP 160s) shows a dual angle grind on the blades.. Is this normal? and do you guys use the 2 angles when you sharpen?

[Osvaldo Cristo]

So how do most of you guys go about this task? Do you just send them out, or do you do it yourselves?
I just picked up a JET WP160s that came with a couple extra sets of knives so I need to tend to them. Grizzly has a machine for $299 but I'm not sure if I need to go that route. Then there are the Deulen jobs but it doesn't look like anyway to adjust the angle, or is that not that important?
I'd really like to not have to spend $300.. so whats your recommendations, get something or send them out?

Thanks

I think you will like this reference: https://youtu.be/pUoEPgcqUFc

[Andrew Hughes]

So I'm liking some of the ideas on here, but my planer manual (JET JWP 160s) shows a dual angle grind on the blades.. Is this normal? and do you guys use the 2 angles when you sharpen?

Its very common to have a primary bevel and a secondary bevel. This is how my knives are setup. When you get your knives back from a sharpening service there will be one bevel usually. Hopefully it will be around 40 degrees you can hone a slight second bevel. But be careful when you start going past 45 degrees you run the risk of the bevel striking the wood surface. You need to have some clearance.
I don’t recommend trying to sharpen Your knives like Williams video.
Its very easy to add a crown or hollow to a long knife this will make setting them very difficult.
And maybe the reason so many have problems setting jointer knives and the like.
Good Luck

[John TenEyck]

I sharpen my own knives, used to be 10-1/4" for my Inca, now are 14" for my MiniMax. I've done them by hand with Waterstones, with a friable wheel on my RAS, and now with a Grizzly knife grinder. Set up properly, all will give you a flat (within a couple of thousandths which is good enough for me), sharp knife at whatever angle you need. Doing it by hand using stones is the hardest to screw up but will take the longest if you have to deal with a nick.

FWIW, I found no great improvement in cut quality or time between sharpenings by adding a micro bevel with stones to what I get straight off the grinder, so I no longer do it. I suppose I would do it if I sent my knives out to be sharpened as a way to put it off, but it's faster to regrind a dull knife w/o a micro bevel than one with it.

John

[Scott Braun]

I sharpen my own knives, used to be 10-1/4" for my Inca, now are 14" for my MiniMax. I've done them by hand with Waterstones, with a friable wheel on my RAS, and now with a Grizzly knife grinder. Set up properly, all will give you a flat (within a couple of thousandths which is good enough for me), sharp knife at whatever angle you need. Doing it by hand using stones is the hardest to screw up but will take the longest if you have to deal with a nick.

FWIW, I found no great improvement in cut quality or time between sharpenings by adding a micro bevel with stones to what I get straight off the grinder, so I no longer do it. I suppose I would do it if I sent my knives out to be sharpened as a way to put it off, but it's faster to regrind a dull knife w/o a micro bevel than one with it.

John

I've been looking at that Grizzly grinder, how do you like it? Will it do anything besides planer and jointer knives?

[John TenEyck]

I've been looking at that Grizzly grinder, how do you like it? Will it do anything besides planer and jointer knives?

I like it OK. I bought it at an auction for a really good price not really knowing if I'd use it or whether it would do an acceptable job. Like most things there is a learning curve and the end result depends as much on how you use it as the tool itself. Let me start by saying if you are heavy handed you can blue a knife in a millisecond. Once I learned to set the wheel for whisper thin contact with the knife, and how to pass the knife over the wheel I've been able to get excellent and consistent results. It's by far the fastest way for me to sharpen knives in my shop. I'm sure you can sharpen chisels and hand plane blades on it, too, but I've never used it for that.


I said I like it OK mostly because the wheel adjustment has a fair amount of slop in it. As long as you move in one direction it's fine, but if you have to go the other way then all bets are off, and you often have to go back and start over. I don't know if other knife grinders suffer a similar problem but it's an annoyance of mine with the Grizzly. Beyond that, it does it's job well. But if I hadn't gotten it for such a good price I doubt I would have bought it. I got equally good results using a sharpening stone on my RAS or doing it by hand with Waterstones. It's just that the grinder does it so much faster than with Waterstones and with less cleanup compared to the RAS.

John

[Brian Tymchak]

Where do you send them out to?

Matthew, call Woodwerks over in Gahanna. I have them send out my TS blades for sharpening. They might also handle planer blades.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Send them to Dynamic Saw in Buffalo NY. Got a friends set there now, along with several of my saw blades. 16" knives will fit diagonally in the large flat rate box from USPS. Check out Dynamic's web site.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Because of your price limitation, I say send them out, but I use the Tormek with the planer blade attachment. I sharpen the blades for a local charity workshop and the carbide blades are insanely tough to sharpen. The Tormek jig works excellent and sharpens them perfectly straight. As others have said, it is critical to get a perfectly straight edge.

For smaller jointer blades, I have used a jig with my sharpening stones and it worked well enough. I sure would not want to do it with a 15" planer blade.

[Stanley Powers]

I have never done this, but here is a video of William Ng and his method.

https://youtu.be/pUoEPgcqUFc


William is a funny guy! (And he knows his stuff!)

[Dan Hahr]

It was cheaper for me to just buy new ones. At 50 Cents an inch, a 15 “ set of knives will cost $30 plus shipping both ways. You can get a brand new set for less than $60. But I do sharpen mine with a Dulen type jig and have great results.

Danp

[John Sincerbeaux]

Best way I found was to buy one of these.
396855

[Ron Selzer]

Where do you send them out to?

http://www.blademfg.com/
On the west side of Columbus
All saw blade sharpening in house, has someone in once a week to sharpen planer, jointer knifes and router bits
VERY VERY HAPPY with blades bought and sharpened from them. Great people to deal with
go around to Southwest corner, back door for sharpening services
Some very old machines to CNC machines for sharpening blades
Ron

[Randy Heinemann]

The Deulen jig isn't designed to sharpen the entire bevel on the planer knives. It really only takes a tiny amount off the edge of the blades; more like honing a chisel or hand plane blade. It works well with my Dewalt knives but I would probably only resharpen them once or twice before replacing because they are not designed for many resharpenings to start with. With blades like those used in your planer, I would imagine that, after several honings you might want to send them out to be completely resharpened. For those several honings, though, it would save you the money of re-sharpening. I don't see why the jig wouldn't work for these blades though. Even with only several honings, you still would save enough to make it worthwhile, it would seem.

[Scott Braun]

Best way I found was to buy one of these.
396855

And that would cost more than my planer did!

[Myk Rian]

I use my RAS.

396944

Video

http://vid938.photobucket.com/albums/ad222/MykRian/Sharpening/20130612_150742_zps7f76ae07.mp4

[Scott Braun]

I use my RAS.

396944

Video

http://vid938.photobucket.com/albums/ad222/MykRian/Sharpening/20130612_150742_zps7f76ae07.mp4

Thank you very much for the video, I keep seeing people saying they use their RAS, but I wasn't understanding how they were doing it. Couple questions for you. Just mount that wheel like a stacked dado? What diameter wheel, and what grit? Anything special about that wheel?
Thanks.

[Bradley Gray]

Do you change your own oil?

Do you fix your own shoes?

Do you can your own ketchup?

2 out of 3 make a jig and sharpen your planer blades.

If not, put them in a box and send them off to be sharpened.

[Myk Rian]

Thank you very much for the video, I keep seeing people saying they use their RAS, but I wasn't understanding how they were doing it. Couple questions for you. Just mount that wheel like a stacked dado? What diameter wheel, and what grit? Anything special about that wheel?
Thanks.

6" wheel. Fine grit, and balanced.