Sharpening planer knives

[Mark Berenbrok]

I’ve acquired a Makita 9820-2 sharpener to use for my planer knives (2-knife sets for a Ryobi AP-10 and 3-knife sets for a Powermatic Model 100). My question is how important is it to make sure the knives are balanced? I was thinking about using a dial caliper to make sure the knives are the same width. What’s an acceptable tolerance? Anybody have a better method? Am I worrying needlessly?

[CPeter James]

Unless you are taking a large nick out of a single knife, I don't think this is a problem. I have had one of these for about 10 years and never experienced a problem. Do you have the "green" wheel from Highland Hardware? If not, I think it is a must.

CPeter

[tod evans]

mark, planers are more tempermental about weight than size as far as balancing goes so if you`re going to balance the knifes weigh them instead of measuring. .02 tod

[Richard Niemiec]

I sharpen mine on the Makita and frankly you don't take all that much off unless its got a really big nick, and even then you'd likely take off the same amount of steel on that blade. Given the size and mass of the cutter heads in question, I don't think that a blade to blade difference would be an issue, never has for me. If this is your first time with the Makita, do yourself a favor and download the instruction article from Highland Hardware's site, they had a guy on staff who wrote it, and he gives pretty good advice; I found it helpful my first time.

Rich Niemiec.

[Keith Outten]

Mark,

Pick your worst knife or the one with the worst nick if applicable and sharpen it first. As you adjust the knife guide to sharpen the first knife leave it at that setting for the remaining knives and all of them should have the same amount of material that has been removed.

After sharpening I often measure all blades just as a quick check, it is very rare that a set won't end up with the same knife width. As Tod mentioned you should weigh your blades if you are in doubt, it is the most accurate means of maintaining a balanced set.

Always pay close attention when sharpening and look for transverse cracks in the blades and by all means dye-check them periodically to assure they remain crack-free.

.