Saw blade sharpening

[John Tarro]

I know some of you have Forrest Saw blades. I bought one a while back and would like to know what kind of service (time/quality) you guys gotten when having them sharpen your blades?

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

Quick turnaround (about a week) and the quality was like a new one. I also had them sharpen some other non forrest blades.

Mac

[Greg Cole]

I have had mixed results with having decent blades sharpened. Until one of my local ww'ing tool stores bought a CNC blade sharpener... and I have had nothing but good luck with the FREUD blades they've sharpened for me.... FYI it's $0.25 a tooth here in KC anyway.

[Mike Monroe]

I'm with Greg on this. I have access to a local sharpening business that will sharpen anything at very reasonable rates (25 cents a tooth, $3 for a pair of scissors, etc...). I've always had good luck with Freud blades, so I pretty much stick with them for all my cutter needs.

FWIW - A while back I picked up an Irwin blade for peanuts (I think it was $10) and the carbide on the Irwin is roughly half as "beefy" as the carbide on the Freud blade. The Irwin is currently in the Unisaw and cuts just fine, but it's only been on the saw while the Freud was out getting sharpened. I'll probably put the Freud back on and keep the Irwin in reserve.

-Mike

[Jim Becker]

Quick turn around for me...and great results...with using Forrest direct. About a week or so including transit. (But I'm only one state over...)

[Darrin Davis]

Precision Sharpening in Albuquerque, NM does a great job! They do all of our school's router bits, shaper bits, and saw blades.

[John Tarro]

Three weeks ago I decided it was time to send the one Forrest blade I have in for sharpening. It has worked great and I really have used it a lot. The only reason it is going in is because of something I did not being careful with it. I called the customer service for sharpening and was told it would be a week to 10 days, once they received the blade, to be able to return it.

Boxed two blades and sent them out the following Tuesday, delivered to Forrest that Thursday AM. (January 16)

Waited and waited. Called today to see when they had been finished and sent back. I was told by the "customer service rep." that they had just acknowledged receipt yesterday (two weeks after actually taking delivery) and would get it in line to be sharpened.

When I asked about the "week to 10 days" I was told that this is their busiest time and that they would get it out when it was finished. When I NICELY indicated that it didn't help my situation out much, I was told pretty much that "well that is pretty much your problem" (which it is).

I do have other blades, not as good, and I can do some work but I have been putting off a particular job waiting for this blade to come back. I don't think I can do it well enough with the blades I now have to use.

I am just hoping that is not the way it usually happens. I guess I am done venting . . . will look some place else next time.

Sorry for dumping. Any advice.

[John Piwaron]

I have a couple of Forrest blades. 2 woodworker IIs and 1 chopmaster.

At this point I won't be sending them back to Forrest for sharpening.

All of the blades work great when new and continue to work that way for a long time. My experience is that when they get dull, they get dull *now*. I simply cannot say enough good things about a new Forrest blade. They're awesome. But..

I returned my first one (only one at the time) and was told it wasn't flat anymore. It'd need to be flattened & sharpened. The cost of doing so was around 60% the price of a new blade. !!! When I got it back, it no longer cut worth a darn. Swirl marks and distinctly less sharp than when new.

I didn't say a thing to them about it. That's my fault. I have no one to blame for that but me. And I haven't used that first blade since then.

A contributing factor in my reluctance to talk to them about it is that quite frankly, shipping is expensive. And you pay both ways.

So now my local Woodcraft has a guy that says he's capable of sharpening a Forrest blade. So that's where they'll go when the time comes. IMO, Forrest's *sharpening service* (and flattening) is simply not as good as any local guy that's sharpened my other blades in the past.

Bottom line - great blades, but not very good sharpening service.

So that's my story. Yours will likely be different. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Dynamic Saw in Buffalo NY (dynamicsaw.com) does a great job on blades, at less than half the costs of Forrest. Forrest is a sharpening service, that happens to make blades. Figure it up, you buy a WWII for $100, and they sharpen it 5-10 times for $20 a pop. Where did they make the most money?

[fRED mCnEILL]

I have 3 Forrest blades, a T/K, a full kerf and a chopmaster. When I needed to get the first one shapened I sent it back to Forrest. This was an expenssive and "pain in the butt" exercise. I live in Canada(near Vancouver and the border) so I drove across the border, through customs, and mailed the blade. Then I had to do it all again to pick it up.

So when it came time to get the blades sharpened again I checked with Lee Valley, where I got the last 2 blades and they said there was a local sharpening service authorized for Forrest blades. They are local, cheap and the blades were SHARP. They almost appear to have a different profile but they sure do cut nice. For the Canadians on here the name is European Saw Sharpening in Surrey. B.C.

[Rob Platt]

Greg - who do you use in KC?

[John TenEyck]

I'll second Dynamic Saw in Buffalo. About a week turn around. Excellent work. I picked up my blades and got a tour of their place. The building is nothing special, but the equipment sure is. A couple of new really high end German CNC grinders, some older machines, a couple of guys who know how to replace teeth, tension blades, etc, and the guy who owns/runs the place really knows his stuff. They also sharpen router bits, etc., and sell blades at lower cost than the OEM.