Band saw blade sharpening?

[Lynn Kasdorf]

I wonder if anybody out there knows of an affordable way to make or buy a setup for sharpening badn saw blades.

I have a 1" wide 3 or 4 tpi Timberwolf on my big old Rockwell 20" saw. It is starting to get a bit dull.

It seems to me that it might not be that hard to fashion a small grinding wheel on some sort of a jig so that the teeth could be touched up in place.

I'm thinking of a jig that would hold the grinding wheel on a pivoting arm or a slide. You would also want a system that engages the blade a couple teeth above the grindee, to ensure consistancy.

I've thought about adapting a chain saw sharpening system, or using a mototool, if I could find a sharpening bit that would not get ground down to nothing after the first use...

Of course, this indexing scheme would not work with variable pitch blades.

It just seems a shame to toss a costly blade when it starts to loose its initial edge.

[Phil Phelps]

My main bandsaw has a 130" blade. That's 792 teeth. I've thrown away "thousands" of blades in 35 years. Too expensive to have them sharpened. And had I tried to do them myself, I'd probably be on my third blade. Wish someone had a better way. :rolleyes:

[Lynn Kasdorf]

from the timberwolf site:
"THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO SHARPEN A BAND SAW BLADE. A stone must come down the face of the tooth, around the bottom of the gullet and up the back side of the tooth in ONE SWEEPING ACTION. You MUST maintain gullet integrity.

The gullet is NOT a trash can or dumpster for the saw dust. In fact, it is the second hardest working part of the band. A well defined gullet is like the inverted wing of an aircraft. It is responsible for the forced air flow, cooling the steel and removal of the saw dust.

If you are running appropriate set, the air is driven through the log by the gullet at the speed of the band. This causes the saw dust to be sucked out of the cut. The saw dust effectively cools the gullet by spinning around the inside and spilling over the back side of the next tooth. You MUST maintain a 40% gullet fill for proper cooling and extended cutting time.

If you sharpen just the face and the back side of the tooth, you ruin the gullet integrity and destroy the performance of the band. "

..which implies that it can be done. This description sounds like a hand filing operation.

Here is a band mill sharpener gizmo, that looks like what I'd liek to build:
http://www.baker-online.com/DOCUMENTS/dino_bandsaw_sharpener.html

another:
http://www.dinasaw.com.au/Bandsawpage.html

and Harbor Freight has one for a kilobuck!:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=2603