Anyone out there sharpen their own saw blades???

[Martin Siebert]

Is it worth it, especially when the nearest sharpening service is 2 hours away??? I see there are sharpeners available for around $200 or so, but I don't know if that will really do it. For those of you that do sharpen your own, what sharpening machine do you use??? Thanks in advance for any info, it is greatly appreciated!!!!

Edit: I guess I should clarify...I want to sharpen 10" carbide tipped table saw blades and others along those lines......

[Bradley Gray]

No it is not worth it. Use UPS or USPS

[Jacob Reverb]

Side question: How much does it typically cost to sharpen a 10" table saw blade with 50 teeth? I have a few Freud LU84M011 blades (ATB&R) that need sharpening...

[Ben Zara]

Do not sharpen your own saw blade. Clean yes. Sharpen no.

[John Blazy]

Well worth it - been sharpening my own carbide for nearly 20 years. Doesn't require machinist level skill either, and it takes about 3 minutes each blade. I am a professional, so I have many types of blades - Triple chip, ATB, negative hook high ATB and you know what they have in common? All have flat faces, 90° to the plate - the only difference is hook angle. Get a 600 grit diamond blade from North Jersey Diamond Wheel co, or any industrial diamond wheel supplier of sharpening, and make a bushing if it does not have 5/8" arbor. These blades are typically 8 to 9" DIA, and are about .060" thick at rim, continuous sintered diamond. Mount diamond blade in T-saw.

Then make a magnetic base centering pad with a center to hold blade like in my pic below (aluminum in a sliding dovetail slot). Then hover blade to be sharpened with flat inner tooth face against the diamond edge til flat to match hook angle. Then slide the magnetic centering base under blade to match hole to establish same angle, each tooth. Then slide the center back to clear, turn on T-saw, and hit every tooth - easy.

I do my dado blades, dado chippers, small and large blades. I have some blades that I have sharpened literally over a hundred times (19 years of sharpening / heavy use) and they all cut like a Forrest blade.

sharpening-main.jpgsharpening-tooth.jpgsharpening-clsr.jpg

[Jamie Buxton]

Side question: How much does it typically cost to sharpen a 10" table saw blade with 50 teeth? I have a few Freud LU84M011 blades (ATB&R) that need sharpening...

About $30 for me, done locally. I expect that the cost varies quite a bit across the country.

[Carl Beckett]

Well worth it - been sharpening my own carbide for nearly 20 years. Doesn't require machinist level skill either, and it takes about 3 minutes each blade. I am a professional, so I have many types of blades - Triple chip, ATB, negative hook high ATB and you know what they have in common? All have flat faces, 90° to the plate - the only difference is hook angle. Get a 600 grit diamond blade from North Jersey Diamond Wheel co, or any industrial diamond wheel supplier of sharpening, and make a bushing if it does not have 5/8" arbor. These blades are typically 8 to 9" DIA, and are about .060" thick at rim, continuous sintered diamond. Mount diamond blade in T-saw.

Then make a magnetic base centering pad with a center to hold blade like in my pic below (aluminum in a sliding dovetail slot). Then hover blade to be sharpened with flat inner tooth face against the diamond edge til flat to match hook angle. Then slide the magnetic centering base under blade to match hole to establish same angle, each tooth. Then slide the center back to clear, turn on T-saw, and hit every tooth - easy.

I do my dado blades, dado chippers, small and large blades. I have some blades that I have sharpened literally over a hundred times (19 years of sharpening / heavy use) and they all cut like a Forrest blade.

sharpening-main.jpgsharpening-tooth.jpgsharpening-clsr.jpg

I used a grinding wheel on the TS arbor for years for sharpening jointer knives - worked great. Never thought to do it for TS blades. Neat trick, I will be trying it out at some point. Thank you for sharing.

(note some will be adverse to generating grinding dust in/around TS bearings... a fair concern so this technique may not be for everybody)

[Richard Coers]

I send all mine to Forrest. For what I spend for a quality blade, I'm going to let a professional sharpen mine. Not a fan of the idea of putting carbide dust into the elevation and tilting mechanisms of my table saw.

[Lee Schierer]

I send all mine to Forrest. For what I spend for a quality blade, I'm going to let a professional sharpen mine. Not a fan of the idea of putting carbide dust into the elevation and tilting mechanisms of my table saw.

Not to mention the dust is toxic.

[Bill Zickel]

http://quinnsaw.com/carbide-tipped-s...de-sharpening/

[Martin Siebert]

Thanks for all the replies so far folks!!! It is greatly appreciated. For those of you that just said "no" or "don't do it" can you tell us the reason why not??? I get that the dust is toxic, but cant you wear the proper protective gear?? Thanks again guys.

[Jeff Duncan]

Well one reason I can think of off the top of my head, (besides the toxicity of carbide dust already mentioned), is it will be exceptional difficult to maintain any real accuracy from tooth to tooth without a precision blade grinder. In the old days of HSS blade you could maybe get by with just a simple jig. These days with more sophisticated carbide blade tooth configurations you'll have a lot more to contend with. If your trying to fabricate some system on your own you need a way to set up to do multiple different angles. Say on a simple alternate bevel blade, you'll have a face angle, two top angles, the two sides all needing to be set up separately. Of course if you try to sharpen a triple chip..... well, even more different angles to figure out how to set accurately. So your going to spend many hours figuring out how to set up and sharpen these blades..... or you could pay $20 - $30 each and have them done while you working on something more fun

I have two places for sharpening my blades. My 10" blades still go back to Forrest, I have a box I built for shipping them and when it gets full I send it via USPS and let them handle it. For 12" - 16" blades I use a local place that's a bit cheaper than Forestt and still does a very nice job.

good luck,
JeffD

[Ole Anderson]

Different blades look so complicated, but as John said, the face of the tooth is at 90 degrees to the plate and that is all you really need to sharpen. I recently got the HF blade sharpener and it works quite well. Is it a CNC quality sharpen? Of course not. A few adjustments and you are ready to go. Worried about the dust? Use a mask. Not one blade I sharpened wasn't significantly better than when I started. A first I was just going to do my junk blades, but it was somewhat addictive so I did my Freud rip and crosscut blades. The HP sharpener has a stop that is intended to provide a consistent cut, but I just ignore it and hit each tooth the same, seat of the pants. Try it, if you don't like it, all you are out is $43 (with the 20% coupon) presuming you don't do something stupid. A number of YouTube videos out there.

[Kevin Beitz]

I sharpen everything... But don't forget that set is just as important...

[Bruce Wrenn]

For prices, check out Dynamic Saw's web site. There are two sharpening places in my county, but both are within a mile of each other, only forty miles away from my shop. I order a flat rate box from USPS, mail man drops it off at door, then picks it up. Three days later it's at Dynamic, and two weeks after that it's back on my porch. Shipping both ways is around $35, which wouldn't cover the cost of time, much less gas to drive across the county. The drive across the county includes two cities of over 150,000 population each, so it's a minimum of two hours each way, times four (drop off, and pick up.) Often it's not the price, but actual cost that counts!