That fancy $200 band saw blade sharpener I bought

Back around 2015 I dropped about $200 on one of those electric band saw blade sharpeners you see in catalogs. Thought it would pay for itself in a year since I was sending blades out to a shop in Pittsburgh every few months. But honestly the thing never got the teeth consistent enough and I ended up snapping three blades in two weeks. I went back to the old hand file method my grandpa taught me. Has anyone else tried one of those machines and had it actually work out?

3 comments

3 Comments

graym4923d ago

Tried one of those too, different brand but same idea. Worked okay on bigger blades like 1 inch and up but anything smaller than that and the inconsistency drove me nuts. Got tired of changing setups and went back to a good sharpening service locally. They charge $15 a blade and I don't have to worry about it snapping mid cut. The file method is slower but at least you know the teeth are getting done right.

adams.vera23d ago

So the consistency issue, was it mostly the feed mechanism slipping or the actual grinding wheel not holding its shape? I'm wondering if the problem is the machine itself or just the setup being picky. Because if it's the wheel dressing that's the weak point, that's a whole different headache than a bad feed system.

jenniferb5323d ago

$15 a blade adds up fast if you're sharpening more than a handful a month, and you're at the mercy of their turnaround time. I've had local services mess up the tooth geometry on a 3/4 inch blade so bad it threw chips everywhere, so paying someone doesn't guarantee consistency either. The real issue with those cheaper grinders is usually the wheel dressing like you said, but a lot of shops sell diamond dressing tools for under $20 that can fix that problem if you're patient enough to learn the trick. Once I figured out the right feed rate and got a decent dressing stone, my results on small blades under an inch were actually better than the file method because the angles come out more uniform. Have you tried swapping the stock wheel for a higher grit one and running it slower, or did you just give up on the machine entirely?