Sharpening carbide tipped circular saw blades

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John_M

John_M

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 10, 2008
614
Central NY
I have four of these blades in 8 1/4" and 10" sizes which need sharpening. It seems a darned shame to discard perfectly good blades that are just dull. Checked the local Yellow Pages and found no sharpening services.

Are any readers familiar with a local or national company with a reputation for excellence in performing this service?

John_M
 
Try a hardware store or large tool dealer, not a bigbox store. They can certainly be sharpened.
 
John,
check this company, http://www.forrestblades.com/. They make VERY well respected blades, and have a sharpening service. You pay shipping to and from, so depending on that, you might be better off just buying new.
Maybe you've thought of this already, but are your blades clean? I use oven cleaner and a brass brush or a green scrubby on mine, and they cut almost like new.

Good luck
 
Saw sharpeners, we are a dieing breed. You can figure about $.025-.035 per tip for sharpening, replacement of a broken or chipped tip will add to the cost , about $2-3.00 per tip. Add transportation and that will give you a rough estimate of cost for the service. Cleaning the accumulated pitch off the body and tips may help some. Plywood , OSB, and particle board dull blades fairly quickly. Not sure that Forest sharpens blades other than their own. Google "saw sharpening" a bunch will pop up.
 
Thanks for the help, guys. Burns Power Tools in Massachussets seems to have an excellent reputation for sharpening so I will be sending my blades there for the service.

Best,

John_M
 
Often you can do a reasonable touch-up sharpening with a diamond stone, but you only hone the back side of the tooth, not the front cutting side. The purpose is to restore a bit of square cutting edge, as well as hone off a little bit of curl or rounding that extends into the back side of the tooth.

This is the same touch-up for a chisel or plane blade. Hone the flat, back side of the blade, not the cutting edge. Makes a world of difference in performance.
 
I see Harbor Freight is advertising a Circular Saw Blade Sharpener for $59.99. It says it sharpens blades from 4" to 15 3/4". Doesn't mention carbide in ad. How about if someone here buys one and lets us know how it works. :)
 
Fins59 said:
I see Harbor Freight is advertising a Circular Saw Blade Sharpener for $59.99. It says it sharpens blades from 4" to 15 3/4". Doesn't mention carbide in ad. How about if someone here buys one and lets us know how it works. :)
Click to expand...

I wonder if it would do brush cutter blades - I find it's hard to cut a lot of my brush without occasionally trying to cut some rocks as well (doesn't work BTW :red: ) and at ~$15 a pop, it wouldn't take long for a sharpener to pay for itself as opposed to purchasing new blades... It's annoying when they tell you that the blades are resharpenable, but don't mention that there isn't anyone around that does it...

Gooserider
 
The HF unit will do the trick for a homeowner, For carbide tips you will need a diamond wheel at 75% concentration, 1/16" depth. they run about $75 or so depending on the size. If you have about a 1/4" between the tips you could get a 1/8" depth one costs a little more though. A co. by the name of Diamond Wheel in MN can help you out there.

Goose, depending on the style of the brush blade it can be sharpened with the proper size chainsaw file, just like a chain. You have to watch for the offset of the teeth though as once that is gone it is best to replace. Blades are pretty hard and do not accept resetting well. You can make a jig to hold the blade with 2 pieces of 1x4x3' or so, a hinge at the bottom of the 2 so they can fold flat to each other and a bolt/wingnut( close to the arbor size) through the 2 boards at the other end. bolt should be located so that apx 3/4" or so of the blade is above the edge of the boards. It helps to radius the top end of the boards rather than leaving them sq. pass bolt through one board then the blade then the other board clamp tight enough to keep blade from moving while filing with wingnut.
Fasten one side of the assembly to your bench so that the blade is a a comfortable height for filing ( sorry got a little out of sequence there, I'm sure you get the jist though)
Ifin ya all got a question just ask, been doin this for 40 years. If a Pic would help ask and I will post one.
 
Thanks for the advice, I will give it a try this spring when the garage warms up a bit...

Gooserider
 
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