Dave,

With the Makita, the blade holder is rock solid and the blade itself rides
against adjustable stops. So while it's a bit of a pain to initially set
up, once it's done, lock it down and forget it. The holder is cast and
steel - it will not flex. Follow the sharpening procedures in the Makita
book and unless you have nicked blades, one or two light passes and you have
a sharpened blade. If you have nicks, then it will take however many passes
it takes.

I wouldn't worry about blades being out of balance - you're only taking off
a few microns of steel. And you take the same number of passes on each
blade. To check the blades, place then on a flat surface and place the
sharp edges together. Use a magnifier and see if there is any gap between
any two sharpened edges. If there is, double check your setup or perhaps
better yet, do this before you grind them so you'll have a reference point.
Then you can count the number of passes it takes to get any cupping out. As
for crowning, that should come out when the blade is installed flat but
unless those blades are real thin, I doubt they have any crown to them (or
maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by that...)

To do a set of knives for my planer takes about 15 min. That's get the
sharpener out, set it up, align the blade holder to the correct angle (since
I may have used it for a different blade angle previously), add some water,
insert blade, make minor adjustment so blade only contacts grinding wheel at
one spot (per instructions) then make one pass, inspect, and repeat as
needed. Blade is sharp when it slices your finger and you didn't even
realize that you touched the blade.... Did I mention that you should wear
some protective gloves while handling those blades? The garden gloves with
the latex covering the woven fabric (borg - $3.98pr) type gloves work well.

Actual sharpening time - about 10 seconds per pass - slow and easy with
consistent speed and pressure pushing the blade holder from left to right.
Takes longer to mount the blade and remove it than it takes to sharpen it.

Bob S.



"Dave Rowell" wrote in message
.166...

Well I just fired my painter and it looks like all my woodworking
projects are pushed out until after I finish stripping and painting this
puppy myself. So basically maybe I'm not in as big a rush on the jointer
and I might have time to get into sharpening them myself.

I've read good opinions on the Makita setup and maybe I'll go that
route. One concern I have is whether or not you have problems with
blades flexing, resulting in cupped or crowned blades. I'm still a
little bit worried about the balancing issues, but I see most people
don't seem to have problems. Do you do anything special to make sure
blades in a set all have roughly equal mass? How much time does it take
to do a set of 3 13" knives?

Thanks for the info.

Dave R.

Well let's see now.... my day job may be short-lived, I have the
Makita sharpener, I know how to sharpen planer and joiner blades and
he sounds like he's willing to pay the price for quality work...
Yooo...... Dave

;-)

Bob S.


service. Where I live nothing is cheap (~30 bucks for sharpening 3
13" planer blades) and it's really hard to find competent services in
anything (Don't even start me on the painters who just secured their
tarp by nailing through my roof). If they come back reasonable I send
the other sets to the same place.

Dave R.