Sharpening Chipper blades.... Because you asked and I am a cheap Bast'd

[CurSedVoyce]

Sharpening Chipper blades.... Because you asked

Here we go... This has been brought up twice by me and curiosity by some of how I do it.
I bought a wet tool grinder for under $200.00 from Harbor Freight when it was on sale Cause I am a cheap Bast'd and decided that at the price of blades and that we did not have anyone here that can sharpen them in town, I would save some doe and turn around time. So I have 3 sets of blades I work with

First you dress the blades a bit by taking the pitch off. I use either a chisel or flat knife. Even a good putty knife or scraper (with razor blade) will do. All sides.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Oooops.. You'll need one of these... Wet grinder..
I set the table at 45 degrees... Miter at 90. The drip system is useless. Use it to fill the catch tray. You will be dipping thee blades per pass..
This grinder can be run either rotational direction... Yup, your metal shop teacher would kick ya butt.... You will be running the grind towards the cutting edge, not away from it Careful! But granted you are not adding a lot of pressure, just slowly passing it across the wheel. So the blade does not get too hot, I move it in such a way as to see the water evaporate as it passes... One smooth motion... NO STOPPING! Takes practice

 

[CurSedVoyce]

You will not get all the chips out of the blades for many tries. I don't bother trying... I want to see the edge as sharp as possible and shiny all the way across with no extra bevels added.. Careful, they will cut you when done!
I run my blades 10 hours per side unless I hit something...

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Takes me about 40-45 minutes 3 sets of four double sided

 

[Mr. Sir]

Cool! What kind of chipper do you have? Those knives are tiny, or maybe you have REALLY BIG hands!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Small tow behind.. Bear Cat 24 HP 5 inch CAP. Nice cause we can get it into really tight places... Rob and I put a hitch dolly on it the other day and wheeled it down a small sidewalk into a back yard to chip where the brush was at... Nope.. not auto feed... Two feeders though... 3/4 minus shredder and then the knife side.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Five inches? Wow!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Hey you have to start somewhere

Rob and his brother bought it new, I inherited it.. Besides.. up here, anything more than 3" is firewood.. And yes a bigger chipper is on my wish list

 

[SkwerI]

Many years ago when I had my lawn business (17-24 yrs old) I had bought a special grinder to sharpen lawnmower blades. It was made by a company called Neary. It wasn't all that precise, but you could raise or lower the table to adjust the grinding angle as the wheel wore down. Reversible motor so you could grind from either side. I think it is also sold by Lesco with green paint. Here's one on eBay right now. http://cgi.ebay.com/Rotary-blade-gr...-shapener_W0QQitemZ150338923141QQcmdZViewItem
Anyway, I think it could also be used for chipper knives if you were careful to keep them even.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Is that also a wet grinder Brian? You don't want to lose the temper on the blades.

 

[SkwerI]

No, it's dry. You might have to use the 'dip it in the tray between passes' method like yours.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

For those of you that have not seen my "toy" chipper that is often the brunt of snide chipper remarks...
Humble beginnings

 

[sotc]

Cute knives

 

[CurSedVoyce]

See what I mean

 

[sotc]

What?! My wife calls small things cute all the time.....

 

[CurSedVoyce]

What?! My wife calls small things cute all the time.....

Darn near signature material right there....

 

[NickfromWI]

I have a feeling my first chipper (one day) will be much like that one.

How much to sharpen my blades?!?!

love
nick

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Could work a deal on splicing there Nick

 

[MasterBlaster]

Brush Bandit makes an awesome six incher.

Dunno 'bout that 'lil fella.

 

[Al Smith]

Troybuilt makes some neat little chippers also .They work find for occasional homeowner stuff but wouldn't be much good in a commercial application .

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Yes MB. Had I been involved in the purchase (as I said I inherited the chipper with the business) We probably would have bought a Bandit self feed at least 6 inch. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for what we have and I would not part with it even when we get a bigger one. It does come in real handy when we have places a larger unit won't get into. This one is great for trimming, bigger would be better for TD's. People would look at you funny if you chip over 6 inches here. All they see is you wasting good firewood. I usually take the wood home if they don't want it and use it for heat or sell it to add to the profit of the job anyway

Just for the record, Rob and his brother paid about 8000.00 for this thing brand new.
I think that money could have bought a pretty nice used Bandit.

 

[JonnyHart]

The manual for my Bandit 6" says to use a file to sharpen. Would take a while.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

When we were sharpening our first set of blades we had with the chipper, we used a file and emory cloth. The emory would polish them nice and they cut great, till they got nicked. The file worked ok, but the edge was not as true as I liked. The wet grinder ( I need to also look up the wet wheel grit) really does a much nicer job. And I bet I don't take off any more material than with a file.

 

[sotc]

Wow, 8k!? My father in law bought a 3pt bearcat like that new for 3k a year before I came along. He promptly sold it when I brought the boss' chipper over once!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Note... Rob's brother is no longer in the company, I took over his part.... Funny that