Sharpening power planer blades

[beckerhead]

My big brother asked me to sharpen his planer blades, and before I answered him I thought it wise to seek the sage counsel of the BF gurus. Any advice about power planer blades would be nice. Tools, tips, tricks, do's and don'ts.

 

[richard j]

if you dont have a surface grinder or any other way to sharpen them evenly, dont attempt it. if you now someone with a surface grinder thats the best way to go. i have a friend who can sharpen planer blades on his surface grinder if you are interested. i have tried to do them by hand with a stone but its just too hard. a belt sander will trash a set real quick.

 

[mete]

What kind of planer blades ? They come in the little hand held type to very long [~36"] and 3/8" thick type .The big ones you can touch up ,best done with a diamond sharpener. Then there is at least one excellent disposable blade that eliminates sharpening !! What do you have ?

 

[StretchNM]

I send mine out by mail to a sharpener in Albuquerque.

Depending on your skill level (or his), this is an option for JOINTER knives. You could build a wooden jig that would do the same for planer blades. Leave the knives int he jointer. Rotate the cutterhead backwards slightly until the knife edge is parrallel to the jointer table. With a fine conical or round with flat bottom stone, 1/4" shank, chuck it in a variable speed router. With the router on the jointer table, adjust the stone so it just touches the knife edge, then back off a hair. Grind the edge then lower the stone just a micro-atom, and grind again. Continue untilt he edge is freshly ground. Then do the other(s). When finished, you can adjust the knives in the cutterhead just as you would if you were replacing with a sharp set. I read about this in Fine Woodworking mag back in the eighties, I think, but I never tried it.

If you built a jig that would hold the planer blades at the proper angle, and still provided a base for a router or Dremel, the same theory would apply.

You need a variable speed (lowest speed setting), soft-start router or Dremel to use stones in it.