I finally arrived at the point where had to set a bandsaw mill blade.
I have been using 3 blades and just lightly touching them up with the Dinasaw sharpener, which is a fun machine to use.
However, I have not used the Dinasaw setter because it sets in a LRNLRN sequence and all the blades we have are LRLRLR. L=left, R=Right and N= Neutral or raker. The other reason for wanting to move to the LRN sequence is because the sharpener is capable of angled sharpening of the teeth tips (with different angles for the N and opposite angles for the L/R) but this really requires the teeth be in the LRNLRN sequence
The instructions to convert the blades I got from the setter manufacturer was that I keep sharpening and using a blade until the teeth had run out of usable set and then reset the teeth to the LRN sequence. If I was to reset the teeth prior to this I would risk breaking them. The manufacturers also suggested creeping up onto the correct set for the teeth that had to be set the opposite way. This all made sense and as we have 9 blades for this mill I figure if I butchered a blade in the learning process that would not be too bad.
So I did this and although I did not break any teeth it was far from a straight forward exercise. In a sequence of 6 consecutive teeth i.e. LRLRLR only two end up with the correct set. This is because the setter does not set rakers or neutrals or rakers - it just leaves them alone, and the teeth that are set in one direction and need to be moved to the opposite need an extra push by the setter to so this BUT this then pushes those that are already set correctly too far and the setter cannot back correct any over push.
For any original LRLRLR sequence I ended up with LRlrlr. l=slightly left, r - slightly r. The second two "lr"s in the sequence are the teeth that had to be moved from R to L and L to R.
When I tried this blade on the saw it cut poorly and the blade wandered a bit so I increased the set and this helped with cutting but not with blade wander. I tried doing a few other things which I won't bore you with but in the end I used a manual hand saw setter and set all 53 neutrals/rakers by hand. Then I ran the blade around the setter another half a dozen times around the setter and slowly the Rs that should have been L and VV moved into the right position.
Now it at least cuts straight.
On the next blade I am thinking of using the hand setter to correct the last 4 teeth in a LRLRLR sequence to neutral to see if that speeds up the process. Any comments and suggestions at any of any of this is welcomed
Oh yeah, after doing all this the boss noticds how much work is involved (i.e. how much milling is not happening) and has agreed to buy 2 new LRNLRN blades !!!!
I have been using 3 blades and just lightly touching them up with the Dinasaw sharpener, which is a fun machine to use.
However, I have not used the Dinasaw setter because it sets in a LRNLRN sequence and all the blades we have are LRLRLR. L=left, R=Right and N= Neutral or raker. The other reason for wanting to move to the LRN sequence is because the sharpener is capable of angled sharpening of the teeth tips (with different angles for the N and opposite angles for the L/R) but this really requires the teeth be in the LRNLRN sequence
The instructions to convert the blades I got from the setter manufacturer was that I keep sharpening and using a blade until the teeth had run out of usable set and then reset the teeth to the LRN sequence. If I was to reset the teeth prior to this I would risk breaking them. The manufacturers also suggested creeping up onto the correct set for the teeth that had to be set the opposite way. This all made sense and as we have 9 blades for this mill I figure if I butchered a blade in the learning process that would not be too bad.
So I did this and although I did not break any teeth it was far from a straight forward exercise. In a sequence of 6 consecutive teeth i.e. LRLRLR only two end up with the correct set. This is because the setter does not set rakers or neutrals or rakers - it just leaves them alone, and the teeth that are set in one direction and need to be moved to the opposite need an extra push by the setter to so this BUT this then pushes those that are already set correctly too far and the setter cannot back correct any over push.
For any original LRLRLR sequence I ended up with LRlrlr. l=slightly left, r - slightly r. The second two "lr"s in the sequence are the teeth that had to be moved from R to L and L to R.
When I tried this blade on the saw it cut poorly and the blade wandered a bit so I increased the set and this helped with cutting but not with blade wander. I tried doing a few other things which I won't bore you with but in the end I used a manual hand saw setter and set all 53 neutrals/rakers by hand. Then I ran the blade around the setter another half a dozen times around the setter and slowly the Rs that should have been L and VV moved into the right position.
Now it at least cuts straight.
On the next blade I am thinking of using the hand setter to correct the last 4 teeth in a LRLRLR sequence to neutral to see if that speeds up the process. Any comments and suggestions at any of any of this is welcomed
Oh yeah, after doing all this the boss noticds how much work is involved (i.e. how much milling is not happening) and has agreed to buy 2 new LRNLRN blades !!!!