Best tool for sharpening your own chipper knives? Anyone sharpen their own knives?

[TunaCat]

I live in Hawaii (Oahu) and as far as I can tell there is no place that has those professional water cooled sharpening machines.

There are knife sharpers that say they can do it but i dont think they have any specialty equipment. Also another guys i know had a bad experience with the person I was going to go to.

Anyone sharpen their own knives? I have seen guys doing it with an angle grinder with a sanding disc lightly.

Is there a better tool?

I know its important to keep them the same weight and to not overheat them.

My chipper knives are crazy expensive. They are discontinued so I have to get them manufactured. $500 with shipping per knife. They weigh 17lb each and are 16” long.

 

[blades]

Several ways to skin a cat. on the expensive side Bridgeport , surface grinder or tool and cutter grinder + holding jig. Angle grinder ( 10k rpm) run way to fast and burn the steel quickly same with belt grinders and generally are not used with coolant ( key ingredient) You could get a way with a heavy duty drill press with an add on xy table or just the x part with enough travel and a small cup wheel in 30-50 grit range ( white) would not have to use a flood coolant could be a constant air/ coolant mix spray. and a jig (could be made from wood) to hold blade at correct grinding angle. Something could be rigged with a cup wheel on a bench grinder( you wood be traveling across the grinders shaft axis at a very slight angle ( 2-5 degs) to avoid the opposite side of the wheel ( using a standard wheel (6"-8") gives a concave surface, to thin at cutting edge, not what you want) and a sliding table or fixture of some sort. sorta depends on how creative you are. Takes awhile as you only take off maybe .005 at a pass more than that you risk burning. Double side knives are ground at apx 30-32deg , single edge are apx 40 deg. You don 't want to go shorter than 2"+5/16" from the center line of the blade to the edge on double side blades ( should be spec in the manual). all blades to same size to keep balance on wheel, or at least in pairs. I do this stuff for a living for the past 30 plus years, and have seen the results of some of those angle grinder rigs floating around on the net- guess it depends on the operator most were less than satisfactory in my opinion. there are a couple chi-com rigs which are not to pricey with enough travel for your use, still wood need a mounting jig of some sort. they are sometimes set up with a dripp coolant device which is better than nothing. Chris