Look at these blades

[Yellowdog]

Does anyone with a lot of experience have an eye for blade wear? Vermeer tells me the service interval for my knives on a BC2000 drum chipper is 10 hours. That seems awfully low. I have touched up the knives with the handy doohickey that is being promoted but these knives probably have about 15 hours on them. I can't seem to tell when I should change my blades so I do it when "I think" the machine is having trouble. I am chipping mostly soft wood like cedar and most chips are acceptable even when the blades look like the one attached. Any thoughts? I don't want to throw money away changing blades if they still work..
Thanks!

 

[NeTree]

Mine look a whole lot worse than yours. I change them when I have the time, which isn't too often.

 

[Tim Gardner]

Stop putting the debris you rake up thru the chipper. Have your guys carry the brush when working in sandy/rocky/muddy areas as opposed to dragging it. Try to avoid chipping a lot of dead stuff.

We keep two sets. One is being professionally sharpened while the other is being used. Make sure your knives are set properly and your anvil/cutter bar is not worn.

Don't buy cheap knives.

 

[Menchhofer]

Knives look dull to me, but then I try to keep them sharp. 10 Hours of chipping time seems about right on the average. There have been times when the knives have been changed only after 1 hour. Just depends on what you are chipping.
Not only can I tell when the knives need sharpening by the chips flowing into the box, I can also tell by the sound of the limbs as they are chipped. Dull knives make your machine work harder and places more stress on the entire machine.

From my experience, that doo hickey knife sharpener does a good job when the knives are very sharp....as they dull the sharpener loses it's effectiveness...

 

[Yellowdog]

It's tough knowing when to sharpen/change knives. These are a booger to change with 4 blades and 5 bolts! I put an edge back on the blades but it doesn't last very long. We are mostly chipping whole trees, big ones, but it is cedar and it is fairly soft. You guys that use the little sharpener, do you do it a few times in a day?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Inspect daily and change as needed.

I would swap those out too. As Steve says, it is wear and tear on the engime, but it is also time chipping. Duller goes slower, more working the feed bar to keep the engine from lugging.

 

[Yellowdog]

Okay we all pretty much agree the blades look dull but putting a little edge back on with a hand tool is okay until when? Vermeer couldn't help me much either so I am relying on those of you who have done this for years. I chipped for a couple of years, got out of it, and I am back at it and want my machine to last but don't want to throw money away on sharpenings (which I thought were done shoddily).

Anyone know of a mail order blade sharpening service that does consistently good work?
Anyone use Woodsman Pro blades from Bailey's?

Thanks,

Jason

 

[Menchhofer]

The going rate for sharpening the knives is about .75-1.00 and inch of sharpening surface.

I do not know any GOOD mail order sharpening but there is one listed on this site. I have not had good experiences with a few of the services. However, when they do come back to you they should be SUPER sharp if done properly. I have also had experiences where when the knives were sharpened they would take off too much at a time. This is something you will need to watch..

If you do get a nick or two in the knife you should specify you do NOT want the entire nick removed...just sharpened normally and leave the nick. This way you save precious metal instead of having 1/8 inch or more taken off in the sharpening process.

As I have stated in a previous post, I opted to purchase a sharpening machine for my knives that saves alot of this cost.

If you will send me the dimensions of your knives I will check to see if I could sharpen them for you.

 

[Yellowdog]

For Example:

BC2000 chipper knives are:
10" x 5 1/2" x 5/8"

Thanks!

 

[Yellowdog]

It would be nice to have a hardener the could be applied to knife edges without making the knives fail or break apart. It just seems to me that the engineers at Vermeer and Morbark could come up with something that lasts longer than a few hours. Luckily I have horsepower to spare for what I am chipping (soft wood like Ash juniper) but I dread the thought of my machine working harder than it has to.

How important is checking the shear bar? Vermeer mechanics told me it wasn't a big worry unless I have really poor chip quality but do you really get good chips on a drum? My chips weren't exactly consistent when the machine had 2 hours on it!

 

[Menchhofer]

Squirrel, thanks for the psoitive comments.


Yellowdog, I would need to make a minor modification on my machine but I could sharpen them for you. You will need to ship them to me. I hope you have several sets to work off of.

I will sharpen them the first time for nothing but return shipping costs. Try them and if you are satisfied let me know. How much easier could that be?

 

[YUKON 659]

Menchhofer, what kind of grinder or sharpener are you using? The reason I ask, if you are you using some type of surface grinder I will be able to get you an endless supply of grinding wheels. If I'm not mistaken the mounting hole is 1" diameter. Let me know.
I purchased my first chipper a few months ago....the knives that were on it were "whipped" the cutting edges were so bad that they actually had a radius on them and there were places that the edges were bent instead of chipped!!!! I have access to a hardness tester at work ...I checked them and they were only 36-38 RC!!!!!! The only thing I had to compare this with was the knives Bailey's sell which are 58 RC. Quite a difference. I guess my point is that there must be quite a quality difference in the different manufacturers of chipper knives!!!!! I also made myself 2 sets of knives out of A-2 tool steel, hardened them and double tempered them to 56 RC. They have seen about 10-12 hrs. of use and are still very sharp.

Jeff

 

[YUKON 659]

Brian, I'm no expert either. With tool steel I'm not aware of any process that can isolate area's to be hardened. Maybe the center area can be fully annealed with a torch after a hardening process. I'm wondering if this process (hardening just the cutting edge) is unique to this company or an industry standard? Tool steel when hardened does become brittle....but the double tempering process removes the brittleness while maintaining the hardness. Maybe I should look into this a little further. I'll talk to a few guys at work that are more knowledgable about heat treating than I am. Thanks for the heads up!!!! I'll let you know what I come up with.

Jeff

 

[Yellowdog]

I like your proposal Menchhofer. Get in touch with me with shipping address, etc. and we will work something out. I think this could be a whole lot easier than taking my blades to Vermeer to trade in. That process makes me wonder who had abused the blades before me and when will they break?

Thanks!

Jason

 

[Menchhofer]

Email has been sent to you....

 

[Stumper]

Regarding the bed knife(anvil). On my small Wood-Pro sharpness of the bed knife makes a significant difference.

Does anyone else use a compound grind on their knives? The manufacturer says to maintain the original angle but (on my knives at least) that results in a lot of breakage at the cutting edge. I get a much more durable edge with a compound grind. The factory edge is probably better --for the first 2 hrs- but it won't stay sharp like my double bevel.

 

[geofore]

blades

Why aren't you talking to someone that runs a machine shop or a metalurgical engineer? Duh? They deal with metals every day. This is meant to come across as harsh tones. Your local machine shop knows way more than you do about this, as you get better and better grades of steel for the knives the price go up and up. I do see you are using the proper grade(class) bolts to hold those knives in place, those little hash marks on the heads tell you what the grade(class) is. The knives need to be reworked, the edge is worn. I would agree that you don't have to have the nicks ground out every time but you should have extra blades to change out while the other set is being sharpened. Ten hours is average for touch up but check the blades every day to see what causes the most wear and wear patterns for different wood.

 

[Yellowdog]

geofore,

Not sure what you are talking about?
I wasn't asking about grades of steel just how my blades looked from an inspection standpoint. I must have missed something on the grades of steel?? Could you rephrase?

 

[treesurgeon]

For the time it takes to send out chipper knives to be sharpened or to be dropped off and picked up to be done, dont you think that over a few years it would pay to buy the sharpener and do it your self?

 

[Cicero]

As a general rule we will only sharpen knives down to an inch from their original width. After more than an inch we feel you can run into some performance issues.

As far as sharpening goes our machine cost us about 7000 dollars. Its is a wet grinder and is capable of doing approximately eight knives at once. This keeps the blade cool so it does not lose it temper. Keep in mind the angle of your knife is important also...I believe Vermeer uses a 40 degree angle if I am
not mistaken.

As far a Knife vendors goes we buy ours OEM. The only bad things I have heard is about Zenith. Pratically every dealer and mfg rep says that they are of poor quality...cheap though. In fact Morbark will not warranty any blade related damage to their machines if the customer has used Zenith blades.