SVH-320 Success and tips for those who want them

[RedLeafWoodwork]

As a semi-professional woodworker (meaning that I make about 40% of my income from woodwork), I've been sending my 20" planer and 12" jointer blades out for sharpening quite often, especially after large runs of birdseye maple and wonderful, exotic woods. I recently added the SVH-320 to my Tormek T-7 to see if it would be worth the investment in money and, most importantly, time. At about $100 to sharpen 4 20" blades professionally, the T-7 and SVH-320 would need to do them in less than an hour, including all set-up, prep, and post tasks, in order to justify doing it myself.

I'm very happy to find that I hit exactly 60 minutes on the first sharpening and, with increased experience, confidence, and familiarity, I'm now turning out 4 shaving-sharp 20" planer blades in under 45 minutes. Hurray!

In fact, I think that the SVH-320 does such a good job and is so easy to use, I'm planning to teach some of my teenage neighbors how to use it, pay them $20/hour, and continue working my own billable hours at 4 times that rate.

I know that some SVH-320 users in the forums have had issues, so I thought it might be worthwhile to share a fresh set of tips for success. Here are the keys to my success with the jig, in no particular order:

• Pull the blades and sharpen them before they're truly, woefully dull. The first sharpening with each set required a fair bit of material removal because I waited too long. Now, I pull them after about 10 to 20 hours of planer run time, depending on the wood species, and the blades really just need to be touched up on the T-7.
• Grade the stone every 60 seconds or so. Yes, it's a stone-wearing process, but trying to sharpen HSS with a glazed stone is a time sink.
• Keep even pressure on the center of the jig, both laterally and vertically. Pressing too hard on the blade edge can cause the top of the carriage to lift from the track; pressing too hard on the side of the carriage that's overhanging can cause the carriage to tip laterally. Even tiny changes in alignment can impact the edge quality, so it's critical that the carriage remain flat on the track. Even pressure centered over the wheel accomplishes that for me.
• After sharpening one 20" blade, which includes grading 5 or 6 times, the stone diameter decreases enough that I need to re-set the jig for the next blade. I've found that lowering the jig by 0.075 mm (3/4 of a number on the height collars) for each blade maintains a consistent blade depth when I'm in 'touch up' mode. If I'm really hogging off material due to a nick or very dull blades, I find that decreasing the height adjustment by 0.075 mm for every 5 gradings of the stone does the trick.
• When I have a really bad nick, I'll use my slow-speed bench grinder with the SVH-320 and the BMG-100 bench grinder tool rest. for a 20" planer blade, I have to remove the other grinder wheel for clearance and have to grind slowly and deliberately, both for the safety of my fingers and to avoid overheating my blades. Regardless, it's a much faster way to remove lots of metal and clear nicks than the T-7.
• Every 4 or 5 sharpenings, I'll use the AngleMaster to set my preferred edge angle, rather than following the SVH-320 instructions to follow the existing blade angle. If that results in a significant angle change, I'll switch to the slow-speed bench grinder to profile the angle, then come back to the T-7 for touch up.
• Continuing on the slow-speed bench grinder topic, I have a bracket that lets me hang it (and the board to which it and the BMG-100 are attached) vertically on a stand so that the SVH-320 jig is in the same position that it's in when using the top mounting holes of the T-7.
• The 20" planer blades are so long that the T-7 stone is in the way if I hone on the T-7's leather wheel. Instead, I use a piece of soft leather that's glued to a piece of scrap wood and charged with extra fine rouge. The piece of leather is about 2 inches wide by 18 inches long.
• I've numbered my jointer and planer blades to ensure that I rotate the sequence in which I sharpen them. That way, if the 0.075 mm per 5 gradings is off, I spread the error over all of the blades and don't always take extra off the same blades in the set. I just keep track and sharpen in a rolling order (i.e., blades 1-2-3-4, then 2-3-4-1, then 3-4-1-2, then 4-1-2-3, etc.).
• I follow all of the other general guidelines and tips that you'll find here: true before each SVH-320 session; use the corner of the grading stone; change the water bath frequently; put a basin outboard of the extended trough chute for really long blades; use the canting feet; blah, blah, blah.

I know that's a long list, but, in practice, it takes about an hour, total, to pull my planer blades, put the sharp reserve set in, button the planer back up, clean the old set of blades, and sharpen them on the T-7. Then they go into the drawer as the 'new' reserve set, waiting for the next time I need to switch out. Add 30 minutes to that if there's a big nick or I want to reprofile the angle on the slow speed bench grinder.

Now, I have total control over my blade schedule, don't have to wait a week to get them back from the professional sharpener, get sharper edges that last longer than I did with pro-sharpening, have absolutely consistent sharpening results, am saving money, and can experiment with new variables to get the best planer and jointer performance possible.

Just like I wouldn't dream of sending my chisels or plane irons out to be sharpened because I want them tuned to fit exactly the way I use them, I can no longer imagine sending out my jointer and planer blades.

Thanks for listening! That was quite a wordy first post...

[Elden]

   Welcome to the forum Jeremy. Excellent well done post. Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is good to hear of your successes.
   

[Jan]

Welcome to the forum, Jeremy! 
Thanks for sharing your successful story.

I would like to ask you, whether you encountered some difficulties with relocation of long blades in the holder? I mean influence of the blade relocation on the edge straightness.

Jan

[OnealWoodworking]

At about $100 to sharpen 4 20" blades professionally,

You pay some extremely high prices for that work...

That is a higher price than a NEW set of 4, 20" china blades from Grizzly... Or for 80.00 more than what you pay for a sharpening you can buy a VERY nice (and new) set of Japanese 20" planer blades (set of 4).

A professional sharpening should be more in the range of 25 to 40 USDollars but certainly not anywhere near a hundred.

[Herman Trivilino]

Jeremy, thanks for sharing what I imagine would be some very helpful tips for planer blade users. Personally, I'm more of a rough carpenter (used to be a pro but now amateur and hobbyist) so my interest in planer blades is only casual.

I have a couple questions. Are you using the standard (gray) SG grindstone or the harder silicone (black) SB grindstone?

When sharpening a 20" planar blade I would think, unlike a knife blade, it would be critical that the edge is straight. A small departure from a straight line would render the blade useless. It baffles me how this can be accomplished with a 2" wide grindstone.

[RedLeafWoodwork]

I would like to ask you, whether you encountered some difficulties with relocation of long blades in the holder? I mean influence of the blade relocation on the edge straightness.

Jan, I haven't had an difficulty at all. As long as the back of the blade is seated correctly against the stop, I haven't noticed any issues getting a sharp edge.

[RedLeafWoodwork]

You pay some extremely high prices for that work...

That is a higher price than a NEW set of 4, 20" china blades from Grizzly... Or for 80.00 more than what you pay for a sharpening you can buy a VERY nice (and new) set of Japanese 20" planer blades (set of 4).

A professional sharpening should be more in the range of 25 to 40 USDollars but certainly not anywhere near a hundred.

The two sets I rotate on the planer are excellent aftermarket blades of solid HSS, not the laminated-edge blades from Grizzly.

I've used both a local service and a couple of mail-in services, including Highland, National Tool, and a few others. All of them charge between $0.75 and $1.00 per blade inch, plus about $10 return shipping. Add in shipping to them and it's between $80 and $100 to get 80 inches of blades sharpened and shipped.

Who do you use? If I could find a less expensive, reliable, quality sharpening service that is more economical than taking the time to do it myself, I'd be game for another change!

[RedLeafWoodwork]

I have a couple questions. Are you using the standard (gray) SG grindstone or the harder silicone (black) SB grindstone?

When sharpening a 20" planar blade I would think, unlike a knife blade, it would be critical that the edge is straight. A small departure from a straight line would render the blade useless. It baffles me how this can be accomplished with a 2" wide grindstone.

I'm using the standard SG-250 stone. I don't own the SB or SJ stones. I use my slow speed bench grinder with the bench mounted Tormek jig when I need to hog off a lot of material, so I don't think I'll ever get the SB. I think about getting the SJ every once in a while, but after sharpening on the SG and honing, the blades (planer blades, chisels, turning tools . . . everything) are so sharp that I never feel the need for a finer edge.

I'm sure that there's some variation in the edge straightness using the jig, but it's not to a degree that it's noticeable. I probably should have also mentioned that I locate the 'changeover' point on the planer blades about 1/3 of the way in from the right or left, alternate which side it's on for each blade (1 - left, 2 - right, 3 - left, 4 - right), and flip flop that on each sharpening. Sounds confusing, but a few Sharpie marks on the back of the blade keep it all straight for me without having to think about it.

I figure that I'm spreading any error across the blades and that, when set with a positioning jig in the planer, the error transmitted to the wood is negligible by the time all four blades make their thousands of passes on any one piece that goes through the planer.

The thickness variation of wood that comes off the planer has been at most 0.007", whether run through on the left, right, or center. That's small enough that, even if it is due to a less than perfectly straight blade edge, I'll take it. Final sanding with 220 grit paper on my random orbital sander will result in bigger variations than that. 

[Ken S]

Great work, Jeremy. finally a success story with the planer jig!

Ken

[turbettr]

Jeremy -

Thanks for the tips as they were a great help for my first experience doing two sets of nicked up 15" planer blades and helped relieve a lot of frustration.  One thing I did a little different is I put a primary 35 degree bevel on the planer blades using the BGM-100 and a diamond wheel on my slow speed grinder and finished with a 40 degree micro bevel on the Tormek using the standard wheel.  It only takes a few minutes per blade to do the micro bevel and a lot less re-grading of the wheel.

I moved the locking lever on my Wolverine jig to the rear position and mounted the BGM-100 in front of it on a 3" block so I could work from the top of the wheel.  This is possible because you don't need the guard with a diamond or CBN wheel.  I also mounted it so the tool rest was the same distance from the wheel horizontally as the vertical posts on the Tormek.  This kept the jig centered over the wheel so I didn't have to reset the stops on the jig.

I also experimented with the BGM-100 adapter for the Wolverine jig but it was a little too low to be comfortable and put the planer jig too far to the right to keep it centered on the wheel.

Thanks again.

Roy       

[RichColvin]

Jeremy,

You will probably also find that having an easy means for resharpening, you will probably do it more often, and not wait too long.

Rich