Replies

1. 
   RW | Dec 14, 2008 08:30pm | #1

   In my own small experience, I think I've come to the conclusion that on a jointer or something smallish like that, I can afford to sharpen straight knives.

   They're harder to change on some of the larger planers, and our planer gets a ton of work. We have a helical head there and the quality of cut is superb. It's one of those "shelix" aka shearing helix and it really is worthwhile when you get grain switching directions mid board. But the head has 100 teeth on it and when it finally is time to rotate them, it takes about an hour with a cordless drill to get them all.

   The carbide insert advantage is they stay sharper much longer. They have 4 sides so you can rotate them for a fresh edge if/when need be. You can replace individual segments if one should become chipped or broken somehow. The real downer, IF you really use the thing all the time, someday you'll have to replace all of the teeth. Figure retail can be 5-6 bucks each. Realistically, if you'd sharpened straight knives over the same period of time, you're probably still ahead, but the day you drop 500 bucks on teeth it probably doesn't feel that way.

   Real trucks dont have sparkplugs

1. 
   Scott17 | Dec 15, 2008 04:58am | #3

   Thanx

2. 
   forestgirl | Dec 14, 2008 08:34pm | #2

   Take a look at this thread, same question.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)