# Sharpening carbide planer blades



## heatstroke (Sep 24, 2014)

Hi, I am new to this forum and would appreciate a few tips. 
I have a 12 1/2 lunch box planer (Jet JWP 12). I've been working with real old (30 yrs +) tropical hardwood (mearbau/ipil and selangan Batu). 
The wood is killing my HSS blades, I typically manage to plane 30 ft before the blades are dull. 

Most of the wood is clean, if not I belt sand off old varnish/paint and wipe down before passing it through the planer.

Given the significant down time, I decided to try carbide blades. As most US/UK websites would not ship overseas, I custom ordered some from china. Well, they were cheap ( about $26 before shipping for a single blade), and I have 10 pairs  ( due to their minimum order number), I contemplated selling the others I don't need.

The bad news was that the blades were not sharpened adequately, the blades are dull. It needs a tiny fraction ( 0.1 mm more taken off the bevel)

How can I sharpen these ? I've built a jig for HSS blades , but is it worth while trying to lap these blades on a diamond stone ( DMT or equalivent)

Thanks
Richard


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*I am no sharpening expert ...*

I do get by with sharpening most of my own blades and tools, except Carbide. What I remember is that Carbide is more brittle, stays sharp longer, can't be sharpened to the same edge as HHS, etc. It could be that they are purposely more "blunt/dull" because of the character of carbide. You did not state the hardness of the Carbide...C3, C4 etc.

The Carbide lathe tools I sharpen require a "green" wheel on the grinder. I think a diamond honing stone could be used to create a "micro bevel" similar to that used on plane irons, but that is just a suggestion/guess:

http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/sharpmicrobevel.html


http://www.finewoodworking.com/tool...tools-horizontal-disk-sharpening-machine.aspx
The new Worksharp circular sharpeners or any which would use a diamond plate may work to sharpen them. 


You may find something useful here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=planer+blade+sharpener


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## heatstroke (Sep 24, 2014)

Thanks, it's YG6 or C2 grade.


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## heatstroke (Sep 24, 2014)

Well the china manufacturer, called me up and are sending me a couple of extra replacement sharp blades to offset my spend on diamond wheels and lapping stones.


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