Circular Saw Blade Sharpening

How to determine wear?

Checking the saw blade for wear is an important issue that should be given special attention. Deep damage leads to the inability to sharpen the circle. There are three main signs by which you can understand that the saw needs to be sharpened or replaced:

• Excessive heating of the protective cover and the formation of smoke. The circular saw has a special cover that signals when the saw is blunt by heating. In particularly difficult situations, smoke may appear from it.
• Sometimes the saw device involves a mechanical feed (if you need to adjust the pressure with your own hands). In such a situation, wear can be noticed if the pressure has to be increased.
• If carbon deposits and strong unpleasant odors form on the workpiece when sawing wood.

All situations described above tell the user that the device should be sharpened.

How to sharpen: basic methods

There are two methods available for sharpening circular saws. manual and machine. In order to sharpen the disc correctly at home, you need to take into account some of the nuances.

When to sharpen a circular saw

There are very definite signs by which one can judge the state of the instrument. Sharpening saws is necessary when the following is clearly manifested:

• During operation, smoke appears, a specific smell of burned wood, the casing covering the saw teeth begins to heat up quickly.
• When moving the tool along the workpiece, significant efforts must be made, as if to push the saw forward.
• After cutting the material and visual inspection of the sawn edge, black carbon deposits or a lot of chips, fiber scoring, chipped areas are visible.
• A close examination of the saw teeth with a magnifying glass shows that the cutting parts are not sharp, but rather rounded.

All this requires an immediate cessation of work, otherwise there is a high risk of damage to the material and wear of the circular saw to such a state when sharpening will no longer help it.

How to sharpen a circular saw with your own hands

You can sharpen the saw at home completely on your own. For these purposes, there is no need to visit a workshop to use a specialized grinder or purchase one. It is quite expensive, and is rarely used for sharpening, unless of course you plan to use it for large production purposes.

But holding the saw blades in your hands while sharpening the teeth with a grinding wheel is not the best solution. A circular disc is not a drill, it is much larger. No hardness of hands and an excellent eye will allow you to sharpen so that the cutting elements are sharp enough and suitable for effective use. To do this, you need to provide the simplest fixing device.

To hold the toothed circular circle in the desired position relative to the plane of the sharpening tool, you can use the most ordinary flat stand.

The position of its surface should correspond to the level of the axes on the rear disc. The gear wheel is placed on a support so that the sharpened plane of the tooth is perpendicular to the saw blade. To sharpen beveled teeth on the front and rear surfaces, you need to provide movable hinges in this device.

But in such cases, it is quite difficult to maintain the same values ​​of the front and rear angle of the sharpening of the tool. To eliminate this problem, it is necessary to firmly fix the center of the saw in accordance with the desired position in relation to the grinding wheel. This is done using grooves for the mandrel, which is mounted on a stand with the sharpened saws on it, or by installing a special stop on the stand, which will fix the saw blade according to the required angle to the abrasive stone.

If you adhere to all the requirements that apply to sharpening a carbide circular saw, then this tool will work as efficiently as possible over a long period of time.

What you need to sharpen circular saw blades

First of all, you need to prepare the appropriate accessories that will allow you to properly sharpen the saw blade on wood. It is important to provide for the following tools:

• file;
• assembly vices;
• wooden block;
• colored marker.

Types of cutting teeth

There are four planes on the surface of the teeth. front, back and two side.

At the moment of intersection with each other, they create a single cutting edge, due to which the sawing of surfaces occurs.

There are several forms of teeth:

• Straight tooth. Most often it is used only for a quick longitudinal cut. During such work, quality and accuracy are practically unimportant.
• Oblique tooth. The back plane of such a part is tilted to the right or left. On saws, these teeth often alternate, which is why they are called “alternately cut”. These teeth are most commonly used in tools. The size of the corners can be different, this is due to the coating of the treated surface. wood, chipboard, plastic. They are used for longitudinal and transverse movements. The large angle of inclination on the tools is used when cutting boards with double-sided lamination. This helps to avoid chipping of the material. The larger the chamfered corner, the easier the saw will cut through the surface. But this greatly increases the likelihood of tooth breakage. On some products, the teeth are inclined not only at the back, but also at the front.
• Trapezoidal tooth. The main advantage of this type is that the edge blunts slowly. But they are rarely used separately, usually alternated with straight teeth. During the operation of the device, the trapezoidal teeth are located above the straight ones, therefore, they take over the main (rough) sawing work. Straight teeth for finishing. This saw design is used for sawing plastic, chipboard and MDF.
• Conical tooth. This type of tooth is considered optional because it only helps to cut the lower part of the material (most often the laminate). This design allows you to protect the surface from chips and cracks. Tapered teeth usually have a straight front edge, but it can also be concave. This type is used for finishing the saw cut.

Important! Each type of teeth requires a thorough grinding when sharpening. You can’t sharpen them at the same angle.

The main sharpening angles of circular saws

The circular saw tooth, which is usually made of carbide metal, has a complex structure. It has three cutting edges as standard, so you need to sharpen the teeth so as to sharpen these edges. But the main thing when sharpening is to observe the angles at which the planes of the tooth diverge from the edges, and the angles of attack between the plane of the tooth and the workpiece. The last point is important to maintain the performance of the saw blade.

The front face, the one that first cuts into the workpiece in the direction of the saw movement, forms the main cutting edge with the rear face. The angle at which the leading edge meets the material is called the Y-angle (angle of attack). The angle between the back face and the front face is the taper angle. If you subtract the rake angle and the taper angle from 90 degrees, you get the clearance angle.

In practice, it is important to observe these angles when sharpening for each type of disc. It is according to the front angle that the saws are divided into types:

• Longitudinally cutting, where the rake angle should not go beyond 15-25 degrees.
• Transverse cutting, where it is permissible to sharpen the front face of the tooth at an angle of 5-10 degrees.
• Universal discs, which are easy enough to cope with both longitudinal and transverse cuts, their rake angle should be maintained in the region of 15 degrees.

The bevel angle of the rear and front planes is also important: the sharper it is, the easier it is for the saw to enter the material, but wear occurs faster.

Follow the rules! When cutting hard wood, the saws must be sharpened so that the taper and bevel angles are as small as possible (within acceptable limits). This extends the life of the blade until the next sharpening.

How to know when it’s time to sharpen your circular saw

Only sharpen the saw blade when necessary. It is possible to recognize the onset of such a moment by two clear signs. In particular, urgent sharpening of a circular saw for wood is necessary:

• If a high heat build-up occurs on a regular basis on the saw guard in the area of ​​the electric motor. In some cases, with such an increase in temperature indicators, smoke is released under the casing.
• With strong pressure on the tool to obtain a good cut during material processing.
• If dark marks appear, traces of carbon deposits on the wood and the characteristic smell of burnt wood. This occurs when the saw teeth are blunt.

How to determine wear?

The decrease in the quality of the cutting element is largely due to the decrease in the sharpness of its teeth. The sharpening of circular saw blades must be carried out in a timely manner, before deep damage appears, making restoration impossible. Determination of signs of wear is a task requiring special attention from the foreman.

Sharpening is necessary if the tool behaves in a special way.

The Truth About Saw Blade Sharpening. Is it worth it? Sharpened VS. New

• Heats up strongly, smokes. A dull saw blade increases the load on the engine. When overheated, it begins to intensively emit heat, smoke, and may even fail.
• Requires increased pressure. This feature applies mainly to models with a mechanical type of material supply. If you have to use more force than usual when cutting, it is worth checking the sharpness of the cutting blade.
• Leaves traces of carbon deposits, oils, a specific unpleasant odor on the workpiece.

Any of these signs, revealed during the operation of the circular saw, indicates that it is time to replace or sharpen the blade. Determine the degree of wear more accurately only by removing it from the tool.

How to sharpen?

A circle with victorious solders or a regular wood disk for a circular saw can be sharpened with your own hands, restoring the sharpness of the teeth. True, when carrying out work, many factors will have to be taken into account. They can influence the choice of sharpening method. manually or using a machine. Higher accuracy is provided by mechanized processing, but for it you will need to purchase special equipment.

Manual disc sharpening

When choosing this method of restoring the sharpness of the teeth on the saw blade, use the available tools. It is only important to prepare a special flat-shaped stand. It will avoid the need to hold the disc in your hands, protect you from injury.

The following requirements are imposed on the stand:

• coincidence at the level of the axis with the processed surface;
• the possibility of positioning the toothed circle in a perpendicular plane;
• swivel joint.

The stand serves not only as a fastener. it allows you to sharpen the teeth of the saw blade at different angles, and guarantees injury safety when performing work. Pre-marking the surface with a colored marker will help to achieve higher accuracy. Additionally, a vice is used, with which the circle is pressed against the stand.

An angle grinder will help to facilitate the sharpening process itself, but experienced craftsmen eliminate minor bluntness with a simple file.

Multidirectional teeth require machining from 2 sides of the wheel. In this case, the disc is first fastened horizontally with the marked side, then turned. Actions are repeated. If necessary, you can change the angle if sharpening is carried out on a disc with a mixed type of teeth.

What is required?

Sharpening a disc mounted on a circular saw is possible only with the help of special tools. To improve the accuracy during work, specialized machines are used, which greatly simplify this process. And you can also use more primitive tools. a file and a vice for fixing, as well as a piece of wood.

Sharpening principles and angles

The cutting teeth in the design of the circular saw blade have 4 planes: 2 side, front and rear. According to their form, all these elements are divided into several groups.

• Straight. Such teeth are in demand when sawing materials in the longitudinal direction, at speed. The quality and precision of the cut are of no particular importance.
• Oblique. Teeth of this type always have an inclined plane offset to the left or right. Most often, such elements alternate on a disc, the edge is called variably beveled. For different types of materials. wood, plastic, chipboard. a certain angle of inclination is set. It will be maximum when sawing chipboard, and the option of tilting the front or rear part can be used.
• Trapezoidal. Such teeth on a circular saw blade have 1 great advantage. they slowly dull. Usually at the cutting edge, they are combined with straight ones, located above them. In this case, the trapezoidal elements will be used for rough work, and the straight ones will help to achieve a clean cut. Such discs are used in the processing of polymer sheets, MDF, particle boards.
• Conical. They are also auxiliary, used on discs for cutting laminate and other fragile materials. The special shape of the elements protects the surface from chipping and other damage. The leading edge of bevel teeth is usually straight or concave, good for fine sawing.

Depending on which type of teeth is used on the saw blade, a suitable sharpening angle and other parameters are selected. It is strictly forbidden to process all elements under a general slope, without taking into account the individual characteristics of each element.

Each saw blade in a circular tool has 4 main corners to be sharpened. They determine, along with the shape of the tooth, the features of the geometry of the cutting edge. For each individual element, it is customary to measure the cutting angles of the surface and directly front, rear parts.

Depending on the type, purpose, mass of the saw, possible options are distinguished.

• For rip sawing. These discs use a 15-25 degree rake angle.
• For cross cutting. This uses a rake angle of 5-10 degrees.
• Universal. In this case, the tool teeth in the area of ​​the rake corner are sharpened by 15 degrees.

The type of processed material also matters. The harder it is, the less should be the indicators of the selected angle. Softwoods can be cut at wider inclines.

When using carbide discs, wear can be seen literally with the naked eye. In this case, the front plane is erased more intensively than the back.

Sharpening circular saw blades

• How to determine wear?
• Sharpening principles and angles
• What is required?
• How to sharpen?

The correct choice of the angle of sharpening of discs for a machine or for a circular saw is an important component of success when performing all operations yourself. Restoration of the sharpness of the teeth in this case is of particular importance, the master has to act very carefully. How to properly sharpen a saw blade with soldered wood with your own hands is worth talking in more detail.

Using a grinder

If you have at hand special equipment with a manual or electric drive, the problem of restoring the sharpness of the teeth on the saw blade is solved quickly and easily. Special grinding machines have compact dimensions, are quite mobile and functional. They can be adapted for use in the home workshop.

It is necessary to choose a machine for sharpening circles for a circular saw, be sure to pay attention to the material of the abrasive used. The best options are made from:

• silicon carbide (green);
• elbora coated with diamond powder.

It is important to consider that carbide discs are difficult to tool sharpening.

Variants with victorious spraying, other complex elements as a coating can also cause problems during operation. Even with a machine, it will be difficult to guarantee successful sharpening.

Working with grinding equipment is as simple as possible. The master only needs to fix the prepared disc on a special support with a lock, then perform several actions.

• 1 tooth is marked with a marker or chalk.
• The required angle is measured at which the processing is performed. If there are no special requirements, a universal slope of 15 degrees is chosen.
• Start sharpening by cutting from 0.05 to 0.15 mm. Sequentially process each tooth so that it acquires the necessary sharpness.

When sharpening carbide discs, it is recommended to grind the metal on the front and back surfaces of the teeth at the same time. With common steels and alloys, less effort can be dispensed with. Enough sharpening just the front.

When working with a victorious disc, you must first be sure to free it from dust and dirt. It is important not to expose it to mechanical stress, only to remove foreign inclusions. In this case, the working planes of the teeth are processed sequentially. You cannot spend more than 20-25 times in one place. The machine usually removes a blunt edge in literally 1 pass. As the disc wears out, it is simply replaced with a new one.

For a visual explanation of how to sharpen a saw, see below.

• What is needed?
• Stages of work
• On a note!
• Video
• Useful articles

Stages of work

Training

Correct sharpening of circular saw blades is largely ensured by a good fixture of the equipment. There are two options: the equipment can be removed from the tool and secured in a vice using wooden dies on the worktable, or sharpened directly on the tool. then, to fix it, you need to stick a block between the teeth, resting it on some surface. It is important to remember that the saw must be de-energized before sharpening. Whichever method you choose, make sure the disk is firmly fixed. it should not rotate.

Markup

To make it easier to navigate from which tooth you started sharpening, you need to make a mark with a marker on the body of the disc. This will tell you that you have completed a full circle when machining the teeth, and will not grind them down a second time.

Sharpening

Manual sharpening of discs for circular saws is carried out with a file. A tool with a flat working end is suitable. it easily passes between the teeth. You should be aware that the main wear occurs on the upper cutting edge of the tooth. During sawing, it interacts most intensively with the material and gradually rounds off. The front edge of the tooth is also strongly grinded.

First, the posterior surface of the tooth is treated. A file is passed over it several times, applying a little effort. Each tooth is sharpened in turn with uniform movements.

Important to remember! When sharpening circular saw blades, apply the same force to each cutting segment and file the same number of times. This will help to sharpen the entire blade evenly. the teeth will be the same.

Having processed each tooth in turn, when a complete revolution of the disc is completed, you will return to the starting point. After that, it is necessary to sharpen the front side of the teeth. Carry out the same actions. until the complete rotation of the tooling.

Important to remember! During sharpening, care must be taken to ensure that the point of the tooth remains perpendicular to the plane of the disc. Subsequently, when sawing workpieces, this will ensure an even and fast cut.

Visual inspection

To make sure that the teeth are sharpened properly, you need to carefully examine them. The presence of chips, scratches and cracks on the cutting part is unacceptable, and there should be no reflections on the edge. If the edges are shiny, file them gently with a file.

Checking the rig

After all teeth have been sharpened, the cutting properties must be checked. Attach the harness to the tool, turn on the power and cut a test piece of wood. Indicators of high-quality sharpening are easy cut, smooth running, quiet operation. If there is a lot of noise and an uneven cut in the material, it is necessary to check the height of the teeth. it may not be the same. To align all cutting segments, bring the marker up to the cutting edge and rotate the tooling a full turn in the opposite direction to the direction of rotation. Examine the surface: there should be a mark on each tooth to help compare the height of all segments. Find the teeth with the greatest height and carefully reduce the length with a file.

• File
• Marker
• Wooden beams
• Gloves
• Vise

Sharpening A Carbide Saw Blade By Hand

How to sharpen a circular saw blade by hand?

Notice that your circular saw is getting worse at work? It is getting more and more difficult to cut materials, black carbon deposits appear in the place of cut, smoke forms and the smell of burning is felt? Clear signs that the disc needs to be sharpened! Otherwise, not only will the performance of the tool decrease, but there will also be a threat of engine overheating. We will tell you how to return the cutting properties to the equipment on your own.

On a note!

In order to keep the cutting equipment in good condition, it is necessary to control the degree of wear during operation. It is important to check the radius of rounding of the cutting edge. it should not exceed 0.1. 0.2 mm. Also, the shape of the cut indicates dullness of the teeth. the cut turns out to be uneven, the teeth seem to tear wood.

Important to remember! Manual sharpening is not applicable to carbide-tipped discs. they are processed on special machines. Such equipment lasts 10 times longer than all-metal discs.

How to properly sharpen a circular saw with your own hands?

A circular saw, which, according to old memory, is still called circular, is an indispensable tool for the owner of a private household. It copes equally well with wood and drywall, non-ferrous metal or acrylic glass, but one of the conditions for high-quality and trouble-free operation is regular sharpening of the cutting blade. The cleanliness and durability of this tool is much higher than that of other types of sawing products for hard materials.

A circular saw (circular saw) is designed for cutting a wide variety of materials. In the process of work, the teeth become dull and need to be sharpened correctly.

The circular saw is in no way inferior to the chain chainsaw popular among the population, and even surpasses it in many ways in capabilities. With its help, you can make a transverse, longitudinal or oblique cutting of the material required for the construction or manufacture of joinery. The number of teeth on a circular saw blade depends on the hardness of the material being processed, but in any case, its smooth movement can only be ensured by correct setting and sharpening of the teeth.

Saw Blade Wear Signs

Circular saws, subject to all the rules of operation and careful maintenance, have reliability and durability, but, like any tool, they require preventive maintenance from time to time. If difficulties become noticeable during the operation of this equipment and dark marks appear on the surface of the material, it means that the edges of the cut are burnt from the excessively heated saw teeth. Combined with smoke and unpleasant odors during operation, which can result from overheating of the engine cover, this most likely indicates that the tool needs to be sharpened immediately.

Timely sharpening of circular saws greatly affects the smooth operation of the electric motor.

Circular disk layout.

A dull disc increases the load on the mechanism many times over and can lead to its complete failure. Most of the wear occurs on the top cutting edge of the teeth on the circular saw blade. To prevent the bluntness of the tool from becoming excessive, you should regularly check the cutting edge rounding radius, which, according to the rules, should not exceed 0.1-0.2 mm. You can also determine that you need an urgent sharpening of a circular saw by the shape of the cut itself. Regularly sharpening the disc will not only extend the uptime of your equipment, but will also increase productivity, as well as reduce the time and effort spent cleaning up worn-out tools.

Sharpening a circular saw with your own hands

The method of sharpening a circular disc depends on the availability of the necessary tools at hand. If it is not possible to use a special machine for this purpose, then a good result can be achieved with a minimum set in the form of a file, a vice and a pair of wooden blocks to secure the disc.

Circular disk sharpening scheme on the machine.

It will be more convenient to sharpen the part if you do not remove it from the machine, but first you must remember to disconnect the equipment from the power supply. First, you need to ensure that the disc is securely fixed by using wooden blocks placed under it on both sides. A toothed disc, separate from the saw, is placed in a vice, clamped with wooden wedges. It is better to mark the first tooth, from which processing will begin, with a bright marker so as not to perform actions in the second circle.

Work should be started from the back surface. When sharpening teeth, it is necessary to control the uniformity of the applied forces as much as possible and try to maintain the same number of file movements in each case. In order to train your hand in this action, you can use an old hacksaw to start with, which you will not mind spoiling.

Checking the quality of the sharpening of the disc is carried out during a trial cut. Uneven material advance and extraneous noise may indicate that the teeth are at different levels. This can be detected by bringing the marker close to the cutting edge of the blade and making it a full turn in the opposite direction of normal operation. Marked teeth require re-filing.

Accessories for circular, miter and reciprocating saws

The saw blade is an integral part of any saw. It is installed on both hand-held cutting tools and stationary equipment. There are many types of discs, differing in the shape of the cutting teeth, the angle of their sharpening, the diameter and the material from which they are made. The correct choice of equipment for a certain type of material determines the productivity of the tool, the quality of the cut, as well as the safety of the operator.

Disc design

When choosing accessories for circular saws, one should take into account the quality of the product, which can be found out by carefully examining the blade. Good wood saw blades are laser cut from sheet steel, then carefully balanced and sanded. Signs of operations performed on the disc can be seen if you look at its surface in the light. There will be visible radial marks left by the grinding machine, which diverge along the entire blade, starting from the bore. Budget saws do not have such marks, which indicates a lack of balancing.

The quality of the grinding is also noteworthy. The body of the disc should not be rough, but have a smooth surface. Poorly sanded tooling will adhere to the resin in the wood and make sawing difficult.

To compensate for the expansion of the metal during heating, as well as to reduce noise and damp the vibration of the disc, radial slots are made on its plane.

On more expensive equipment, thin spiral cuts are made using a laser, and a protective layer is applied to the surface of the disc.

A high-quality circular saw blade is not marked with paint, all inscriptions on its surface are applied by a laser engraver. A lot of information can be learned from the marking. Which one is shown in the following figure.

Disc thickness

The width of the cut depends on the thickness of the rig. The standard saw blade thickness is 3.2 mm. It is important to take it into account in the production of cabinet furniture, for example, when drawing up a cutting sheet for sheet material. In addition, its strength depends on the thickness of the disc. Thin rigs quickly overheat under heavy operating conditions. Thick tooling is robust but recycles large amounts of material into chips.

Cutter configuration

You can find out about the purpose of a particular disc based on the configuration of the cutters.

• Straight sharpened tines allow you to cut wood quickly, but at the same time dirty.
• Tines with alternating bevels in different directions allow you to cut wood in different directions, but do not withstand shock loads.
• The combination of trapezoidal and flat teeth avoids chipping on the top layers of the material, for example when cutting chipboards and plastics.
• Combination of teeth with three types of sharpening increases cutting speed and ensures good edge cleanliness when sawing both soft and hard materials.
• The alternation of triangular teeth and teeth with a concave cutting edge allows you to cut the laminate without using a pre-cut.
• Chamfered teeth with wide backs can withstand cement and nails on the cut line.

The circular saw blade for metal has a slightly different tooth configuration.

Thanks to this geometry of the cutters and the material from which they are made (ceramic-metal brazing), the productivity of the tool increases, vibration is reduced, and the metal cutting process occurs without the formation of sparks.

By the shape of the teeth

The cleanliness of the cut and the cutting speed depend on the shape and size of the blade teeth. Also, for processing certain types of materials, a special shape of the cutters has been developed. So, reciprocating saw blades can have the following tooth shapes.

• M-shaped teeth. The blade has milled cutters that allow you to cut the material both forward and backward. The tooling is used for cutting ferrous and non-ferrous metal, stainless steel, wood, especially if it contains metal particles, as well as various types of plastics.
• Sharp, milled, variable pitch. The blade has set cutters and is used for direct cutting of all types of wood, including those with metal particles.
• Milled cutters with wavy set. The equipment is used for cutting metal up to 2.5 mm and any wood species with metal inclusions.
• M-shaped, inclined, with a variable pitch. It is a versatile and high-performance tool with set teeth. Designed for cutting all types of wood with metal inclusions and for cutting metal up to 2.5 mm.
• Small, milled, set cutters. The blade is used for direct cutting of metal products with a thickness of no more than 1.5 mm.

In addition, the canvases differ in the material from which they are made, as evidenced by the marking applied to any type of equipment.

How to choose circular and miter saw blades

You should be aware that by changing the type of blade on the saw, you can process the following materials:

• soft and hard wood;
• wood-based materials (fiberboard, MDF, laminated chipboard, OSB, plywood, laminate flooring, etc.);
• natural and artificial stone;
• non-ferrous metals;
• plastic products;
• metal products (corrugated board, pipes, metal profiles, fittings, etc.).

Each cutting tool has certain characteristics that should be considered before use.

Landing diameter

It is very important that the diameter of the machine shaft and the seat of the disc match each other. Some types of sawing equipment have additional holes for rigid fixation on the pins. Rigging, as a rule, has seats of the following sizes: 16, 20, 22, 30 and 32 mm.