Saw mill blade wooden boxes

Blade Sharpening Service

Setting and sharpening

Sharpening service for the smaller, stationary and portable sawmills using tooth profiles 13, 10, 9, 7 and 4 degree profiles. Our equipment uses oil cooled CBN wheels for accurate, sharp work. We cover blade brands including Baker, Dakin Flathers (Ripper37), Hakensson, Hudson, Lennox, Montfort, Norwood, SMG Champion, Simonds, Timbry, Woodland Mills, Woodmizer, etc.

Cost: $10.00 per blade. Returning customers pay $9.00.

Sawmill Blade Sharpening Service
We sharpen portable sawmill blades. Antigonish County, Nova Scotia.

Clean blades

Blades should be cleaned before sending them. Rusty blades or blades with pitch built up on them that require cleaning prior to setting will be charged a $3 cleaning fee per blade.

TIP: To maintain the integrity of the steel on your blades, when they come off your mill, give them a cleaning and wipe them down with some mineral oil, hydraulic or transmisison oil. Any oil will do really. Dampen a rag with the fluid, wipe the blade on both sides as you pass it through your fingers.


Blade Welding Service

Inspect your blades and note any cracks, bends or broken teeth. A cracked blade might be repairable. If you have broken a blade, that might be repairable too.

A bent blade could possibly be fixed. If your blade is missing a couple teeth, that doesn’t affect the performance too much based on the feedback I’ve gotten when we sharpen teeth with some tooth damage. We’ve sharpened blades that had up to 26 teeth missing. Having said that, a lot depends on the amount damage and the sawyer’s capabilities.

When you are done your inspection put the blades in your pile to be sharpened.

sawmill blade welding service and repair
Sawmill blade welding service and repair

Other service information

Turn-around time: Typically 1-3 days.

Extra Sharpening Requirements: If the teeth on the blade(s) have been pushed beyond normal service wear, extra sharpening is required to bring the tips of the teeth sharps again. The extra time required to perform this duty will incur additional fees. Contact us if you have questions.

How to Ship: You can drop off your blades yourself. We’re always interested in talking with our customers to see how things are going. Or you can ship the blades to us using courier or post office. A box of 10 blades typically cost $25-$28 to ship within the Maritimes. Most customers pack up their blades in one of two methods (shown further below), that being either flat pack or coil packed. Note in the coil pack how the blades are placed back to back, then separated with cardboard or thin plywood. The flat pack boxes are great for storage and transport.

Shipping back to you: Payment is required prior to shipping the blades back to you. We accept Cash, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and e-transfer.

If you have other profile requests please contact us first for availability.

sawmill,maple,hemlock,birch
Putting on a new blade.
sawmill,blades
A custom flat pack box. Keep your blades safe during storage and transport.
sawmill,blades
Ten blades per flat pack box. Panel slides in place. Sliding panel no longer made, broke easily. So instead the panel is now simply screwed on.
Keep it together! 🙂

Circular Saw Blade Sharpening

We offer sharpening services for circular saw blades used in hand tools such as biscuit joiners, circular saws, table saws, miter saw and bush/brush saws.

We charge by the tooth;

  • Most common blades with a single face tooth, the fee is $0.50 per tooth face, including the top.
  • Triple Chip Grind (TCG) tooth have three faces, the fee is $1.50 per tooth, including the top.

Discount offered on volume sharpening (for contractors and carpenters).

Circular saw blade sharpening.

Chisel Sharpening

Flat face chisels can be sharpened, $10 each.


Jointer Knives Sharpening

Jointer knives up to 24 inches long can be sharpened. Price depends on condition. Average fee $40 for a set of double edged knives.



Blade Tooth Orientation

Tooth Set

Tooth set diagram. (Image courtesy: Wood-Mizer™ sharpening manual)

Tooth set can come in several configurations. The most common one is shown above; Set left, Set right, Raker.

  • ‘Set left’ is the tooth where the tip leans inside, towards the loop of blade, also known as the ‘inside set’ or ‘inside tooth’.
  • ‘Set right’ is the tooth where the tip leans outside, away from the loop of blade, also known as the ‘outside set’ or ‘outside tooth’.
  • ‘Raker’ is the tooth where the tip is straight up.

All three teeth collect saw dust but the raker’s primary function is to collect saw dust. The other two teeth cut the kerf. Kerf is the width of the opening made by the saw blade while cutting.

Inside and Outside face cut

Here is a log that has just been cut through on the sawmill. For now let’s just ignore the fact that this first slab cut has a significant amount of tension (‘spring’) in this spruce log.

A log just cut on the saw mill.
A log just cut on the saw mill.

The picture is to serve as a visual of what the inside face cut and outside face cut are. The ‘face cuts’ are the part of the log you just exposed. If you were to flip over that top wonky looking board, you will see two face cuts. One on the wonky board (‘inside face’) and one on the log still locked to the saw mill’s bed (‘outside face’).

Now, visualize the loop of the band saw blade on the saw mill.

  • The inside tooth is the tooth that made the face of that top wonky board.
  • The outside tooth is the tooth that made the face of the log still locked to the mill’s bed.

Stop reading now and make sure you understand those previous two sentences. It’s important.

It’s important because when you inevitably start running into issues with your milling, you will be able address certain issues more quickly.

For example, ‘scarring’ (also known as ‘scars’, ‘scoring’, ‘scratches’, or ‘marks’) on the board’s face. Scarring of the face is only important if it matters to you. Some miller’s just want to cut boards and don’t concern themselves with scarring, they will say, “It’s rough lumber.”. Some other miller’s see scarring as a feature and will use it to their advantage to up sell their boards. And then there are miller’s who want as smooth as a cut as possible. Generally, miller’s cutting wide slabs of hardwood or softwood want as smooth a cut as possible to reduce further preparation time required to make the board ready for sale. Most customers want smooth faced boards so that their job is also made a bit easier for their own preparation of using the board for their project.

Score marks. “Scratches” on the board’s face mean a is out of set.

Scarring is the result of one or more teeth being out of alignment. This is the result of the tooth or teeth striking something hard like a small pebble in the bark, or a really hard knot, or a foreign object imbedded in the log. If you look back at the beginning of this section to the ‘Tooth set diagram’, you will see the left and right set teeth are in a certain position. They are ‘set’ a certain way. If one or more teeth are pushed further away (further out) from the body of the blade, they are “out of set”. When your blade starts scarring, it’s because a tooth or teeth are out of set. The first thing you should determine which teeth are causing that problem.

First step in your investigation is where is the scarring evident? Is it on face of the board you just took off the mill? Or is the scarring on the face of the board (log) still locked onto the mill? This is important to determine because

  • If the scarring is on the board that you just took off the mill, the scarring is a result of one or more inside teeth being knocked out of their set alignment.
  • If the scarring is on the board (log) that is still on the mill, the scarring is a result of one or more outside teeth being knocked out of their set alignment.

Why is this an important determination? Well, knowing where the scarring is occurring allows you narrow down the search of the teeth causing the issue. If the problem is a result of the outside teeth scarring the face, then you know you only have to look at the outside set of teeth on the saw mill’s blade. That reduces your search time from all of the blades, down to just one third of the blade’s teeth. You can then proceed to find and fix the problem yourself, or, remove the blade and mark it as a problem blade with a notation to your blade sharpening service that the outside set is causing scarring problems.


Blade Problem Solving

  1. Heavy even wear on tips.
    1. High tooth tip temperature brings about faster dulling of the tips, likely due to lack of lubricant or type of lubricant
    2. Too fast an engine speed or push speed for the type of material being cut.
  2. Teeth are worn on both sides.
    1. The blade is riding on the band wheel, or hitting the guides.
    2. Blade is being backed out of an incomplete cut with out proper wedges in place to reduce friction.
  3. Wear on one side only, typically outside set.
    1. The blade is not perpendicular to the cutting plane.
    2. The blade is rubbing against the cut surface while pulling the mill back to the start position.
    3. Check the machine for teeth contacting some internal part of the mill.
  4. Fractured, bent or missing teeth.
    1. Incorrect blade selection for material being cut.
    2. Handling damage due to incorrect unfolding of the sawmill blade.
    3. Too fast a feed rate into the material being cut.
    4. Too fast an engine speed for the material being cut.
    5. Knotty wood or foreign material.
  5. Cracks on the back edge of the blade.
    1. Pushing too hard for the blade’s sharpness. If you are thinking, “just one or two more cuts”, your blade is too dull.
    2. Improper setup of blade on the mill with the back of the blade rubbing on the flange of the wheel guides.
    3. Wheel guides are worn or defective.
    4. Band tension is too high or too low.
  6. Teeth missing
    1. Feed rate is too fast or too slow.
    2. Material becomes dislodged while cutting.
    3. Improper tooth angle for material being cut.
    4. Knotty wood or foreign material.
    5. Incorrect amount of cooling lubricant.
  7. Chips impacted on tooth tips or gullet.
    1. Incorrect feed rate.
    2. Incorrect bandsaw speed.
    3. Incorrect amount of cooling lubricant or type for material being cut.
  8. Gullet filled with material.
    1. Too small a tooth angle (pitch) for the type of material being cut (gullet too small to carry away sawdust).
    2. Feed rate too fast causing gullet to carry more than it is designed to.
    3. Incorrect amount of lubricant.
  9. Burnt tooth tips due to high heat. Not to be confused with hardened tips which are blue in colour from the factory.
    1. Incorrect amount of lubricant to keep the blade cool while cutting.
    2. Too high an engine speed for the material being cut.
    3. Incorrect feed rate.
    4. Saw blade installed with teeth in wrong direction.
  10. Uneven wear or scoring on sides of bands.
    1. Blade guides are not working properly.
    2. Accumulation of sawdust, chips, bark or other material in the wheel shroud, check machine for foreign objects.
  11. Heavy wear on back edge of the blade, appears bright and shiny.
    1. Improper blade tracking, back of blade is rubbing on the wheel guides.
    2. Worn or defect wheel guides.
    3. Too fast a feed rate.
  12. Blade break – diagonal break
    1. Blade encountered unusual stress in path of cut.
    2. Guide arm too far away.
    3. Blade aligned on the wheel guides (or too close) so that when pushing, the blade is rubbing against the shoulder of the wheel guide.
  13. Blade break – gullet cracks
    1. Incorrect blade tension.
    2. Worn teeth – asking too much from a worn out blade.
  14. Blade band is twisted, bent or kinked.
    1. Improper folding or unfolding technique.
    2. Blade falls off wheels while cutting.
  15. Wavy cuts
    1. Dull blade.
    2. Incorrect feed rate.
    3. Incorrect engine speed.
    4. Incorrect blade tension.
  16. Wood scoring (saw marks on wood surface).
    1. If the under side of the wood coming off of the mill is scored, the inside set of teeth are the cause. A faint scoring means one or a few teeth are out of set. Heavy scoring is a result of several teeth out of set.
    2. If the top side of the wood still on the mill is scored, the outside set of teeth are the cause.
    3. When either condition occurs and you do not want saw marks on your wood, take the blade off and mark the blade “check inside set”, or, “check outside set”. The setting machine in our shop cannot detect set that is too far out, that has to be purposefully inspected.
  17. Out of set teeth.
    1. Improper blade handling, especially while folding or unfolding.
    2. Improper blade storage, especially while in transit. Do not place blades in your vehicle with the teeth facing down.
    3. Blade teeth are knocked out of alignment while installing. It takes very little effort to knock a tooth out of set.
    4. Blade encounters foreign object while cutting.
    5. Blade encounters hard knot(s) while cutting.
    6. If you visually inspected a suspect blade and see a tooth that is too far out of set, you can bend it to the center as a temp fix.