Yes, that would be a bad idea. Don't mess with those hardened blades unless you want them flying around your head.

Yes, that would be a bad idea. Don't mess with those hardened blades unless you want them flying around your head.

Isn’t the blade just one long piece of carbide? Definitely wouldn’t want to mess with that...

Quote from: Alex on March 11, 2019, 03:21 AM

Yes, that would be a bad idea. Don't mess with those hardened blades unless you want them flying around your head.

Isn’t the blade just one long piece of carbide? Definitely wouldn’t want to mess with that...

Yep, carbide, extremely hard. Very difficult to machine after the hardening process, with the chance of introducing microfractures that might let the blade shatter in pieces as soon as you use it.

You need diamond grinding wheel and proper cooling to grind that blade. I don't see a problem shaping it to whatever you want, but it does seem quite narrow to add deep v-notches.

Unfortunately, it was a common practice for a rookie to think "a grinding wheel is a grinding wheel" and they'd use steel tooling on the green wheel and ruin it. 

Could you dress green wheel with diamond file to restore it?

Could you dress green wheel with diamond file to restore it?

Yes you can, unfortunately green wheels are very soft and if the rookie puts too much pressure on whatever steel item he was grinding, it will usually groove the wheels. Sometimes past the point of redemption.

It may seem counterintuitive but soft wheels for hard materials and hard wheels for soft materials. That's the reason I keep a large chunk of 4" thick asphalt around so when the the 14" concrete saw wheel starts to load up, you just run it 5-6 times in the asphalt and the blade comes right back.

The only blade that is carbide is the straight blade.

You are correct, rustic cutter is high speed steel. Makes it much easier to safely modify, @kevkrieg .

Are the blades interchangeable like a normal planer?

I wouldn't go modifying the blades it has, like other mentioned, lots of caution there. Modifications should only be performed by nails hidden in material being worked.  But if there is nothing special about the design I would wonder if it's anything different from getting custom blades cut for a shaper?  If you found a shop that cuts profiles, could they make blade sets for them?

Use the angle stop, aka fence, and run the wide rustic at a couple intervals, then the narrow rustic, beat it the wood with a chain and run a wire wheel over it..... You'd be surprised what effects you can get... Says the man who one got paid to imitate random. horse chew marks on new wood for a swanky valence in a games room.