BLADES

Lewisaw Blades

We used to blades buy in bulk from Pheonix Saws but Central Saws (Melbourne Vic) offer 4 tooths blades.

If you have a source for blades contact me and I will add it to a list here. I can email you the blade drawings as they were as at January 1997. Improvements may have taken place since.

Sharpening

We started off with a converted Makita 7.2V cordless angle grinder that wasn’t powerful enough. These days you can buy 18V cordless angle grinders that do a much better job provided you have the biggest battery pack like at least 5Ah. Alternatively a  250V X 100mm angle grinder and run it off a 12V to 250V inverter. If you have the old Makita you can transfer the guide brackets over to another grinder or just grind the teeth by eye if you’re good enough. See photo of the Lewisaw diamond wheel on a 250V grinder (I had to grind a little off the locking nut to make it fit).

Also shown is a commercially available diamond disc that has a 20mm hole and may need an adaptor.

Especially when cutting hard timber it is very important to keep your blades sharp otherwisw you’ll cook the blades and they will require hammering to regain their tension

I built a sharener using a 12V ‘Preslite’ electric motor with a custom made diamond drum wheel custom. This is a powerful and quick sharpening method but I can’t supply them unless I can find an off-the-shelf diamond wheel (see photo).

Therre are commecially available sharpeners. I discovered that ’Macquarie’ Sawmills used to make a sharper with a Preslite 12V motor that uses Norton grinding pads for sharpening ‘Steelite’ tips (see photo). You may be able to discover other similar commercially available sharpeners.