Circular-Saw-Blade Sharpener

Photographs by the author

After it was set up for this 10" blade, the sharpener got through all 60 carbide teeth in less than 3 minutes. I was impressed until I took a very close look at the results.

Not long after I bought Harbor Freight’s 1 x 30 belt sander, I returned to the store for their circular saw blade sharpener. The belt sander needed a little bit of work to make it run smoothly, but it has become one of my most frequently used tool, so I had high hopes for the sharpener—a little bit of fussing to get it tuned up and then it might do a respectable job.The reviews on the Harbor Freight web site for the sander and the sharpener were about the same, 4-1/4 stars for the former and 4 for the latter. Several noted that setting up a blade for sharpening was time consuming, so I wasn’t surprised that it took a half hour to set the spring-loaded pawl in the right position on the blade. I eventually was satisfied that the 4″ diamond-abrasive wheel would just kiss each carbide-tooth face and shave it down to a new clean surface with a sharp cutting edge. Making fine adjustments to the pawl’s support was quite difficult because when the bolt holding it to the base was loosened, the post tended to move much more than I wanted it to. A screw adjustment device would have made a world of difference. The kit included a 10 mm wrench for turning the bolt head, and it worked for a while, but soon started slipping. The bolt’s hex corners were a bit rounded from the get-go and even before I had made adjustments for the first saw blade, the wrench no longer worked. Fortunately, a 3/8″ box-end wrench was a tight, functional fit. I was okay with that and decided I’d replace the bolt with a thumb screw that wouldn’t require a wrench.