DIY Clipper blade sharpening

[123hotchef]

Has anyone sharpened there own blades?

I tried 1 set but they come up worse than before

I think the pro's use a surface plate to sharpen them.

Am I better off sending them off to be sharpened?

 

[Justme]

New blades are cheap.

 

[Parm]

Mate, look at my hair style, ive been using a good quality pair of zero clippers for the last ten yeas, when they go wrong , in the bin and a new pair. No need to buy new unless it's one f those hobby things

 

[123hotchef]

Ah sorry people it is horse clipper blades and the blades aint cheap they are £30-40 a go, I cut my own hair with clippers too and the blades on those last a long time, the horse ones do not due to the dirty coat and courser hair

 

[Bill Edwards]

Assuming that I am thinking of the correct type then the two flat surfaces will need to be dead flat.
If you don't have a surface plate a piece of glass is quite good.
I would put a sheet of sandpaper down and rub until flat and then sharpen the individual fingers as necessary then they ought to be perfect.

 

[123hotchef]

i did try on my oil stone but that didnt seem to work, I have a surface plate actually i guess i could put the sandpaper on that and give it a try

 

[armalites]

My brother is a shearer and and has his own grinder. It's a specialised bit of kit. Big heavy plate on a grinder that you stick an abrasive sheet to. From what I remember the plate isn't completely flat. He uses terms like hollow grind and such like. He even grinds brand new blade to suit his style of shearing. It has a special jig that hangs the blade and every shearer sets their up a certain way to suit them. I remember when he bought his first grinder it had cast iron plates, he took them on a trip to Australia once and they weighed something like 15-20kg, carried them on as hand luggage but had to try and make it look like they weren't heavy . He has cast Ali ones now and as they are a standard size he takes them with him when shearing away from home.

He used do quite a bit of sharpening for horse clippers locally but he's living in Aus at the moment. He did say the horse clippers are a bit more fussy than the shearing handpieces and even if they are slightly off they cut like a dog.

 

[Gareth J]

I had a go once with varying grades of wet&dry on bits of glass. Complete waste of time.

There are several companies that offer clipper blade sharpening. I think have used these for the last two batches.
www.sheareaseltd.com
But I can't double check as the website won't load. Very fast service and the best bit is they pay for postage to them, it's a small addition but that it saves going to the post office is appreciated.

Can't say if the blades come back better or worse than the next company but they do actually cut when they come back unlike my poor efforts.

 

[Parm]

Ah sorry people it is horse clipper blades and the blades aint cheap they are £30-40 a go, I cut my own hair with clippers too and the blades on those last a long time, the horse ones do not due to the dirty coat and courser hair

Ever so slightly different then, in that case I'm out as I don't know anything about horses or hair

 

[123hotchef]

Yes I saw the local companies they are still a hour away there are others on ebay too for £5 a blade you just send them the blades too they sharpen them and sent them back. I think I will send them off

 

[gordon stephenson]

A lot of the clipper blades require a hollow grind, I have done the older style flat blades on an oil stone quite a few times for my daughters horses, but flat grind did not work on the newer types,

 

[123hotchef]

I am sending them off they are too expensive to mess up

 

[Gareth0123]

Mate, look at my hair style,

I'm exactly the same as Parm. however I have been using a £9.99 Lidl set of cordless clippers for a fortnightly No1 for just over 10 years. Say 250 clippings from them and all I do is give the head a quick blow out each time I'm done.

 

[jordan1]

Check these out:-

http://www.clipper-blade-sharpening.co.uk/