Woodland Mills own blades or Ripper 37?

[Exec Trustee]

We own and operate at Woodland Mills HM130 and bought 20 blades with this machine direct from Woodland Mills. We are now out of WM blades and so tried 3 off Ripper 37 blades supplied by Stephen Cull.  I talked with Stephen last week and he confirmed that he no longer sharpens blades instead sending these out to a saw doctor in Wales as recommended by Chris Pearce of Woodland Mills UK. I got in touch with Chris and he advises that his blades are sharpened at a cost of £7.50 each plus VAT & shipping at USK Saws located in USK, Wales ( email contact [email protected] ).

Stephen Cull does not stock Daikin Flathers Ripper37 blades and instead he simply forwards orders received to Daikin Flathers who ship blades direct to Stephen's customers. It seems therefore that Stephen Cull is now little more than a post box for Daikin Flathers with his own immense competence and capability in the field of saw blades now of lesser importance. Daikin Flathers use UK / German steel to make their blades contrary to WM who obtain their blades from China and so since self sufficiency has become more important to the UK since the pandemic then maybe we need to support home grown suppliers

On a more positive note if you can attend The Royal Welsh Show at the end of July or the APF in mid September then Stephen advises that you will be able to obtain 11 blades for the normal price of 10 however other of these 2 promotional events there appears to be little appetite for providing new customers with introductory or bulk buy promotional offers and so the purchase of a blade sharpening machine might now appear to become a more attractive option. However :-

Josh at Woodland Mills advises that each blade can be sharpened 5 times and so with the blade sharpening machine costing £570 + VAT this would equate to a cost of £6.84 per blade sharpening for 20 blades. In our experience the reality is that approx 25% of blades get wrecked or become unsuitable for resharpening due to :-

1. broken blade (root fissure cracking)
2. teeth damaged due to sawing through the log support metal upstands (oops!)
3. blade coming off drive and idler wheels, caught by blade catch which ruined a number of the teeth (mainly caused by pulling the saw backwards whilst the blade is still turning)
4. the earliest blades are now rusty 
5. blade damaged by inclusions in the log
6. blade buckled

and therefore the stock of blades is bound to decline over Josh's 5 resharpening blade cycle effectively increasing unit resharpening cost.

 

Now what to for the best and especially what to do with those junked blades ?

 

 

[Exec Trustee]

Michelle Goss has just posted a video of her receiving, setting up and using the Woodland Mills setting and sharpening kit :-

https://youtu.be/JkOFaaxAoVA

[richbuxton]

got some  ripper 37 blades any body wants them 14. 6" and 21 3 1/2" new 1/2 price or offers

[doobin]

41 minutes ago, richbuxton said:

got some  ripper 37 blades any body wants them 14. 6" and 21 3 1/2" new 1/2 price or offers

If they are the ones for the 130 max then I’ll have them