Automatic chain sharpener

[Donnie]

Looking at maybe buying one of these in the next few months. After this tax year is done, end of the month. 
 

Anyone used one of these? It does all aspects, rakers etc. 

 

Markusson Sensomatic | Clark Engineering

WWW.CLARK-ENGINEERING.COM

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Markusson Sensomatic. We seek to provide the highest quality products to our customers that match the unforgiving and...

 

Ideally would like to start sharpening harvester chains/processor chains in my free time/in the garage. 
 

Heard people charging 4-5 pound plus VAT per chain. 
 

 

 

[topchippyles]

5k for a chain sharpener you must be earning a fortune Jake 😏

[gdh]

They work well if you can justify the initial cost. Ideally you want to be doing similar length rakers each time to avoid adjusting all the time. You also need an air line for the tension.

 

I've got the triplematic and it's great but the one you have there is the next one up that also detectors two teeth going the same way and adjusts itself.

[Muddy42]

I think the only people that can justify that would be big workshop doing thousands of chains a month including via mail order.  Learning all the settings takes a lot of time too.  For any other mere mortals, you're better with a non-automatic grinder.  

[Donnie]

On 18/03/2025 at 21:55, topchippyles said:

5k for a chain sharpener you must be earning a fortune Jake 😏

Earn a decent living I guess. Always on the look out for making more I guess. 
Next tax year I want to be investing in something worthwhile, had my fair share of buying stupid things (like loads and loads of Huskys)

[Donnie]

On 19/03/2025 at 11:21, Muddy42 said:

I think the only people that can justify that would be big workshop doing thousands of chains a month including via mail order.  Learning all the settings takes a lot of time too.  For any other mere mortals, you're better with a non-automatic grinder.  

I guess everything is learnable over time. I wouldn’t be buying it to use it solely for my own chains more so other peoples. 
 

I think a guy near me charges 4-5 pound per chain on one of these I think. 

[Steven P]

This one intrigues me, 5k cost, you'd want payback in 10 years? £500 a year plus interest, you'd need £800 to £1000 a year in sales to cover it's cost? (10 year payback, paying yourself 10% to 15% interest on the money you loaned the business - any less you'd do better putting it away for 10 years in bonds somewhere).

 

So for it to pay off that is 200 chains a year, plus postage back, plus your time, you'd have to be doing a lot of work with that I think to pay for the machine? Different if you had the machine and wanted it to make a bit of money then you could perhaps discount the repayments, all profit on something you'd have anyway, then 1 chain is profitable.

 

Might be you use it almost as a loss leader to drive other business your way

[gdh]

I worked ours out a bit differently and admittedly I only paid 3k but I thought about it in hours saved. 

 

I've organised myself so that we have 24 inch bars on our processor and saws and I just rotate a batch of 10. I used to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon sharpening now it just takes 30 seconds whenever I walk past to set up a chain and it does depth gauges as well.

 

Still a long pay off but I think worth it.