Morso Blade Sharpening

[Framerpicture]

There's a memebr of the forum who offers Morso blade sharpening ( in Scotland?) , I've tried searching but as you can imagine Morso and sharpening crop up a lot on this forum

Any clues would be gratefully recieved


Will

[jay]

Hi Will
Cathandon Fine Arts is what you're looking for.
Tel 01324 495 340.
http://www.cathandon.co.uk
Jay

[Bill Henry]

I cannot give you a company on your side of the world to recommend, but I am not one to be without opinions.

There are a lot of blade sharpening people in our neck of the woods (we have lots of woods, so it figures) who do a good job on kitchen knives and chain saws (did I mention that we have lots of woods?). But, none of the local companies have a clue how to sharpen Morsø blades.

Morsø recommends that their blades be hollow ground.



Theoretically, a hollow ground edge should allow for a cleaner cut. Hollow ground will be a bit sharper since the blade is thinner at the edge. However, because of the thinness of the edge, it is more likely to “roll over” after a comparatively short use and need more frequent honing. Chopping especially hard woods is more likely to hasten the need for sharpening.

I have to ship my blades to another state to have them sharpened. The last time I did, I did not specify that I wished to have them hollow ground.

Instead, they chisel ground the blades.



Initially I was very upset, but realized very quickly that the cuts were jes’ fine. Because the edge was not quite as fine as it would have been had they been hollow ground the edge did not “roll over”, so the blades did not dull up as quickly.

Now, I’m good with a chisel grind.

[Hoops]

Thought I'd offer my thoughts- I've never used Lions or anyone else for blade sharpening. I have been using Cathendon in Scotland since they started offering this service last year. Cannot speak highly enough of 1. the finish of the blades on their return and 2. Dealing with Gordon Cunningham.

Very professional team to deal with. Turnaround time is approx. one week from leaving N.Ireland to Scotland and back. Completely satisfied with their service and see no reason to ever try anyone else.

Hoops

[framejunkie]

I'm considering trying Cathandon's blade sharpening. I've always used Lion, but the last few times the quality of the work hasn't been as good as it used to be - a few burred leading edges, and a general poor performance in the Morso. This is crucial for me as i use mainly oak and ash mouldings, so need the blades to be spot on.

Has anyone else had trouble with Lion's blade sharpening lately, or is it just me?

[foxyframer]

Hollow ground every time.

Anyone in central southern England, there is West Tytherley Saw Services at Ringwood near the New Forest. Family firm with a wealth of experience with blades and all types of saw sharpening.

Foxy

[Martin Harrold]

At Lion we get a lot of blades in for sharpening. It is a very slow process, and requires careful supervision at every stage. Standing by a grinding machine all day is not the world's most exciting task and sometimes levels of concentration slip and errors occur. Our technician, Stewart James-Dyke, is a trained toolmaker and trains and supervises the operators.

Every set of blades is subject to a control and checking procedure, and even with that, some faulty ones do slip through. Whenever a customer queries the quality of a grind, we check back and try to find out what the problem was. We use anything we learn to constantly refine the overall process.

Our service also allows us to remove the mysterious 'hill' problem which occurs on many blades. Despite over 6 years of investigations and much discussion with Claus at Dan-List and with many framers, no-one really understands how it occurs. It is probably something to do with the fact that the hard edge steel is brazed into the softer backing steel in a very hot oven. Stresses are set up during cooling which take time to dissipate and there are strong indications that as stresses dissipate, they can cause the 'hill'. On a microscopic scale, it can be compared to the warping of some wood as it dries out.

I don't know what most framers now charge for their time, but we currently charge £16 for the re-sharpening. The whole process takes, on average, over 35 minutes per pair. So, we don't believe that £32 an hour is excessive, given our significant investment in equipment.

In our Cat 44, we made a change to the pricing structure, to simplify it. We think we went too far and will be re-introducing the 'chip removal' option shortly.

We set up the service a long time ago, as many framers found that they could not get their blades sharpened in the correct way. We cover our costs and make a small profit.

At the FATG Awards weekend, we got to know Gordon and Jess at Cathandon, and I think they'll be visiting us in Birmingham shortly to view our sharpening operation. We don't really see him as a competitor - both organisations are offering an essential service to framers and it's good that they have a free choice.

The comment about straight versus hollow ground is rather interesting. We'll be chatting to Stewart about that and maybe doing some of our own trials.

[mlondon]

Hi all, This is my first post as i have only just discovered this forum, My life would have been so much easier had i discovered it sooner but hey, that's life! As a former employee of Martins (hi Martin, Graham here), i know first hand of all the time and effort ( and money) that Lion have put into their blade grinding process. As Martin mentioned some quality issues had arisen but overall the feedback i got from customers at the trade counter nr Heathrow was that when any issues had been ironed out the quality was excellent. I have also used Lions blade grinding service professionally and was extremely pleased with both the quality and service i received. Having said that i did play a part in training some of the south staff. Yay to me .

[Framerpicture]

I have just used Cathodon for blade sharpening the first time and have to say its an absolutely fantastic service.

I phoned Gordon on Friday, the blades were picked up on Monday and returned to me the following Friday and all for much less than Lion charge!

Its a bit early to comment on the blades performance but so far so good!

Thanks Gordon!!

[birdman]

We have used Lion for our blade sharpening for some time now and have never had any problem at all with the blades.

We changed to Lion because of the inconsistency of service offered locally. Sometimes we had had to wait for three or four weeks for blades to be returned (from our local sharpener) and the standard was abysmal.

We have just sent two sets away to Lion to be sharpened and I don't expect the standards to be any different this time. Well done Lion.

[Couture's Gallery]

Used to hollow grind, then visited another shop that had chisle grind on his..they cut just fine and last twice as long before needing a resharpening..so I switched and never looked back..plus now I get 2 day service in state -vs- having to ship out of state and wait a week or more ( keep 2 sets at all times also)