Sharpening a hedge trimmer: recommendations?

Yes, yes, yes: I know that Google Is My Friend, but my real friend is the DIY Wiki, which [hopefully] distils the best of advice. And this one doesn't appear there yet, as far as I can see...

I have two Bosch hedge trimmers, a couple of years old now, and they are getting worn, gunged, and less sharp. (One is mains, one is rechargeable BTW.)

I'd like to separate the blades, rub them down a bit, and remove the gunge that has [probably] accrued over the years in the blade assemblies. However, I'm very leery of doing this unless I can be sure to put them back together exactly right. Otherwise, they'll end up worse than they started out.

Is there a recommended procedure for sharpening and renovating a hedge trimmer?

Cheers John

Reply to
Another John
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I don't know about recommended procedures but I sharpen mine in situ with a tungsten burr in a dremel.

AJH

Reply to
andrew

My Stihl ones says to clean the blade with resin solvent. The only resin solvent I've found is their own, which is rather expensive, and no one seems to stock it. I have cleaned with WD40 instead (relying on the solvent part), but it doesn't seem to work very well at dissolving resin, and it probably works too well at removing any lubricant and rust protection, so I probably won't continue using that.

I bought a can of silicone spray lubricant to try. I used it for a few other things, and managed to misplace it before getting around to trying it on the hedgecutter blades.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Woodworking shop, router cutter cleaner. Trend do it.

Alternatively a spray of either penetrating oil (not WD40) or brake cleaner.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Strip, clean, re-lubricate, re-assemble.

They don't go blunt because they're blunt, they go blunt because there's a gap between the blades' working edges owing to a build-up of gunk.

Hedge trimmers used on Leylandii need this regularly, those only used on hardwoods might never need it.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I split my B&D blades into the fixed & movable parts .... and simply filed the blades with a diamond sharpening file.

Reply to
Rick Hughes

yep - but probably even more pricey than Stihl product

Reply to
Rick Hughes

***Exactly***! I do realise that disassembly is the best way (I was going to de-gunk the blades, and then go over the cutting surfaces with a dead flat file.)

However, the bit I'm worried about (which I didn't make clear enough) is the reassembly: I don't want to undo the securing nuts in teh blade assembly until I know I'll be able to put them back at the right tension: a fraction too tight and I'll f*** the cutter, a fraction too loose and it'll be worse than it was before.

So the recommendations I'm looking for (sorry for not making it clear enough) are to do with disassembly and reassembly.

John

p.s. I'm not normally afraid to do this with things (dis- and re-assembly often fixes stuff!), but in the case of a precision tool ....

Reply to
Another John

In message

, Another John writes

Do you not have fixed length spacers maintaining the blade separation? Some of us have been known to shorten these when things get slack:-)

Reply to
Tim Lamb

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