Many times in the last twenty-five years while planing or jointing, the knife became damaged and caused me to stop working. The second I feel my knives are dull or damaged I place my Makita sharpening stone in warm water. Without missing a beat, I can remove the knives, sharpen them quickly, reinstall them and get back to woodworking.
As woodworkers we don’t have to suffer by working with dull and damaged blades.
In the woodworking videos below I reinstall my planer and jointer blades after they have been sharpened. Even if you don’t have the exact machines I have, my point is that having a machine that’s easy to pull the blades and reinstall them is of the utmost importance. I speak from experience as I’ve done this hundreds and hundreds of times.
The Hitachi P100F planer is beautiful and elegant regarding pulling and reinstalling the knives. It really can’t be improved upon. It’s fool proof. Working with the Grizzly jointer blades, on the other hand, takes a little more finesse, but the same accuracy can be achieved quite simply. I also made a short video that shows a quick way to test the alignment of the jointer blades after installation.
What is most important is to have a system in place to deal with the most difficult woods to work. Very soft woods pose problems and very hard woods pose problems, but the problems they pose are completely overcome with very sharp planer and jointer blades. Not to mention that having sharp blades will extend the life of your machines and save you many hours per project in sanding time.
NOTE: My Grizzly 8″ jointer is still available at about the same price I paid for mine in the mid 80’s. The current version has been updated and looks like a great value. Unfortunately, the Hitachi p100F has been completely discontinued. Hitachi still makes planers, but they are bench top style. If I have to replace my Hitachi planer in the future, I would probably look into buying a Makita brand planer which I’ve heard good things about.