Customer Reviews

DELTA 23-715 Planer Knife Adapter for 23-710 Sharpening Center

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There is no way that this long blade adaptor can be leveled with the horizontal stone on the 23-710 Sharpener. It too is a poorly designed piece of equipment. The support can not be lowered sufficiently and even then it is about 1/4" higher on one side of the stone than the other. It is obvious that little engineering went into this support. I can not recommend this to anyone. It is a pure waste of money as is the sharpening center itself. I finally gave up trying to make use if this unit and bought a Swedish made one. Now, that one is a great 5+ star unit.

the only problem i had with this adapter is that the instructions in the manual for leveling it with the stones are incorrect. the set screws for the mounting bar go into a groove in it, so you can't rotate it. but, i simply spun the mounting bar so i DON'T hit the groove, and it's fine now. i'm not horribly THRILLED about that, but i can tolerate it.

I,ve given this all chances to work but have found many issues. Start with the good points. The blade holder is cast Iron, The rest of the construction is good Engineering. The cost is low but be prepaired for the rest of the issues. The bad: the iron holder is dished .020 over the lenght. The guide is die cast and also dished .010 therefor it will not run in a true plane across the stone. The tilt angle pin that the adjusting screw makes contact with is not cut to a proper angle that enable you get the perfect angle. I filed this for the proper clearance.

The blade stop is balanced on a centering screw with springs at each end, impossible to clamp the knife straight in the holder. If you like a challenge this setup is for you!
I've read about the others like Tormek, Jet and Makita and they all have their issues. You're choice is how much do you want to pay for the imperfections they have. I like the engineering concept of this Delta but hate the idea of another system destroyed by the sub-quality of China crap. It could have been a great machine design and better yet if it were made in the USA under the ISO 9001 quality. I've found that manufacturing is absolute better if produced under the ISO 9001.
I kept this system because the returned replacement would only be the same.
The DIY Mr fixit in me sees this as a challenge and it can be reworked as intended. My remidy is: add set screws 10-32 x 3/4 inch at each end of the knife backing bar. This will enable you to fine tune the exact exposure of the knife. The other is to machine the cast iron holder flat in a milling procedure.

For others that don't have that option, here is the other alternitive. Use your outfeed table on the jointer to sand the cast iron holder flat.
Strt With: Tape the under side of the 80G wet or dry sand paper (with NO OVER LAPS of tape or sandpaper) of the single sheet cut in half on the long side. The rabbit ledge will accomodate the over hang of the guide edge of the knife holder. Tape down the sand paper to the outfeed with the clean edge of the paper not over hanging the rabbit. After several strokes look at the pattern that is showing. Use a straight edge to measure the dished area to know how bad is is dished. You will not sand it all out so make up the differance with Brass stock that is close to filling the low dish and including the epoxy film. THis is purchased from a Hardware Store for a few dollars and some 5 minuet epoxy.

Clean all residual from the iron surface and scuff pad the brass to enhance the mechanical adhesion and cut it to lenght to lay within the dish so it will fit under the straight edge and not lift the straight edge up away from the extream ends that you first sanded.

Set it in with the epoxy and press it into place only using the edge. Follow up with the sanding proceedure untill it shows a consistant sanding pattern. clean out excessive amount from the inside 90 degree cut so it will lay perfectly onto the DieCast guide. Slow down and get it right; think of it like dry fitting hand cut dovetails.

Now for the Die Cast guide part can be done with the same sanding prep on the outfeed table and sand it completely using a slight cross hatch pattern till the sand paper cuts all the way across the face. Stop here and change up to 180G and use a cross hatch pattern and watch your flattening progress.

Now the two parts will track flat across the stone. As your working this check it often on the cast iron table saw with feeler gauges to get down to .0015 flat or better. This should get the proper alignment that was intended by the machining. Good Luck! and go slow like fitting hand cut dove tails.

A nice adapter for the Delta 23-710 Sharpening Center. The only problem with the adapter is, you can't adjust the bevel any higher than 32 degrees. A very poor design. I wanted to sharpen my planer knives at 50 degrees and jointer knives at 45 degrees. As stated earlier, 32 degrees was as high as I could get. If you're sharpening at a bevel any lower than 32 degrees this adapter would do a nice job.
I had to return the adapter to the seller since it would not do the job I expected.

Sharpener is a big mess maker though - the splash sheild does little to contain the mess. The system lacks a drill bit adapter although I plan to try to modify one for standard grinders.