Champion Model 11 Splitter

[Tim Schroeder]

Just got this back together. Blade is well worn out. I’ll either have to make some shim or have a new blade made. The guy who sharpens my planer and jointer blades sharpened this blade for $8.50. I haven’t touched it yet. First test went well with just the turn of a screw half way thru the pass evened it out. 
 

[Scoutmom]

Nice.  

[Tim Schroeder]

I am finished with the cleaning and polishing. The blade was in really bad shape and is to short to hit the stops. Has anybody else had this problem and what did you do? I want to just make a shim to lay behind the blade. Has anybody done this or will that just not work? If I want to make another blade what would be the best material to use. It's hard finding 3" wide stock in small pieces. Is A2 good enough or do I need something else?  I don't really know much about what steel to use. The guy who sharpens my planer and jointer blades will put the edge on it and sharpen to what it looks like now for $10. I tried to give him a tip last time and they wouldn't let me. I have someone who can mill the hole in the blade. I messed up that sharpening when I tried to add some pressure to the bottom roller and didn't have the stops set properly. Live and learn. Still only $8.50 to have it sharpened. 

 I have found some new blade clamps to replace the broken one. I still have to find a way to lock the depth adjustment handle. A metal adjustable handle off Ebay will probably be the answer. 

Edited May 14 by Tim Schroeder

[mbnaegle]

If the blade is worn far enough that it won't adjust in anymore, usually the fix is to buy a new blade. Those 6" Champion splitters use the same blade as the 6" American and 6" Landis splitters (model 30) and some Asian clones. The Landis blades are still available new.

Other than a new blade, I've seen guys weld a piece of steel to the back of the blade and grind the center slot a little deeper to get more life out of them. Some blades use good tool steel for the whole blade, while other have a strip of tool steel bonded to the front edge of a plain steel body, which can only sharpen so far (those ones you can see a seam between the two metals). When sharpening, it's important to keep everything flat and square so that it cuts uniformly across the whole edge. If you hold it against a straight edge and see the edge has a bow to it, it might cut OK but will likely cut the ends thinner or thicker than the middle. If it gets far enough out (usually happens over years of not sharpening it evenly), you can have a machine shop with a surface grinder re-grind the bevel, but you'll loose some material as they have to take the surface down to the lowest point.

For all fixed blade splitters, I think it's best to routinely remove and "strop" the blade the same as you do with hand tools. My dad always kept a couple of 6"x 18" flat wood boards hanging on the wall with leather glued to the surface and some rouge rubbed onto them periodically. A big flat board like that is easier to see and feel the angle you're running across the blade at, and keeps you from working one part of the edge too much. Usually the blade would be clamped to a table or someplace where you can move the board over it. Regular stropping means you are maintaining the edge rather than needing to grind a lot of material off when it gets too dull to force material through.

The depth adjusting handle on that one doesn't look original, though it should work. The original was much shorter and made out of iron. If I remember correctly, the nut it pivots on also serves as a lock, and I think would have been a wing-nut or knob. The lever your has might have replaced a broken part, or it might have been a way to skive tapers by moving the lever as you crank the leather through.

Edited June 2 by mbnaegle

[Tastech]

I laid a square steel rod along the back edge of mine to take up the slack . it works just fine . I was going to weld some extensions where the adjustment screws touch the blade but the square rod is doing the job so i will just leave it as is .

[Tim Schroeder]

Hi @mbnaegle I have machinist who fixes all kinds of pieces for me so I can get the slot milled in a new blade and the guy who sharpens my planer and jointer blades will put the edge and sharpen it for $10 like the pictures above. I messed up the ends of this blade putting it back in because I didn't know what I was doing. I can get a A2 blade made for less than $100 because I can get a piece of A2 off Ebay for around $50. I AI'ed splitter blades and it said A2 would and be better than D2 for a reason I can't remember. I think I can get a D2 blade made for around $150. I wish I knew what this blade is. It has MicroGrind stamped on the blade. I figured it was probably the original blade but have no way of knowing. The slot in the depth adjustment handle is bigger than the pin in the back of the adjustment bar so I wondered if it was original.  I put that knob on for tightening. 

@TastechI found a  piece of 1/4" aluminum and made a shim for behind the blade. I was gonna have my machinist mill a 1/8" x 1/8" spot in the bottom of the back of the blade and the same in the top of the shim, so the shim would slide under neath the blade and keep the shim from wanting to rise up or move. So I will be using this blade for now. 

I have a broken blade clamp and purchased the ones of Ebay and they are totally worthless. The difference between the inside and the outside is .287 so when you tighten them down they even touch the .250 blade. The bolt hole is in the wrong spot for this Champion. They are not milled correctly for them to fit on the blade and they won't even sit down on the blade. $60 bucks for the clamps and another 30 or 40 to have them fixed. I gonna asked my machinist how much to make a 3" piece milled correctly and I will cut them to shape myself. Then I could make them long enough to hold down the shim. 

I ran a 5" x 7" piece thru it I have it splitting evenly all the way across and from end to end. I can split down to .042" The bottom roller is set .030 below the blade. A credit card. 

I have ten pairs of boots and three pairs of dress shoes to build for these guys I've been working on their properties for the last 8 yrs. So I bought this to split soles. 

Edited June 3 by Tim Schroeder

[mbnaegle]

The shim and the knob look good.

As far as blade material, I don't trust anything AI says anymore. I've seen so many cases of it speaking authoritatively on subjects that it's obviously got information all mixed up on that I don't trust it. I know there's lots of back-and forth in knife-maker forums and both A2 and D2 are good choices. In our shop, we use A2 for machine parts and things that need to keep a durable non-wearing surface, and D2 for knives and other parts that also need to keep a sharp edge. It's just been our experience.

[bruce johnson]

I don't get a lot of Champions but here is one I did several years ago. The buyer chose red rather than the burgundy as most seemed to be originally. You are on track with the knob to tighten. 

As far as the ends of the blade - pretty common the chip out a bit. They get pushed up to the stops, but fail to get backed off a bit a touch to avoid the blade edge scraping on the stop as it floats up and down. That 1/8 inch or so of edge on the ends doesn't bother me as long as the rest of the blade is square. You just have to make that allowance when you set the blade. 

Some splitters and blades require some fine tuning. On some combinations they work better with the blade further back from the stops and a few need to be a little forward of the stops. Back is easy, just back off the holding bolts. Forward, if you really feel like it needs to be further forward then grind out a touch on each end of the blade where they would hit the stops. It doesn't happen very often but there are some that are just finicky that way. 

[Tim Schroeder]

@mbnaegle I agree on the AI. I just googled it to see because I don't really know anything about steel. I do know D2 as my Kemovan edger's are D2. I'm a carpenter by trade. If this is the original blade is there any way to tell what it is? It has that Micro Grind stamp on it.  I'm gonna be using this blade for now and I think I have found a blade clamp to replace the broken one. The handle will work for now but I would like to replace it. I have a chunk of African Mahogany that I can make a new handle for it if I can find a way to mount it with out using a threaded bolt that will just grind the inside away. I can drill and tap the arm no problem so I thought about a chrome revolving handle off Amazon but they are really skinny and I would like to make a handle just slightly bigger than the one on there now. 

@bruce johnson Thanks for the info. That splitter looks great. You do a great job on restoring machinery. Yea I didn't think about the blade stops going up and down when splitting and that is definitely how the edges got chipped.  When I first put it together I set the bottom roller with a thin credit card (insurance card .020) with the blade all the way against the stops. The top roller will only go down so far before the gears on the roller shafts start hitting. That turns out to be about .040". I think I have it splitting pretty good. That picture above is a piece of 6/7 that I split and then ran the split piece thru again and it split it nice and even. I did try to lower the bottom roller a little to be able to split a little thinner but it would just ball up in the middle when I did. Once I get a new clamp on it I will try to split a piece of sole leather to see how it does. I have to be able to split soles for dress shoes and dress boots as well. 

[Tim Schroeder]

Well I thought I had a blade clamp located. The ones off Ebay will never clamp down a 1/4" blade because of the way they are made. The guy who had them for sale on Ebay said he had used these clamps on a Champion before. The difference between the front of the clamp and the back is .287". No matter how tight you tighten them they will never even touch a .250 blade. He told me if I only needed one he had an original and sent me a picture of it. Now he says he is looking for another one and he will send me measurements and pictures. I haven't heard back from him now in 5 or 6 days. So I guess I'm gonna have to have some made. Anybody know where I might get a single just by chance. 

Edited June 10 by Tim Schroeder