Marking its 60th anniversary, the Sharp Tool Company in Hudson, Massachusetts, is a company that throughout its history has achieved a number of milestones, and in this landmark year the company has purchased five circular saw-blade grinding machines from Vollmer in an investment worth $1m.

The modern face of the business sees Sharp Tool manufacture upward of 700 saw blades every week, with over 4000 continuously on order and an additional 1000 HSS and carbide-tipped saw blades being serviced every seven days. Sharp Tool also supplies bandsaw blades and flat knives.
Even before orders land in the workshop, the company says it has witnessed a multitude of benefits.
Paul Morette, son of the company’s founder, states: “The surface finish and precision on our saw blades is much better than before. This will improve the service life of products for customers. In addition, by completing face and top grinding in a single set-up, we are improving consistency and overall quality. This has eliminated secondary set-ups and is saving us the equivalent of two employees a year; maybe $100,000 per annum in labour savings, as the guys don’t have to constantly run two machines. It also saves the guys from trying to load heavy 52” blades twice, from one machine to the next.”
From a productivity perspective, the new Vollmer machines are at least 40% faster than the previous Vollmer CHC20 machines they replaced. Factoring in the elimination of multiple set-ups and Sharp Tool Co is realising throughput improvements of 50% or more. The benefit to both the saw manufacturer and its customers is that lead-times will be reduced considerably moving forward.
For further information www.vollmer-group.com