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Last Updated on March 5, 2024 by Paul Clayton
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How to Sharpen Ice Auger Blades?
Get ready, ice fishing enthusiasts! We’re about to dive into the exciting world of maintaining your ice auger blades. A well-sharpened ice fishing auger blade is crucial for a successful ice fishing expedition.
Imagine effortlessly drilling a perfect ice fishing hole! Well, that’s what we’re aiming for in this article. We’ll guide you step-by-step on how to sharpen your ice fishing auger blades like a pro. Not only will these tips save you time, but they will also ensure the longevity of your blades.
Dull ice auger blades aren’t much better than no ice auger blades. Cutting through ice becomes very difficult, damaging the blades even more when using dull blades.
If your ice auger hasn’t been too effective lately, it may need a good blade sharpening!
So, let’s gear up and get those blades in top shape for your next ice-fishing adventure!
Things to Keep in Mind With Ice Auger Blades
First of all, you need to keep in mind a couple of things with ice auger blades:
- Each blade has its bevel angle. When sharpening the blade edge, you
should maintain the exact bevel angles with which the blades have been manufactured. You can confirm if the angle is right visually, or you may use sharpeners that have angle guides to help you maintain the angle. - Most of the work will be done on the secondary blade edge. The primary edge usually requires just light polishing.
The secondary blade edge is angled more than the primary edge and is situated on the top surface of the blade. The primary edge cuts into the ice, while the secondary edge lifts it.
- Ice augers have plenty of small parts that could get lost easily during disassembly. Make sure that you keep everything organized to avoid losing anything. Pay special attention to the small shims that maintain a proper blade angle.
You may use a magnetic parts tray to help you keep everything organized and secure. Alternatively, you can DIY a magnetic tray by attaching a magnet to the bottom of a metal tray.
- Sharpening heavily damaged or entirely blunt blades may not be worth it. Instead, we suggest that you go and get brand-new blades.
- You should wear cut-resistant gloves since ice auger blades are pretty sharp, even when blunt.
How to Sharpen Ice Auger Blades
If you’ve ever sharpened any blade in your life – a knife or an ax – then you should have no issues with sharpening ice auger blades. They are just like any other blade, and all the techniques that work with other blades will work with auger blades.
Among the tools that you could use to sharpen ice auger blades are:
- Rocks (if you’re out in the wild and don’t have tools).
- A grinder.
- A Dremel.
- A file.
As you may have noticed, these are the same tools you use to sharpen any other kind of blade.
That said, if you don’t know how to sharpen blades, we’ll give you a couple of sharpening methods below.
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The 3-stone method
The 3-stone method is the classical technique of sharpening any blade. It’s a bit tedious, but it provides excellent results when you have the time and tools.
As the name of this technique suggests, you will need three sharpening whetstones
– coarse, medium-grit, and fine-grit, 1 of each. The logic behind such a set of stones is the following:
- You remove the chips, dings, and other forms of severe damage with the coarser whetstone.
- You then slightly polish the blade and remove lighter damage with a medium-grit stone.
- Finally, you polish the blade to perfection with your fine-grit stone.
Aside from the three whetstones, you will need honing oil or water. Which one you will need depends on the type of whetstone you have. Some online guides may also recommend you to have a fine-honing stone.
Here’s how to sharpen ice auger blades with this method:
- Lay the coarsest whetstone down on the surface of your worktable. Alternatively, if you have one, you may fix the ice auger blades in a vice.
If there are no burrs, chips, dings, or other traces of severe damage, you may jump straight to finer whetstones.
- Coat the blade edge with a bit of water or honing oil. You must reapply the honing oil or water as necessary throughout the sharpening.
- Start with the secondary blade edge. When sharpening the blade, hold its edge towards you and move it away from you along the surface of the whetstone.
- Start by making slow strokes and progressively make faster strokes as you feel the surface of the blade edge becoming smoother. If starting with a coarse stone, you have to remove all burrs, chips, dings, and other traces of damage.
- Once you feel the blade’s angle is flat, switch to a medium-grit whetstone and repeat the process.
- Once you can no longer improve the blade’s condition with the medium-grit whetstone, switch to your finest stone and polish the blade to perfection.
- Then, you will need to switch to the primary blade edge. As mentioned above, this side of the ice auger blade usually doesn’t require much treatment. People usually stroke the primary blade against a honing stone at an angle of around 40 degrees for some light polishing or removal of burrs. A fine-grit whetstone may work just as well as a honing stone.
- If necessary, repeat the entire process for the rest of the ice auger’s blades.
As you can see, the sharpening process of ice auger blades doesn’t have anything too specific or complex about it – you do it the same way as you would sharpen your regular knife or ax.
This method is perhaps the best for sharpening if you are out on the ice and need to sharpen your ice auger blades urgently. Of course, you may use rocks lying around, but it’s more convenient to use whetstones.
But overall, you should always check your ice auger once home and sharpen its blades if necessary to avoid being left out with a dull ice auger.
The grinder method
Believe it or not, you can sharpen ice auger blades with a grinder. This method is more complex than the classical 3-stone method, and you also need a grinder and a proper set of grinder wheels.
Auger blades are pretty delicate, so regular grinder wheels are probably too coarse for them. Instead, you would want to use a cloth buffing wheel, as outlined in this video guide. This wheel is delicate enough not to cause severe damage to auger blades, but you still need to be careful.
You should also wear safety goggles since the blade material flying around will not benefit you if it gets in your eyes.
This method requires skill and proper tools. Aside from that, it may be a little overkill for ice auger blade sharpening, but it’s a pretty convenient method if you know what you are doing.
Here’s how the sharpening can be done with a grinder:
- Make sure to install a cloth buffing wheel on your grinder. For more severe blade damage, you may try regular grinding wheels, but they will most likely be overkill for ice auger blades. A soft buffing wheel should work well enough if your blade isn’t too heavily damaged.
- Apply the polishing paste to the grinding wheel. If your paste comes in a stick form, you can turn your grinder on, place the stick against the wheel, and it will be covered in polish in one revolution.
- Start sharpening your blade’s secondary blade edge. It would help if you held the blade in a way so that the wheel rotates away from it, i.e. the blade has to face the same direction that the wheel is rotating in. Otherwise, you will destroy the blade.
- Ensure that the blade’s original bevel angle is maintained when sharpening it.
- Slide the ice auger blade right and left to sharpen its entire surface. Maintain the bevel angle at all times.
- Stop the grinder and look at the blade. If it is smooth and polished, you are pretty much done with the sharpening and buffing.
- Sharpening the secondary blade edge most likely caused a burr on the primary edge. If so, then very lightly polish the primary edge against the grinder wheel to get rid of the burr.
- The burr may move to the secondary edge. If so, then again switch to the secondary edge and lightly polish it to get rid of the burr. Switch sides and repeat as many times as needed to get rid of the burr on both sides. You will need to go progressively lighter on the blade edges to get rid of the burr.
- Repeat the process for the rest of the blades.
Grinding ice auger blades with a buffing wheel will do more buffing than sharpening. That said, a soft buffing wheel is coarse enough to help you remove less severe blade damage.
If this method isn’t able to make the blades clean and polished, you may:
- Use the 3-stone method instead.
- Use a coarser grinding wheel.
- Throw the blades away and get new ones.
If you can’t fix the blades with a buffing wheel, try the 3-stone method. It’s a good technique that works in many cases and is safer than using a grinder.
Another option is to try a regular grinding wheel, like you would to sharpen an ax, for example. You may use more than one wheel grit to remove severe damage and polish the blade, just like in the 3-stone method.
The ax and ice auger blades aren’t the same, though, and they are less durable, making them easier to damage.
Auger blades are also small, so even the slightest mistake could irreparably damage them. Grinders can also remove material very quickly, which is another thing that makes regular wheels not the best for ice auger blades.
So yeah, we don’t recommend using regular grinding wheels for sharpening, but you may give them a try.
If you decide to use regular grinding wheels, remember that you will need to cool the auger blades down with water occasionally. Overheating any blade on a grinder is straightforward, so you should be very careful.
Overall, if you don’t have experience, you should probably avoid attempting to use a grinder to sharpen your ice auger blades.
The Dremel method
You may also use a Dremel with ice auger blades. Dremels are safer and more delicate than grinders. When it comes to sharpening, a Dremel is essentially a small grinder. Dremels and grinders are also pretty similar in their use.
To sharpen an auger blade with a Dremel, you will need a grinding stone attachment. The most common grinding stone type is aluminum oxide, which should be more than enough for ice auger blades.
Here’s how you’d sharpen your ice drill with a Dremel:
- Ideally, it would help if you clamped the ice auger blade down to make the sharpening easier.
- As with other methods, you start from the blade’s secondary edge. Make circular motions along the secondary edge while maintaining the bevel angle.
- Once the secondary edge seems fine enough, have a look at the primary edge and see whether there is a burr on it. If there is one, you must treat it with the Dremel to eliminate it lightly.
- Occasionally cool the ice auger blade with water throughout the process.
Again, don’t forget to wear safety equipment when handling a Dremel.
If necessary, you may use different grits to sharpen the ice auger blade. You’d use the grits like with whetstones—coarser grits for severe damage and finer grits for polishing.
This video has been included to clarify the topic. Credit goes to Joe Holland Fishing
‘Video is not the main content of the page’
Final Words
So yeah, there really is nothing too special about sharpening ice auger blades. You sharpen ice auger blades just like any other blades!
But if you’ve never sharpened blades, follow the instructions above. We also suggest that you practice on a blade you aren’t afraid of damaging. Practice will give you a good idea of what you should be doing.
For more articles related to fishing, click here.
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