Patent ID: 7896729

Claim:
A universal blade-holding chuck operable to be rotatably driven by a blade-sharpening drive having an adjustable blade sharpener, said universal blade-holding chuck configured to securely hold any one of multiple variously sized circular blades while the blade is sharpened by the adjustable blade sharpener, said universal blade-holding chuck comprising: a chassis operable to be rotated by the drive and rotatable about a rotation axis; a plurality of discrete blade-holding jaws circumferentially positioned about the rotation axis and slidably coupled relative to the chassis for sliding movement in a radial direction relative to the rotation axis; a jaw-positioning element shiftably mounted relative to the chassis, said jaw-positioning element being operably coupled with each of the plurality of discrete blade-holding jaws to shift the jaws simultaneously along the radial direction when the jaw-positioning element is shifted relative to the chassis, said jaws cooperatively presenting a plurality of concentrically arranged blade-retaining sections, with each of the sections being configured to engage a respective one of the circular blades; and a spring mechanism interconnecting the chassis and the plurality of discrete blade-holding jaws to urge the jaws in the radial direction and into engagement with the blade held during sharpening.