bandsaw blades?

Brent Grooms

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46
I'm going to call Suffolk in the morning and take advantage of their current promotion of 20%off a 5 blade purchase. I am looking for suggestions on what I should get and what I should get a spare of.

The saw is an 18in Steel City and I have a 1/4 6tpi and a 1/2 3tpi that I bought when I picked up the saw as well as the 3/4 that comes with it. Capacity is 1/8 thru 1 1/4. I will be doing some re-sawing and a BUNCH of ripping hard and soft maple 8/4 for a workbench.

TIA...
 
brent, following suffolks advice is a good idea......18" wheels are on the line for use with a trimaster? but it`s my understanding they work fine....if you intend to do "lots" of ripping carbide might be worth considering.....tod
 
Suffolk will guide you right. Just to help with understanding some of their recommendations here is an summaryexcerpt from Mark Duginske's book "The Art of the Bandsaw" (pg 25)

"I use one of 5 different blades

1/16'' 24 TPI scrooling but too fine for resinous woods

1/8" 14 TPI smooth cut, works on pine,cross cutting dovetails, fine cuts in
hard woods

1/4" 4 TPI skip tooth all purpose blades 6tpi better finish in hardwoods

1/4" 6 TPI hook tooth

1/2" 3 TPI hook tooth resawing"
 
For ripping/resawing on my 14" Grizzly with 6" max. height, Suffolk reccomended the Timberwolf 3/4"X3 tpi blade. Most of my cutting was on aromatic red cedar and osage orange. I was dissapointed that the blade seemed to go dull almost instantly. (no exaggeration :( ) When I called Suffolk and asked about this they told me to expect no more than about 200 lineal feet of cutting from a blade. That was very dissapointing, it isn't even an afternoon's work. They also told me that red cedar has an abrasive effect that reduces that figure and that osage orange has high silica content that also dulls extra quickly. I'm not sure what I'll replace that blade with. I sure don't want to replace with new blades daily. Carbide isn't reccomended for a bandsaw my size. I think it is a power thing, carbide requires more power.
 
frank, it`s not more power required for carbide it`s larger wheels....the brazing of the tips affects the band elasticity so smaller wheeled saws can experience premature blade failure....tod
 
For the main resawing blade, wouldn't he be better off with the widest blade his saw can accomodate (1-1/4) to minimize blade drift? Just asking. I've been thinking of getting a backup spare in case my Tri-Master ever breaks (Heaven forbid) and would have thought I'd want to use something just as wide or wider (up to the saws limit) than the TM. All the replies seem to be leaning towards 1/2" or 3/4" for the resaw blade though. ??
 
doug, it takes a really stiff frame to tension the wider blades, i`ve never used the steel-city saw so don`t know if it`s able to tension the wide blades? only one way to find out though;) ....tod
 
doug, it takes a really stiff frame to tension the wider blades, i`ve never used the steel-city saw so don`t know if it`s able to tension the wide blades? only one way to find out though;) ....tod

DOH - I shoulda thunk of that. It's easy to forget about that when you've got a heavy metal MM16.
 
well, I placed the order and will try out the 1in blades to start. If no problems or I find myself wanting to get wild an crazy, then I will order a 1 1/4 carbide and give it a whirl....
 
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