Help with my teeth

Bill McQueen

Member
Messages
140
Location
Lincoln AR
Hoping not to open a can of worms here.

I making some of my own edge banding and I need a new bandsaw blade. I'm working with hardwood around 1-2 1/2 inch high. I have a 931/2 6 tpi on it now and it works ok, just worn out.

I would put the same thing on it but it seems (scary word) that since I'm not going through so much materal (like cutting logs) that maybe less teeth would work. I think what I'm been using 1/2 X.25 x6 is still ok I just thought I run it by you guys about the teeth, skip. raker etc.

I wanted to hold back on the big offset because I'm trying to cut from 1/8 down to 1/16.

I don't want to start a brand war, but what works FOR YOU might work for me.

Thanks
 
In general, the thicker the material you're cutting the fewer teeth your bandsaw blade should have. When I'm cutting turning 11" or 12" thick blanks, I want something with about 3 TPI. If I was cutting 1" to 2 1/2" thick dry material I think I'd want to be using anywhere from 4 to 6 TPI. Check out the top chart on this page for cutting rectangular solids:

http://www.ellissaw.com/Band-Saw-Blades/5/band-saw-blade-tooth-selection

Based on that, I think the 6 TPI you're using now is probably a good choice.

Either a hook tooth or skip tooth should work fine for cutting wood. Here are some explanations:

http://www.ellissaw.com/Band-Saw-Blades/8/tooth-types-sets
 
It comes down to the gullets of your teeth. You need them to come out the bottom of the stock before they completely fill. For a given thickness of stock your feed rate has to be slower the more teeth you have so the gullets don't fill up and cause burning. Fewer teeth with bigger gullets allow a faster feed rate up to the horsepower limitations of your saw. Ideally, you always want the same number of teeth engaged in the workpiece over it's total thickness no matter the thickness of the stock. For resawing 12" boards I've used a 1.3 TPI blade with huge gullets in a 5 HP band saw. That's around 15 teeth engaged over the thickness of the stock. For cutting 2-3" material, a 6 TPI blade does well for me. That's 12 to 18 teeth engaged in the stock over it's thickness. For 1" I've found I can go up to a 12-18 TPI blade with good results. Overall though, a 1/4" 6 TPI blade has been a good all round blade for me, I just adjust my feed rate to the thickness of the stock. You'll learn to feel it when you're feeding to fast or too slow for the blade.
 
I use my Woodslicer for all re-saw applications. It's a variable 3tpi arrangement that works well up to the 12" limit of my G0513. I can slice 1/8" pieces (or less, depending on my objective). If I want finished 1/8" from wider boards, I'll cut 3/16" slices.

The major thing I have to watch is to feed slowly until the blade is fully embedded in the wood, then I can go a bit faster. My bandsaw has a crowned tire, so I do not adjust my fence except to keep it parallel to the miter slot.
 
Thanks, I checked out the sites, I think I might try out the woodslicer. Adjusting speed to the thickness is a thing I'll be more aware of.

Thanks again
 
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