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band saw blade

sorry if this comes through twice, my first post hasn't showed up yet.

I finally found a benchtop band saw with slow speeds for cutting non-ferrous metal and am pleased with it. However, the harbor freight blades are barely usable. I've ordered a couple of Starrett blades in

1/8" and 1/16" from Enco. Unfortunately, they don't come in the size to fit this small saw, so I'll have to cut them to fit. I've never done this before and need information:

Can I overlap the ends, matching up the tooth pattern and silver-solder the ends together, then grind them down to thickness? Or butt-joint? Or do I need to weld them? I have an oxy/acetylene jeweler's torch.

How do I go about tempering the blade after joining the ends?

If the torch I have won't work for this, does anyone know if I can get

1/8" x 36.125" blades somewhere? I need 20-24 tpi.

Any help would be appreciated.

Mouse

Reply to
s_mouse
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Every town has a place that makes up bandsaw blades. They usually also sharpen blades and may sell tool parts too. If you find the business near you, they can weld you up any blade in any length.

You can certainly silver-solder blades together. Most guys scarf the joints to maximize the contact, and make a jig to hold the blade while soldering. I don't know if you need to anneal after soldering, have never done that. There was an article in Home Shop Machinist some years ago that covered home silver soldering of bandsaw blades in detail. I have a little blade welder that butt-welds and yes, afterwards they need to be annealed. Just heat to red then let cool, then heat to not quite red and let cool, then heat to barely-still-black and let cool. Easy with a blade welder that has an anneal button.

Your bandsaw surely doesn't need a blade length to 5 significant figures. I bet it would take a 36" blade or maybe 35" or 37" also.

GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Mouse, If your saw uses the 64 inch blade you had better stock up! I think HF is discontiuning those, the ones with 3 blade wheels. I have been cutting thinwall brass tube for many years using a HF saw and a standard fine tooth wood blade.

LLB

Reply to
Leonard & Peggy Brown

I weld my blades with an electric butt welder, home-built and described in HSM some years ago. (late '90, I think).

I found the annealing-after-welding to be quite critical; after a few failures ( I-know-what-i'm-doing-i-need-no-steeenking-instructions) I actually read what's written on the bulk blade container. It said, "anneal weld at lowest heat-only faint red colour should be seen in shaded light". This for DOALL Dart bandsaw blades.

After digesting that enlightning bit of prose I rarely have blade failures. One more thing, and this is rarely written anywhere: After grinding the weld stress relieve the weld area to blue colour by putting it back into the welder and giving it brief shots of "anneal" until blue.

Wolfgang

Reply to
wfhabicher

Sure, you can silver-braze them using a scarf joint. A jig can be made up out of some small aluminum angle and some bulldog clips or you can get one, complete with braze, from HF and other dealers. If you see the catalog picture, I'm sure you can probably come up with a home-made unit that will satisfy. The drill is to give one end a half-twist, pair the ends up and grind the scarf at the same time on a grinder to get the angles identical. Degrease, flux, clamp in unit and braze. File/sand off excess braze afterwards to fit your guides. No tempering needed for brazing.

36" is a mighty small blade, it's going to have to be pretty thin to go around the small wheels that unit must have.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

Just contact DoAll, they'll make a blade of just about any size, any tooth pattern, out of every imaginable saw blade material that's available. I think they even guarantee their welds. Prices have always been better than any of the local tool houses, just order over the phone and they arrive in a day or two via UPS. If you have a nice set up for making your own blades that's great (I used to make a lot of em for a shop many years ago) but don't waste your time with Mickey Mouse methods. The right stuff to make them is fairly expensive and not worth it for a small time user. Spend your time working on the things you like to do in your shop, let someone else make the saw blade.

Kirk

Reply to
1968fj40

Reply to
John Martin

Thanks to all who wrote to help me figure out what I need to learn to size my small band saw blades. The wide range of experience on this group is a great resource which I appreciate. I'll check in with Enco and see if they can order the correct size for me, and in the meantime I will experiment with silver soldering the blades that I have ordered.

John, you are right, the wheels are quite small, I don't have the saw in front of me right now, but they can't be much more than 5" in diameter. This saw also comes with a diamond blade and a sump for running wet and probably doesn't weigh more than 25 lbs. The blade tracks well and it seems to be engineered adequately for my light duty needs, sawing 16 ga. sterling sheet. I'll be interested to see what kind of radius I can cut with the 1/16" blade.

My first project is to throw together some kind of soldering jig to keep the blades straight and flat.

mouse

Reply to
s_mouse

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