Bandsaw blades for Metal

Buy good blades from a saw shop. I like Lennox Bi-Metal blades. For thin wall tube and pipe use a 18 TPI blade. For heavier bar stock go to a 10 or 12 TPI.

The blades should be 64-1/2" x 0.020" x 1/2".

Buy good blades. I like the Lenox bimetal blades. 12 to 18 TPI should be about right for most things you're likely to cut. 6 TPI is just too coarse for a 1/2 x .020 blade.

Gary

If you feel you won't shuck teeth from the blades, a bi-metal is very good, but I don't use them. I've stayed with carbon steel blades for a couple reasons. One, I usually damages a blade well before wearing it out, or (2) it breaks from fatigue before you have the miles from it. Regardless of your choice, though, I think that the blade stock in question might be .025" thick, not .020". To make a proper blade selection, just remember to have at least three teeth in contact with the work at all times. If you don't have, you'll shuck teeth, especially with the gravity feed type saws that don't have fine control of the feed speed. If you're cutting small diameter material, or thin stock or tubing, that calls for something as fine as a 28 pitch blade. For thick materials where you'd have lots of teeth in contact, it's best to have a coarser blade, even a skip tooth if necessary. You need a place for the chips to accumulate while the blade gets from one side of the cut to the other, and fine pitch blades usually don't have enough room. That causes the blade to float instead of cut, which leads to more heat and faster failure of the blade. Hope this helps.

Harold

I bought a HF horizontal bandsaw and have used their blades as well as nice Kennametal varipitch blades from Enco. The HF blades seemed to work ok and dulled in an reasonable amount of cuts. The Kennametal blades cut a lot faster and last very well. I now only use the Kennametal blades.

--G--

I have been using Morse bi-metal blades almost since I got my saw three or four years ago. I have been cutting everything from EMT and .035 wall 2" Al irrigation pipe to 4130 1/8" plate and (Harold's favourite material, NOT) OCS with a 14 tpi plade. Most recent cut was a piece of

5" diameter 6061-T6. I had to remove about 30 thou facing cut to get that last one square. I put some light up pressure by hand on the end of the saw arm when cutting thin wall stuff. I once damaged a toth a couple years ago.

When I got the saw it had a carbon steel blade. It was toast. I had been advised to use carbon steel blades since they were much cheaper. I bought two. Big mistake. They last about a week each. Princess Auto had a sale on the Morse bi-metal. Bought six. Still have 2 unused hanging on the wall and one on the saw. One, as I said, I damaged. The others two were plain wore out.

That is correct. 0.025" thick.

Ted

I used several carbon steel blades, and bought half of a 100 ft. roll of blade stock. Welded them up at work on a Do-All with built-in welder, but it didn't work very well on stock that thin (0.025"). Then I got a Lenox Bi-Metal blade from the J&L Industrial store, and 3 years later it's still cutting very well.

Doug

The DoAll welder is not very easy to use. I, too use one, and you have to work at getting proper welds, and even harder at annealing properly, but once you get it figured out, you can produce outstanding welds. You just have go through the learning curve, often for each type of blade stock. They are not identical. I'm very pleased with mine and the results now that I've gone through a few welds.

Harold

The biggest problem I had with my DoAll welder is the very non-obvious adjustment for the weld current contacts, which controls the timing of the weld current relative to the movement of the blade clamps. If this is set too early you're likely to blow holes in the weld rather than getting a properly upset weld. On my saw, the adjustment is a hex socket screw hidden inside a fiber insulator in the large power contact assembly. With this adjusted properly it's difficult to make a bad weld.

I do a double anneal. Once very lightly before moving the blade from the welding position--just enough to make the blade sturdy enough to remove from the clamps and grind the weld. Then the blade goes into the stepped portion of the jaws to be annealed to dark blue.

Ned Simmons

I've found that good blades make a world of difference in how a bandsaw performs. I keep being amazed at how well my Milwaukee portable works but I think it's mostly the Milwaukee bimetal blades. That saw goes thru barstock up to 4" dia far faster than the low-end horizontal bandsaws do.

Ditto with the Wilton vertical bandsaw. I was mildly disappointed with the saw when I first tried it with the supplied (import) blade, but it works beautifully with a Sandvik blade I bought locally.

Figure at least 3 teeth >I just bought a metal cutting horizontal bandsaw (one of those that

I have just had the opportunity to use and play with a Milwaukee Porta Band saw this past week and I have been really amazed at how well that thing cuts and at the speed. I have had that blade twisted and distorted pretty bad trying to make some cuts up under a trailer, and have yet to break a blade. Its amazingly fast. For my pumy butt its a might awkward to hold in out or position cutting, but its still aheck of a sight better than a hand hack saw could ever dream of. Too mad those things go for asbout $300 or I would definately have me one. I just hope my buddy is not to much in a hurry to carry it back home again. It would be great for cutting all my various exercise equipment steel frames and such apart, instead of hand sawing the stuff or getting into a jam with the odd ball shapes etc in my Horrible Fright H?V saw.

He also broungt his Porter Cable Tiger saw. I am also hooked on that as well. I guess I could probably only talk the better half into one, and its a tought decision to make. Two different saws, but both terrific. Visit my website:

expressed are those of my wifes, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

I got a Porter Cable one off ebay for $59. Well used, but not used-up - it will outlast me for the incidental use that I give it. I think that I was real lucky to get it at that price, but you can save a lot by buying used. With the quality of the Milwaukee and P-C brands, I didn't feel that I was taking much of a risk.

Bob