To those that have 'em broken and/or have difficulties obtaining
right width/teeth/composition in required length:
you can easily braze (silver soldere) blades yourself, for real
cheap (a little HomeDepot butane torch, some brazing silver and flux).
Results are excellent - in terms of appearance and strength.
So if you have broken a blade, or looking a size that is not readily
available, brazing is the way to go.
File the ends so that they taper a bit and overlap over 3/16-1/4
distance.
Clamp down one end, apply some flux ($.001 worth), clamp down the
other end on top, so that tapered ends overlap, snick in (between) a
1/4 strip of .005" brazing strip ( $0.01), heat up till silver flows,
file off excess (after it
cools down), anneal a bit ( warm up to before silver melts, back the
flame away slowly, repeat 2 times) and you're done.
You can use a piece of scrap aluminum/steel and couple of smaller
C-clamps
to clamp the blade on, or make yer own jig. Make sure to file off an
identation
under the overlapping portion of the blade, so that you can heat it
up.
keep the size of the jig down (it will conduct the heat away from the
joint).
Now - to make your own size, buy an oversized blade from
Sears/HomeDepot/Lowes, reduce it in size and braze. You might
want to reduce it so that the old joint is cut out. To break/cut
the blade: cut a groove with a few moves of a sharp file edge (tapered
files are best for that) and then snap the blade at the groove. Be
careful
as steel is tempered and will try to spring up on you. Buy next
closest
large length blade: if you need 62", get 64 1/2" (not a 111"). Do
explore
making 2 blades out of oversized one, to save even more.
For advanced moderate-to-heavy setups, welder might be a better
choice.
Also, if you go through blades quickly (as in wear them off), buying
blade
in bulk might be the way to go.
All of the above applies to both metal and wood cutting blades. I
didn't invent
the process :) - just refreshing the subject .
- posted
17 years ago