Bandsaw Blades

A collection of new blades, from 1/16″ to 5/8″. Not sure if the 1/16″ blade will work or not – getting it to stay on the wheels proved a bit tricky today during a quick test run, but I didn’t have time to fine-tune things. It is narrower than the stated minimum blade width for the Triton 12″ bandsaw, but I don’t see why it couldn’t work. The bandsaw itself runs smooth enough to potentially take the blade as far as I can tell. The tyres on the wheels might need some flattening to help stabilise the blade, but I’ll need to investigate further. (Bandsaw tyres typically have a camber as part of the design to help keep the blade running true.)

Closeup of a pretty mean-looking 5/8″ 3TPI resaw blade. Note the apparently heat-treated tips of the blade – hardened to stay sharper for longer. This heat treating is not done to the whole blade, otherwise it would become too brittle, and wouldn’t survive the fatigue of being flexed around the 2 wheels of the bandsaw for long.

Unless you only use the bandsaw for one job, you really need a collection of different blades, and be prepared to change the blade based on what the job at-hand is. This collection gives me blades for scrollwork, general purpose sawing, circle and curve cutting, as well as resawing – splitting a log into boards, or splitting a board into two (or more). Even so, the 5/8″ is on the small size – the gullet isn’t particularly large, so feed rate will play a part in ensuring a quality finish.

These blades were sourced from

C & S Saw Service
17 Stewart St Mt Waverley
VIC 3149
ph: (03) 9802 1040

Cost was about $80 for the four blades, including GST and delivery (courier).

Update: This has come up in conversation a few times in the past couple of days: bandsaw blades, particularly ordering from places such as C & S Saw Service are generally not ready-made, so it doesn’t matter what bandsaw you have. When you order the blade, you let them know what length of blade you need for your saw, the blade width you want, how many teeth per inch (TPI), and you can even (sometimes) specify what shape of tooth, how the blade is made (such as bimetal, case hardened, carbide tipped etc) how aggressively the teeth are set etc. They then go to their coil stock, and cut and weld the blade for you.  If you don’t know how long the blade should be, measure one that you already have that fits – either make a mark on the blade as the start/finish point, or measure from, at to the weld.  (If you have one that has broken, that task is even easier 😉 )

If (when) a blade breaks, don’t throw it away. Depending on how much work the blade has done (and therefore how much fatigue cracking has developed), the blade can be rewelded for a fraction of the cost of a new one. One way to assess whether the blade is repairable, is looking at where it has broken – was it at the weld, or elsewhere on the blade? If it is at the weld, it is probably repairable. If elsewhere, (and you didn’t do something stupid to cause the break (been there, done that!)), then it is possible the blade has reached end-of-life. If in doubt, the blade suppliers will be able to give a pretty informed recommendation.

Furniture-making course

Some photos from the last course at Holmesglen (identity of participants has been blurred).  The next furniture-making course I’m running is March 08.

Giving the Triton 15″ Thicknesser a workout.

Just some of the bags of sawdust generated from the thicknesser!

My version of the barstool (made during the course)

Didn’t come out too badly – a perfect height for the workshop!