Bandsaw belts

[opps]

I finally committed to buying a bandsaw for splicing in timber when working on exterior windows. I am aware that I should have done so years ago.

I had originally planned to buy the Record BA250 but eventually went for the cheaper Zipper BAS250. Not only was it £140 cheaper, it is about 6kg lighter and the induction motor is twice the size and depth of cut is almost the same. Quality wise, yeah, it is definitely a hobby machine...

I ordered it from Kendal Tools. I put the wrong delivery address down but spoke to John at Kendal Tools who was great and sorted it out for me.

I am working on the assumption that the blade supplied (6mm) will be "budget" quality. The specs say that it will accept (1712mm) blades from 3.5-12mm.

I have never previously owned a band saw. Which blade depths and tooth pitches/offsets should I be looking at? I very much doubt that it will (initially) be used it for anything other than ripping timber along the length.

I would like to buy a better quality blade for ripping, should I go for the max 12m blade for straight rips (and which tooth pitch (mainly soft woods)? And if I do, can I still do slight curves in 50mm tall timber?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Burnerman]

A great choice...I was responsible for the purchase of a good few of these machines - albeit an earlier model - for school classroom use and they were excellent.
Our preference were to use 3/8” blades for general use, 6 or 10 tpi if I recall as these would do moderate curves, whereas trying to curve with a 1/2” blade caused the blades to squeal through the guides - but was great for ripping with a fence.
Do keep an eye on the blade guide adjustment, and keep the rubberised top wheel clean - and I replaced the plastic guide in the table with a home made brass one due to the mistreatment the machine had to put up with.
John

 

[Notch7]

I finally committed to buying a bandsaw for splicing in timber when working on exterior windows. I am aware that I should have done so years ago.

I had originally planned to buy the Record BA250 but eventually went for the cheaper Zipper BAS250. Not only was it £140 cheaper, it is about 6kg lighter and the induction motor is twice the size and depth of cut is almost the same. Quality wise, yeah, it is definitely a hobby machine...

I ordered it from Kendal Tools. I put the wrong delivery address down but spoke to John at Kendal Tools who was great and sorted it out for me.

I am working on the assumption that the blade supplied (6mm) will be "budget" quality. The specs say that it will accept (1712mm) blades from 3.5-12mm.

I have never previously owned a band saw. Which blade depths and tooth pitches/offsets should I be looking at? I very much doubt that it will (initially) be used it for anything other than ripping timber along the length.

I would like to buy a better quality blade for ripping, should I go for the max 12m blade for straight rips (and which tooth pitch (mainly soft woods)? And if I do, can I still do slight curves in 50mm tall timber?

Thanks in advance.

tuff saws is the place to go - great quality blades and not too expensive.
https://www.tuffsaws.co.uk/

For straight ripping, if you aren’t too bothered about finish, get the coarsest blade you can.

I’d be surprised if the machine could tension a 1/2” blade, so go for a 3/8”

by the way, if you use a blade for cutting curves, you will struggle to get it to cut straight after, curves seem to blunten the blade one side making it not cut straight.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I am working on the assumption that the blade supplied (6mm) will be "budget" quality. The specs say that it will accept (1712mm) blades from 3.5-12mm.

I have never previously owned a band saw. Which blade depths and tooth pitches/offsets should I be looking at? I very much doubt that it will (initially) be used it for anything other than ripping timber along the length.

I would like to buy a better quality blade for ripping, should I go for the max 12m blade for straight rips (and which tooth pitch (mainly soft woods)? And if I do, can I still do slight curves in 50mm tall timber?

There are three main tooth forms: regular, skip tooth and hook tooth. Skip and hook are both used for ripping - hook tooth are a lot more aggressive, but not available in all blade sizes. Regular tooth give a smoother cut, can wander more on rip cuts and the gullets can load up quickly if you cut timber which is too thick (see below). Metal blades are different so I'm not including those

The tooth count is dictated by the thickness of material you are cutting, but you aim to get 3 to 6 teeth in the cut on wood and softer plastics, rubber, etc (in metals it is 6 to 18 teeth). This means that a 4in thick piece of timber could be ripped with a 1 to 1.5 tpi blade, whilst a 12mm (1/2in) piece should have a 6 to 12tpi blade

Too few teeth and you can break teeth - too many teeth and you can overload the gullet, strip teeth and blue the blade

Blades for timberes come in carbon steel (the cheapest), bimetallic (with HSS teeth), stellite tipped and carbide tipped. You won't see stellite or carbide blades in the smaller sizes (i.e. for smaller machines) simply because they require too much blade tension (and the cost is eye-watering), but bimetallic blades do last a loty longer than carbon steel. Useful if you intend to do a lot of work

The radius of curves you cut is dictated by the width of the blade - the narrower the blade the tighter the curve, but the wider the blade the straighter the cut (important for ripping). This diagram shows what you need to know - print it out and stick a copy on the cover of the bandsaw:

You can ease the cutting action on tight curves by running the saw and radiusing the back edge of the saw blade with a small oilstone glued to a wooden stick - be careful NOT to get your fingers near the front on the blade! Knocking the square corners off the back of the blade makes tight curve cutting a lot smoother

Whilst I've mentioned safety, never, ever run the saw with the blade exposed - the blade cover (and upper guides) should always be adjusted to be just above the workpiece. This produces a straighter cut and protects the operator, A push stick should always be used to finish the cut, NEVER the fingers - even small saws can amputate wayward digits

If you are constantly cutting , say. left hand curves on a blade it will tend to take on a permanent "set" (bias) to that side and will eventually get to the point where it never cuts straight

All blades tend to have bias when making rip cuts, so it is often better to adjust the rip fence to work with the blade (not all rio fences can do this) - 5° to 10° out of square isn't unknown

If your widest blades are 12mm (1/2in) I'd suggest not exceeding about 3/8in (10mm) wide blades. This is maybe an old bias, but I have always been of the opining that fabricated sheet metal band saws just can't tension the maximum width of blade that the makers say they can accommodate

And on the question of tension if you do a rip cut and the cut isn't straight then you aren't running enough tension on the blade. With saws that have rubber tyres (i.e. most modern saws) I was taught that at the end of a session the blade tension should always be slackened off a bit to prevent the blade permanently marring the surfaces of the tyres and causing rough running and/or tracking problems

I'm with @Notch7 on Tough Saws - good call. For larger blades I always used Dakin-Flather or Harrison Saw in Rossendale who were/are fairly local to me, but they are really big saw people (and my last shop had a 28in bandsaw)

That's probably it for now...