Thread: Bandsaw blade for smoothest cut?

BS finish has as much to do with, operator skill, BS setup, and BS blade condition, as it does with the tooth spacing.

Just one tooth in the entire blade needs to be slightly misaligned and it will mess up the finish so for this reason I suggest starting with a new blade.
The blade tension and guide positions also need to be optimised.

All else being optimised, a smaller tooth spacing will usually give the smoothest but very much the slowest cut, especially in ripping mode.
Because of the slowness of the cut there is a tendency for the operator to push harder which may cause the blade to wander off the required line of the cut.
This will mess up the finish more than the TPI factor..

However there is another factor to consider in that its recommended that least 3 and preferably 4-5 teeth be in the cut and given the board is only 12 mm thick that means at least 6 TPI. If everything else is optimised then a 6 TPI should provide the finish you require.

Suggest tuning up the BS before hand and practice before cutting your final piece.

When you say very smooth finish are you intending to go strait to glue up. If so I think you are expecting a lot from a bandsaw. I would be cutting then using a plane to clean up the face.
Regards
John

The more teeth the finer the cut. I use 10 tpi and and 14 tpi for fine work and the 14 tpi gives the best off the saw finish. Beware though as sometimes an unhappy combination of speed, thickness, hardness and tension will induce a harmonic ripple in the cut surface. Do a test piece first and if the ripple shows up try increasing or decreasing the tension. Also with a new fine tooth blade you get a honeymoon period for fifteen or twenty minutes when it cuts really well then slowly loses its edge.

Originally Posted by Toymaker Len

The more teeth the finer the cut. I use 10 tpi and and 14 tpi for fine work and the 14 tpi gives the best off the saw finish. Beware though as sometimes an unhappy combination of speed, thickness, hardness and tension will induce a harmonic ripple in the cut surface. Do a test piece first and if the ripple shows up try increasing or decreasing the tension.

Talking about harmonic ripple check out this massive example involving a chainsaw mill.
The only difference between the two is that the RHS is about 150 mm wider a cut than the LHS.
Same log, same saw, same freshly touched up chain, same forward pressure as log is on a slope.
Most chainsaw millers find it hard to believe I get that good a finish milling with a big chainsaw.

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