Thread: Blount's Patented Blade Oiler

From the look of the blade the oiler wasn't used very much.

Is the idea that you oil the blade after use, or whilst in use?? I presume the former. The latter might ease the cut in some woods, but you'd have a messy residue. Seems like over-thinking tools isn't a recent phenomenon!

I remember we used to trickle water from the water-bag into the kerf (or on the saw if it was being used horizontally) of the big crosscuts when sawing some very 'gummy' green woods. And most blokes rigged up some sort of arrangement to drip water onto the blades of their "Hagan" saws when cutting sleepers (railway ties to you, Rob ), & fence posts. Certainly kept them cleaner & cutting more freely....

Cheers,

I looked up the patent. Nothing is mentioned as to the utility of the handle other than "...when it is desired to apply lubricant to the saw blade...", or your hand, your legs and feet and the workpiece.
.US1512080 Blount patent saw handle with oiler_Page_1.jpgUS1512080 Blount patent saw handle with oiler_Page_2.jpgUS1512080 Blount patent saw handle with oiler_Page_3.jpg

Rob

I was tempted to say that the rusted blade is testimony to how much it got used, but of course 95% of the saws I have arrived in a similar condition so I don't think we can link the two together.

Thanks for digging out the patent.

Regards
Paul

Ian

The idea always was to lubricate the wood. You are quite right in that it would be awfully messy.

My bandsaw sawmill is a horizontal style set up and it use water not as a lubricant, but to cool the blade. Without the coolant (copious quantities of it) the blade would be like a rubber band inside of five minutes. Yes, it is messy.

The vertical bandsaws as used in saw mills don't seem to require coolant as the vertical nature automatically clears the sawsdust.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

......My bandsaw sawmill is a horizontal style set up and it use water not as a lubricant, but to cool the blade. Without the coolant (copious quantities of it) the blade would be like a rubber band inside of five minutes. Yes, it is messy....

Coolant?? Is the heating from flexing of the blade or cutting? I used my brother's small bandsaw mill quite a bit a few years ago. It has wheels of about 400mm and he uses 2" blades on it. It didn't require water or any lubrication in the first lot of wood I sawed with it, which included (green) Camphor laurel and a stack of (dry) N.G. Rosewood billets that a friend had brought home from a stint in PNG. However, when I tried cutting some small lengths of dry Bull oak with it, the blade dulled in about 3 microseconds and started wandering all over the shop! The 3 or 4 boards I managed before giving up in disgust were most peculiar-looking things - more like Wendell Castle sculptures than boards! Perrhaps some water would've helped??

Cheers,

Ian

The heat is generated by the teeth initially and exacerbated by the inability to clear the sawdust in a horizontal plane. Most of these style of bandmills have water playing on the blade. Mine has water on the inlet and exit from the log.

Your experience with the brother's mill is exactly what I would expect. My only surprise is that you did not see that earlier.

Regard
Paul

So, Paul, are you saying the problem with the Bull-oak was more to do with clogging and over-heating than dull teeth? I put it down to dulling at the time, but it wouldn't be the first time a hasty diagnosis of mine was wrong!

It does make sense, now you've forced me to think about it. I can cause similar problems with my own bandsaw when I push it too hard on a deep cut, in fact I nearly wrecked a board a week or two back doing just that. Clogging, over-heating blades do unpredictable things, alright!

Cheers,

Ian

As always, there are a few variables going on so it is difficult to say exactly what happened but the problems you likely encountered are as follows:

Firstly, you had already being undertaking quite a bit of sawing so it is possible that the blade was about to go blunt anyway, but what happens is that if the teeth overheat for whatever reason the metal expands. For a bandsaw to make a straight cut the tooth edge must be shorter than the back of the blade. In other words it has to have tension on it. This is achieved by hammering and manufacturing design. If the teeth heat up during the cut the tooth edge expands and becomes longer than the back. So now it cannot follow a consistent direction.

Regards
Paul