Thread: Resaw Blades

Went to McDiven Saws today and purchased a couple of their blades. One (1) was off the shelf and the other for re-sawing was made up on the spot (5 minutes). Both were $15 each.

Talk about happy as a pig in mud.

Thanks all.

Originally Posted by cava

Went to McDiven Saws today and purchased a couple of their blades. One (1) was off the shelf and the other for re-sawing was made up on the spot (5 minutes). Both were $15 each.

Last time I spent 5 minutes at McDivens several couriers came in picking up packaged blades headed for places Australia-wide and overseas. Apparently its like that all day every day in there. I am happy with every blade I have ever bought from them and the prices have been great too.

Cheers

Doug

My limited experience with small bandsaws is "slow and steady does the job". Let the blade cut at it's own speed, don't force the timber into the blade, especially a narrow blade like you are using because there is nothing much to stop the blade wandering in the cut, apart from the tension applied to it and the top and bottom guides. A sharp blade will cut cleanly and easily but as soon as things get just a little bit hard to get the wood to cut the blade is dull and needs sharpening. If you have to force the wood into the saw something is wrong and with a 3/4HP motor it will probably stall anyway. Or the blade will break. My bandsaw has 30" wheels and a 14Hp petrol engine but the principle is the same, it's just that the mistakes cost more and the logs are heavier.

I have just aquired a 1.1kw 1.5hp 14inch bandsaw. In theory it has a resaw capacity of 200mm. I'm not sure but I think the blade length of the saw is 2490mm.
There is an old resaw blade with it but it looks rusty and so I'm not sure about using it.
I have a pile of various saw mill off cuts and small logs donated from a forum member. If I can find enough sticks to sticker them, I'd like to rough saw these and put them under the house to dry. There are irregular bits of red cedar, huon pine and messmate.

What blade should I ask for and where?

Its not just the power of the motor, or the tooth set that restricts the depth of cut ... think also about the cross-section of the cut and the stresses released as you cut.

I have resawn some 50mm maple that was not quarter sawn in the first place ...the board warped just about straight away when cut ...releasing the stresses and jamming the blade and bringing the show to a stop.

This was on a 3hp Laguna machine

Learning .... choose carefully how you will tackle the slab.

Best of fortune

Rob

Log or timber "tension" can be a real problem at times. Our mill is a horizontal cut with a traveling head and we cut Paulownia on it exclusively. Sometimes the board we are cutting bows up in the center, sometimes it's the ends that bow up or the board stays flat but bows sideways when you cut it to width! This is probably more to do with the timber species than anything else and is only a problem with long (we can go to 5.5m length) boards.
Placing a wedge in the end of the cut can help the saw by lessening the friction on the blade.

This is great advice but as a beginner, I have little to no idea what I am doing.
First I need an appropriate blade to give me a fighting chance. Any suggestions?

The forum member that kindly donated some off cuts and small logs also very kindly put a rough face or two on many of them for me. Hence I am just going to cut along these faces. They are all too small for me to quarter saw.
Some of them are already small enough for me to run one or both of these sides over a 150mm jointer before I put them on the bandsaw but my understanding is that I should cut them into rough boards first.
Probably I should invest in a meter and determine their water content before I do anything.

Hi Dave
When I resaw I pass the main piece over the jointer after each cut so that one face of the offcut is flat and smooth after the cut.

This helps when thicknessing the finished piece.

For resawing a 3 or 4 TPI is your best bet. Feed slowly and keep it pressed against the fence. The blade height should be as low as you can get it and still pass the piece under the head.

If the piece starts to warp (tension release of the timber) then use wedges in the cut to keep the blade as free as you can.

It is a good idea to leave the resawn timber in the shed for a few days to get the moisture content even between the outside and the inside of the piece. I will often get cupping or warped boards straight off the bandsaw .... leave iy a few days to settle and then do the final milling .... otherwise a freshly resawn board that is milled may warp as it acclimatizes.

Good luck

Rob

Definitely some good advice here, thanks Rob. I hadn't thought of using the jointer to flatten the face that rides against the fence before each cut so I am learning little things each day. Even moisture content is another essential thing to watch for. If the timber has been sitting outside in the weather you will need to bring it inside for a while to dry out......or, perhaps, and I stand ready to be corrected here, get it out of the wood pile and onto the saw so the outer sections of the log are the same moisture content as the inside?

This has already been said by numerous folks, but the best thing to do is call McDiven saws. Have all the info ready to pass on and they'll help you pick the best blade, while also advising you what is possible with the saw you've got.

I did this with the following info
- saw model
- blade length
- motor spec
- applications

I came away with three blades, 5/16 10tpi for small curves in thinner stock, a 1/4 6 tpi general purpose blade and a 5/8 3tpi for resaw work... all for less than $40 delivered.

They were awesome to deal with happy to talk, and offered advice on how best to do the work I wanted to do.

FYI, I've used the 5/8 3tpi blade to resaw 120mm redgum from old fence posts with no issue on my Dewalt 1.5hp 12" saw. It did it fine, but a 3/4 might struggle, you'll know pretty quickly once you try it, then as suggested above a motor upgrade might be a good idea.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I knew I had read about a recommend supplier on here but couldn't find it. Thanks.
What is 5/16 1/4 5/8 3/4?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

The numbers are the widths of the blades. I think your saw has a maximum blade width of 3/4". This link may be of interest.

http://www.simondsint.com/woodbandsa...%20version.pdf

Have a look at the bandsaw section. There is a video on taking a rubbing to keep a record of the gullet shape.

Simonds - industrial saws, knives and the equipment to maintain them

Regards
Paul

Hi Neil,
I have been using std 1 TPI x 27mm from Carbitool in Moorabin and I have been resawing small logs for a few years first with an 18inch Hafco and in the last two years with a Hammer N4400 with ceramic guides. The Hammer has a 4HPsp motor and we have a member of our wood club that has sharpening machine which has enabled me to resharpen these blades several times without issue. Most of this resawing was with green timber but I have also sawn a lot of KD Mountain Ash . I do use a 3TPI blade from Carbitool for dry timber that is cut into 15mm boards then thicknessed down to 10mm.
Cheers,
Paintman

Originally Posted by Kuffy

The bandsaw is pretty lightweight. My bandsaw is weak as water, 14" H&F 2hp and I can bog the motor down whenever I feel like. I wouldn't stress too much about optimal blah blah and just buy a few 1/2" 3tpi or 4tpi carbon blades and be done with it. They are cheap, I think they cost me around the $12 mark each @ 2750mm long. This may sound odd, but I would definitely blunten the blade on some MDF before trying to resaw 8" high. A sharp blade wants to eat more and more timber and will literally pull the timber into the blade due to the rake of the teeth. A blunt blade will prefer to ride the bevel/roundover of the bluntness rather than trying to eat too much timber and overload the motor. Essentially you will probably be scratching your way through the timber, but I reckon it will work. I rarely have a sharp machine blade of any kind in my shop anymore, scratch scratch and she gets there in the end.

Kuffy and I have some history, so bear that in mind in what follows.

To suggest that you should rarely have a sharp machine blade of any kind in your workshop is crap advice.

Unless you are docking say Chep pallets full of nails (which I do all the time), my blades are always sharp. I just cannot understand why you would run crap blades through timber that's worth heaps. Chip-out? Burning? Kick-back?

If you want quality results, use quality blades - saw or plane blades take your pick.

I may be wrong, but there are perhaps few wood workers out there that shoot boards after a cut. That is, you want the best finish off the tool that you can. Talk of $20-12 blades is absolute crap, even for a bandsaw. The last lot of 10 blades 3/8th skip tooth were around $25 each and they only get me within the ballpark.

Any suggestion that dull/cheap blades will work is just wrong. I cut highly figured short-grained redgum all the time and I pay unless the blades are sharp.

Or is Kuffy thinking about cutting pine? Great.