Thread: You just got to try this.

Just wanna ask, anyone tried using band saw blade with missing tooth/teeth?

One of my sons teeth has just fallen out.
I'll get him to try the bandsaw and see if there is any difference!

How many missing teeth? The odd one here and there would not make a great deal of difference over the length of the blade. A toothless gap on the other hand would be a problem as would be a whole lotta teeth missing. My other question would be why are teeth missing.
Regards
John

The blade was like jumping while cutting and when I checked the blade, I've noticed the gap. A long section of teeth knocked out.Some of the teeth bent out. I already uninstall it in my saw. It looks like damaged and can't be used anymore. Sorry, I'm referring to a metal cutting band saw blade.

Cutting metal is at a very slow speed and a few teeth missing is usually not a problem.
I use them until they look like a corn harvester, but only if I have to. Very slow.
Don't know if I'd try it with a big munga high speed timber blade though.

So what is everyone's prefered sharpening method, soaking blades in a solution to sharpen them or a dremel style tool and touching up each tooth, perhaps some other method?

Just had a go (finally) at this. Tried it on a 1" 1.25ppi blade for my 19" saw. Aside from the love bite from the blade when unfolding it, it's not all that hard. The tricky part is not letting the tips of the teeth overheat. It happens in less than half a second. Once you get the hang of timing though, you get into a rhythm and can knock out a blade pretty fast. Of course, the more teeth, the longer it will take, but I spent more time reinstalling the blade than actually sharpening it.

Blade performance increased markedly. Leaves a rough finish but eats wood like there is no tomorrow.

My wallet sure does enjoy it, too

Tom

Originally Posted by Durdge39

Blade performance increased markedly. Leaves a rough finish but eats wood like there is no tomorrow.
My wallet sure does enjoy it, too
Tom

If you find it not cutting straight you can stone that side a touch while running to bring it back to even.
Cheers,
Paul

Originally Posted by pmcgee

If you find it not cutting straight you can stone that side a touch while running to bring it back to even.
Cheers,
Paul

I was thinking the exact opposite. I was interested to deliberately grinding an old stone into an ellipse that fit into the scallop of the blade.

Maybe try it with some cheapo POS grinder from super cheap auto.

This is very interesting to me as I have 5 good blades that would cost more to sharpen ($23) than they cost ($13).

It irritates me to anger the waste of throwing away good things that are eminently repairable.

Originally Posted by Evanism

I was thinking the exact opposite.

I'm not sure if you meant regarding the sharpening part ... which could be done with a chainsaw file or a dremel or an angle-grinder (eg) ...

or I meant that after sharpening ... like a handsaw ... there might not be exactly the same tendency to cut on the L and R of the blade ... which makes for blade drift. A very light stoning on the side the blade is drifting to can help get it back cutting straight again.

Cheers,
Paul

Did my own test on this yesterday. I have three blades, two are Olsen blades from the US, 1/2" 4tpi. One has been on the saw for a bit and isn't showing any huge amount of blunting in the smaller pieces I am using it on at the moment. The second of these was on the saw a LONG time and was definitely blunt, it got the sharpening treatment. The third blade was a 1/2" 3tpi bimetal blade, straight out of the box from Henry Bros.
I had some 6"x6" oregon about 3' long that I wanted to knock down into 1" boards for a particular job so this was what I tried the blades out on. It is an old 14" hafco bandsaw and these baulks are about as big as it will take.
The first up trial was with the newish Olsen still on the saw. As I expected it was a no contest, oregon won easily. So next up was the Henry Bros blade. It did the job, but slowly, a bit at a time, it took me a long time to get 4 cuts done. Lastly, the sharpened Olsen blade had a go. Ripped into it, ate the lot!
Not a scientific analysis but a definite pointer to the value of the sharpening tip.

Glade to hear that. Now I'm planning to sharpen my used band saw blades.