17" bandsaw blades.

[wm460]

I have a leda 17" sbw-4300 band saw, at the moment I am using 1/2" 3 TPI blade on it and wondering what is the smallest width blade I can safely use?
I want to try making bandsaw boxes.

[Toymaker Len]

You can use a 1/8th"-3mm blade.
A few tips
-run you fingers over the join when you get the blade and if the weld is a little proud you can file it down, even relieve the teeth in front of the join to reduce stress on what is the weakest part of the blade.
-when you put the bandsaw on the machine put the guides well back out of the way and rotate the bandsaw by hand and slowly increase the tension and use the upper wheel tilt adjustment until the blade stays on a steady line on the wheels. Take the tension up until you can pluck the blade and hear a resonant musical note, not too tight. Now you can switch on the machine for a second, see if the blade is running steadily and staying in one spot and that it is not developing a vibration. If there is a vibration, slowly increase the tension until the vibration disappears. If the blade runs to the edge of the wheel then use you tilt adjust to bring it back toward the middle of the wheel. Once it will run straight without vibration then you can turn the machine off and adjust the guides. Bring the guides up until the back bearings are just barely touching the back of the blade and the side guides also just touching or a cigarette paper spacing and the side guides have to be only touching the blade behind the teeth so with a 1/8th blade you only get a bit more than 1/16th or 2mm of the blade touching the guides. Turn it on again, if you can hear a snipping or tapping noise the join needs more filing. Do a test cut in some soft material and you are right to go. The blade should run for at least an hour before breaking which doesn't seem like much but you can do a lot of very fine-cut tight curves in an hour and even the very best blades rarely last more than two hours.
You can also use 1/4"-6mm blades and the set-up is a lot easier and they last a lot longer but the down side is that you can't do as tight a curve. Good luck with it, fine bandsawing is a lot of fun.

[RoyG]

The following is a link to the specifications for the Leda SBW-4300. According to those specs, that bandsaw can use blades ranging from 3/8" up to 1". I doubt very much that the standard blade guides would be able to adequately support a 1/8" blade, as suggested in the above post. What usually happens is that once you've adjusted the side blade guides so that they are just behind the gullets in the blade, you will have insufficient travel in the rear blade guide to be able to support the back edge of the 1/8" blade.

Carter Products in the USA make a wide range of after market bandsaw accessories. In Australia, Gregory Machinery are their agents and stock some of the Carter Products.

Carter sell a lot of after-market accessories along the line of upgraded blade guides for bandsaws, plus other goodies. I think that the item that might suit your needs would be the Carter FIne Blade Stabaliser. I don't know whether that item will directly fit your saw's original blade guides, or whether you might need to fit a set of Carter's after-market blade guides first to allow the Fine Blade Stabaliser to fit. It may also be that one of Carter's after-market blade guides will already go down to around an 1/8", but I'll leave you to do that research.

I imported my Fine Blade Stabaliser directly from Carter USA (before Gregory Machinery had the Carter Products agency in Australia), and I use it with a 12TPI 1/8" blade on my Laguna 18" band saw, and the Fine Blade Stabaliser works does the job it's designed to do. I'm basically using it instead of buying a Scroll Saw, because I don't have enough workshop space to devote to a scroll saw that'll only be used a few times a year.

Hope that info helps.

Regards,

RoyG

[Toymaker Len]

My method works just fine on the Carba-Tec 17"(I also had the Carba-tec 19") Can't speak for the Leda. Mind you I had nine different bandsaws and ran 1/8th blades on all of them excerpt the Ripley. getting through about $5K worth of blades per year until retirement in 2012. I suspect the reason Leda specify 3/8th blades and up is that the fitting and tuning of 1/8th blades is right out on the fine edge of what is possible where as 3/8 is close to idiot proof.

[wm460]

Thanks for your replies, very informative.
I was wondering what TPI you would recommend for a1/4" and a 3/8" blades?

[KBs PensNmore]

As a general rule of thumb, 3 - 4 teeth in the material that is being cut, if 3 mm was being cut, something like 24 - 26 tpi would be required. If you are going to use a lot of a small size, buy it by the roll and learn to join it, you'll save big bucks. Next time you're down, remind me to show you how.
Kryn

[wm460]

Thank you for your replies, I am waiting for a couple of companies to give me a quote on thier prices.

Been thinking about my B/saw after seeing Roy's post for Carter Stabilizer Guides
I was wondering if I would have to upgrade my bandsaw guides with these Carter Guide Kits?


http://www.carterproducts.com/band-s...onversion-kits

[wm460]

Just found the original brochure from Leda, they say you can use 1/8" to 1" blades on my saw.