Cost of Bandsaw blades

[John Saxton]

I was wondering what you guys pay for your bandsaw blades.
For example,
I got a general purpose 1/2" blade and a 3/8 3tpi skip tooth blade both 133" in (inches) in length for $19.80 ea.
I haven't bought blades for a couple of years and we have a new bloke in our local saw shop and I suspect he may be costly.
TIA

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Johnno

[Tim the Timber Turner]

I buy my 1/2" 3tpi blade in bulk. Cost is $171.00 plus GST for 250 ft. The saw doctor would pay less than this. From this you can work out his margin for welding.

Cheers Tim

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Some days I turns thisaway, somedays I turns thataway and other days I don't turn at all.

[RETIRED]

Gooday.

I have just bought 10/3/8 skip tooth (the only blade I use for everything including aluminium) at 140"(inches) for $18.00 each.


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Ian () Robertson
"We do good turns every day"

[John Saxton]

Hmmm thank-you gents for your replies it appears as tho some serious searching is required when next I require blades.
Pity,cos he's the only one local..but if You gotta go further afield then thats what will happen particularly with my enquiries re- Stellite blades that he also carries.
Thanx http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/smile.gif

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Johnno

[Iain]

Of course you can always go to Bunnies and spend $30 + or - a bit for Vermont American.
I generally pay about $15-16 a blade on average from a crowd in Bayswater whose names eludes me, for anyone interested they are opposite Aust Post in the industrial estate.

[Red neck]

John,

If you bought a roll of Tim’s bulk blade at $188.10 incl GST, plus a Blade Brazer Kit from Carba-tec for $119.00 and their butane torch for $49.00 – Total cost $356.10, you would have the raw material and equipment to manufacture twenty-two blades at a cost of $16.19 each. Subsequent blades would cost about $9.00 each and you could repair broken blades.

If anyone out there has tried the Carba-tec blade brazer or equivalent, I too would be interested in the results as I have a bit of Irish that precludes parting with good cash!


Irish redneck

[Tim the Timber Turner]

Hi Redneck.

I use the Carbatec blade brazer and it works great. Its very expensive for what you get, a couple of bits of tin and a bit of silversolder. It would not be difficult to make a jig to hold the ends together. I paid $50 for mine from Carbatec a few years ago.

Regarding the butane tourch, it will only handle blade up to 3/8" not big enough for 1/2". I use a tourch on a bottle of camping gas.

The method I use is to buff both ends on a wire buff to make them spotlessly clean, then to the grinder to grind the taper, the length of which is about 3 times the thickness of the blade. Assemble in jig just short of where they want to meet, this allows for the solder without increasing the thickness of the joint.

A good wipe of flux after which I insert a 5mm length of silver solder which has been flattened with a clean hammer. I have more sucess this way than trying to feed solder straight from the stick. Its important when inserting the ends into the jig that they are sprung together, I sometimes bend the ends just a little to achive this.

Apply heat evenly to both sides of the joint until the solder runs. I then clean up the joint using a B&D power file (very handy gadget) this removes the excess solder without grinding the blade which is what happens if I use a grinder.

Last I take a shifting spanner and close it right up on the blade and slide it over the joint thhis will tell me if I have any high spots. Finaly I remove a tooth either side of the joint I think this helps in giving a cleaner finish to the cut. But Im not real sure if this works.

One other tip I have just started using is to have a piece of small dia plastic pipe the exact length of your blade. Slide the blade into the pipe and cut off to the exact length every time. No tangles or draging the blade across the concrete floor.

This all sound complicated and requires a bit of practice but it is one of the most usefull skills I have learnt. If there is one secret it must be to keep everything clean.

Good luck if you give it a go. If you do you will never again suffer from the problem of snapping your last blade just as you need to meet a deadline.

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Some days I turns thisaway, somedays I turns thataway and other days I don't turn at all.

[Iain]

Do you cut the blade square or cut at an angle to increase the surface area for the join?

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: http://community.webshots.com/user/iain49

[John Saxton]

Thanx for all those tips guys ..I hadn't considered the blade brazing kit but will investigate.
Tim is there a specific place that you source the rolls of blading from?
If there's a means of saving a quid it'll keep 'Er Indoors happy and she won't have to hide the Visa http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/biggrin.gif
Cheers

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Johnno

[Tim the Timber Turner]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the interest.

I cut the end square but you could cut on an angle. I think it would be difficult to grinding a bevel on the angle and get everything to fit together well.

I source my blade from LEUCO, 17 Grove Ave,
Marleston SA. 08 8293 4422. Talk to David Power or David Evans. Try your capital city as LEUCO have other branches.

The blade I use is a Harkinson 1/2" 3 TPI and just checking back the most recent price was 189.00 for 250 ft.

Cheers

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Some days I turns thisaway, somedays I turns thataway and other days I don't turn at all.

[Tim the Timber Turner]

And of course you can buy blade in 100ft rolls.

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Some days I turns thisaway, somedays I turns thataway and other days I don't turn at all.

[Red neck]

Tim,

Thanks for your informative reply. Seems like you have developed the brazing technique beyond the basic instructions that accompany many of these kits. I certainly will give it a go.

Redneck

[John Saxton]

Ditto Tim,thanks also for the info and sourcing details.
Cheers http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/smile.gif

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Johnno