cutting speed - fast or slow?

**Evanism** · 1st November 2015, 09:07 PM

Just a quick question.

My $340 Laguna Resaw king snapped last week. A titanic kaboom. It's off to the shop hopefully for repair.

In the meantime I bought another Laguna blade - the Proforce 3/4" 3TPI from Gregorys. It cuts well - nice smooth and clean. A little tidyup compared to the RSK.

I was having a big day today. Much work on. 4 large dolls houses with a total of 70 big bits of timber to cut, machine, thickness and sand.... a LOT of work. A LOT!. I was pushing the pine through the Proforce pretty fast. I noticed some cuts had a considerable quantity of shavings/dust left inside when I went a bit too quickly and others were clean when I slowed it down a bit.

Is it "best" for the blade to leave clean cuts, or is it best to push it fast?

Does the pile of uncleared dust matter? Does this wear it faster? I'm thinking that maybe it does.... but I don't know for certain.

The blade wasn't hot, or warm. I use 2 x 100mm dust nozzles for suction... one in the official port under the table and the other jammed up under the front. This keeps the inside of the cabinet squeaky clean, perhaps also cooling the blade with 8" of travel through a hurricane.

Im asking, overall, for I spent 4 hours on that saw today and anything that can make such a job faster is welcome

..... (btw, the Laguna Resaw King would have absolutely hot-knifed through butter on this job, but that isn't to be!)

Your wisdom is most welcome!

**Master Splinter** · 1st November 2015, 09:19 PM

Ideally, you shouldn't cut faster than the blade gullet can clear sawdust. Anything else is asking for mistracking and burning. It's the old 'let the tool do the work' thing. Maybe CNC milling would work better for you!

**ian** · 1st November 2015, 09:52 PM

**Evanism** · 1st November 2015, 10:53 PM

This is bandsaw work! Not CNC, but not much is needed to convince me to get one... which I will

OK, so saw slow enough to let the gullets clear the dust. Got it

**BobL** · 2nd November 2015, 01:09 AM

To cut faster with a BS the blade needs to be speeded up rather than pushing harder on the wood

Most WW bandsaws use 3000 fpm as a cutting speed because this is safer and prolongs blade life.
The maximum blade speed recommended for bandsaw blades is ~5500 fpm.
This generates cutting speeds that can can be dangerous so is more often used with automated or more remote cutting such as bandsaw sawmills .
The blade will also get hot due to friction and the increased blade flexing and may require cooling when long continuous cutting is performed.
Above 5500 fpm the frictional forces really kick in and rapidly reduce blade life.

I recently turned my 19" BS into a variable speed BS with 50% more HP than it had previously.
At 50Hz the BS runs at 3200 FPM and it reached 5500 fpm at just under 80Hz.
At the higher speed the cutting rate can indeed be a concern, the variable speed is handy because it allows me to start and perform most of the cut at high speed and then as my hands get closer I can dial the speed back for a safer finish.

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