Making blades with a bandsaw

[Norm]

A couple of years back I bought a small bandsaw (70-1/2" blades)
Craftsman....one of these days I'm going to make small blades for
windmills with it but I keep breaking blades....arrrggghh!

.......Maybe my biggest mistake is buying bandsaw blades from Sears ?
I've browsed thru a few places online for bandsaw blades and a couple
sell them guaranteed not to break at the weld or they will replace
.....Is that telling me something?....as all of the Sears blades have broken
at the weld....
I'm sure quite a few of you have bandsaws that can help me...
thanks in advance for any help !
Norm.

[Wolvenar]

I have not gotten many blades from Sears, but now that you mention it, I do remember the few I did get seemed to break rather easily. Rather annoying when that happens I must say.

[tomw]

Norm;

I have a Craftsman 12" throat bandsaw / sander and find you need to be very careful on routing the blade & proper adjustment of the blade guide or whatever its called that lowers to just above the workpiece. This one changes with each size blade. It also needs proper adjustment of the top tension tire so it runs in the middle of the tire and not on an edge.

Never broke a blade but sure mangled one  .

Mine has the adjustment instructions on the side of the big black plastic blade cover thing and tension range for each size blade is cast into the aluminum upper housing with a pointer off the tension adjustment parts.

I use mine a lot.

Especially good for creating plywood disks that are fairly uniform and round.

Tom

[Dale S]

You can go to Fastenal and get good Lennox blades, Menards also sells pretty good blades, the important thing is tension, they need to be banjo string tight, a blade without enough tension will soon be a broken blade.
I don't break a lot of blades I have a Rockwell saw with a 24" throat that takes one inch wide blades, the only problem is those big hook tooth wood blades are a lot scarier than the little blades.

[klsmurf]

Hey Norm,

As others have mentioned, tension and tracking are very important. Proper blade width for the material you are cutting makes a difference. Keeping the guide foot as close to your work to avoid flexing is very important. The only time I break them is when I have the foot too far off the work and have applied too much side pressure.

Kevin

[madlabs]

Norm,

I have the same saw, mine is an ancient beast. I use Lennox blades as someone else mentioned. No problems with breaking blades, just correct adjustment and don't push too hard.

Jonathan

[Norm]

As always guys you have all been very helpful so as I get it most
important proper adjustment.
BTW .....some people report on silver solder working very well.
Beveling the ends \\  (cross section) and soldering together then
grinding any excess from the sides....tried overlapping and silver-soldering
not bevel butting tho' and it did hold together for quite awhile.
Guess it all works with practice and experience hmm?
Thanks.!
Norm.

[Bryan1]

G'day Norm,
                       With my bandsaw I inherited of my dad there was several broken blades and yes at the weld, all I did was tig weld them and not using any filler rod. To date none have broken that I welded so it may pay to take your Broken blades to a fab shop and I'm sure they won't charge much if at all as it is only a 30 second job.

Cheers Bryan

[DBCollen]

I have made many loops from bulk blade material at the college, the bandsaw there has an induction welder built in. The most important thing is annealing after welding, it needs to be heated to red hot and cooled slowly a few times.

[Norm]

Well thanks guys for all your support and helpful hints....it's nice to
know there are people like all of you that are eager to help others
like me.....it just don't get any better than this !
 I guess the biggest first step is to make a jig that holds the two ends
in place precisely and lined up!
thanks again....all of you !
Norm

[ghurd]

Afterthought.
If I need to do something like a twisted blade on a bandsaw,
something with thick material and lots of sharp turning,
I use a "very aggressive" blade. Like 6~8~10 TPI? With a wide kerf.

Not exactly sure how good that would work holding the
blade by hand.  Might try screwing a lever/handle to it?

If you didn't buy a new saw yet, I got my Delta at Lowe's.
(made in USA, but China ones there now)
It was a lot cheaper than China Sears, or even HF on sale.
At the time, Sears was cheaper than the sale one at HF!  LOL!
G-