Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Not doing resaw anymore - which blade to get?
JL
I don't do enough resawing to justify having a band saw set up just for resawing.
I have a 1/4" blade on my old 14" Delta and I am happy with it for cutting curves.
I need to replace the blade on my 18" Rikon with something versatile that cuts reasonably smoothly. In other words - a good workhorse blade.
Thoughts?
Re: Not doing resaw anymore - which blade to get?
John in NM
I guess the question is how smooth is reasonably smoothly? I used to buy the general purpose blades from Highland Hardware and found them to be a good value, reasonably smooth blade. Supercut blades are similarly good but I think I preferred the Highland ones (this was ~10 years ago).
These days I buy 1/2" 3 tpi blade stock and weld up my own. They are vastly cheaper, but do not cut as smoothly -- probably I'm not getting the weld as smooth and well aligned and it's causing oscillations.
Wood Slicer
Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level
The ones from Highland are Wood Slicer blades. They are very sharp and resaw well. However, I get my blades from Timberwolf and they work very well for me. Only comment that I have is that a 1/2" 3-TPI blade will resaw well, but won't serve as a "general purpose" blade. It is too coarse for scrolling etc. T.
Re: Not doing resaw anymore - which blade to get?
Hank Knight
I prefer a 3/8" wide blade for general purpose cutting on my Laguna LT18. It's a good compromise between the scrolling capability of a 1/4" blade and the strength of a 1/2" one. It gives you better scrolling capability than a 1/2" blade and will do quick-and-dirty resawing in a pinch. Look at a Timberwolf 3/8 X 6TPI (positive claw) blade for a reasonably smooth cut on hardwood from 1/2" to q=1 1/2" thick.
the cheap solution
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
When I took the class in the Headley shop their workhorse 20" delta was equipped with a 6 tpi 3/8" blade. I installed a similar blade on my 20" Delta and it works for me when I don't have a resaw blade on it. I buy them for less than $15 at Misenheimer and I am sure any saw shop that welds blades from roll stock will provide a similar price.
Timberwolf from Suffolk machinery
They sell a GP blade also... *LINK*
John in NM
These in the link are the ones to which I was referring. For the first 10 minutes or so, they are about 80% as smooth as a Woodslicer, but then get a bit rougher as they wear.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/123tpibandsawblades.aspx