Reply To: Saw Blade ?
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Woodworking Videos / Saw Blade ? / Reply To: Saw Blade ?
There’s the rub, Frank. Which blade for what purpose? I’ve been researching for quite a while, even getting into a correspondence with one of the EC Emmerich family – nice fellow. He’s the one who cautioned me about different brands and models of ready-made blades and the fact that they are different sizes (the distance of the mounting holes between the ends. Depends on where they are made, and purpose of blade. I’ve heard that anywhere between two and four tips must be in the wood, and someone did a piece about turning blades and their radii.
So, I ended up with more confusion than when I started. Some of these 2 or 3 tpi blades are made for high speed, and some are either turning blades or more suited to resawing. And each one has to fit with a reasonably few turns of the tensioning piece of wood.
Then came Paul’s video. The one in which he used the short circle blade by DeWalt, Milwaukee, and the other hand-held bandsaw makers. I figured those were for slow speed (being held held and all). And the width ought to be OK, as well as the TPI. Price, three per package at the box store. So, until I make a couple, use them a while, get the experience (I know nothing about band saws) I’ll spend a couple extra bucks and follow Paul’s footsteps. Heck, he can probably walk past a broken bandsaw blade and give me the name of its great-grandaddy.
The other alternative is to buy a fairly standard Ulmia or an ECE blade, and copy the dimensions of the saw frames they sell. (Japanese are very expensive.) Just pick a brand that’ll be around for awhile and whose replacement blades run around $10 or less.
In other words, not interested any more. I’ll follow Master Sellers because when he used to work in the US, we had buffalos on the nickle coins, and when he squeezed the coin, the buffalo would hollar.
BTW, we do our food shopping in South Jersey (the state). You can ask me to mine my source list, but they are the usual suspects, excepts for those Two Guys In A Garage they work near us. (http://www.tgiag.com/sawplate.html) who seem to be able to stamp out a plate for you AFTER you’ve decided what you really, really want (but not overly cheap). I bought a set of 1095 (non-SS, non-deluxe) scrapers from them because I wanted to support neighborhood garage businesses, I don’t like the music that comes from here, and I’m partial to 1095 steel and know how to keep it from rusting.