I just bought a 20" powermatic bandsaw. Its a wood cutting model, but I bought and am installing a worm drive gear reducer. I need to buy a good metal blade for it. The only decent ones I can find are from fastenall.
http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/detail.ex?sku=3115220&ucst=t
I can get it in either 10-14tpi or 14-18tpi. It will be used almost exclusively for 1/4 and thinner cold rolled steel and chromoly. Which one should I get? Also, at fastenall they are $80 each. Is there a better place to find them? Is there a place in the Sacramento area to have blades welded up if I buy a spool? My blades are 12'6" long. Thanks for the advise.

Of those choices for cutting thinner than 1/4" I would go with 14-18. I get my bandsaw blades from www.mcmaster.com Good quality and not overly expensive.

Thanks Brian,

Do you get the general purpose metal blades at $16 each, or the hard metals ones at $44 each? It looks like the general purpose ones are carbon steel and the hard metals ones are bi-metal. I didn't see any others that could be found in 1/4" X 12'6". How wide are the ones you buy?

Thanks,

Dustin

evening dustin-lenox is blade stock is good stuff-if you are cutting 1/4" thick or less steel 14-18 teeth per inch would work.you should consider going to a machine shop supply retailer and purchase a 100' roll of blade-cut it to the length you need and tig weld the blades together yourself-anneal the weld with a propane torch-grind the excess weld flush with the blade so it will pass thru the blade guides and you are ready to cut metal. i own a 30" do-all verticle band saw-this what i do-cheaper than buying welded-to length blades. when you weld the blade stock up set the back of the blade against a straight edge before welding the blade together.

Thanks Dave. Do you use er70s2 for that? Also, for the annealing, do you just heat it till it starts to turn red and let it air cool? Lastly, what is your take on the carbon steel vs bi-metal blades?

I have the old blade that is broke, so I'm going to have to give it a try next week and see how it works out. Right now I'm finishing up the wiring, insulation and drywall for the garage. I'm going to be working at 68 degrees this summer...

My worm drive gear reducer showed up today. This is really turning out to be a very simple conversion and only cost me ~$100.

er70s2 should work-i have not used it personally-i have used us alloys 85t which is a high tensile tig rod and have also used .030 diameter s.s. tig rod with with good results-makes it easy to do the weld-blade stock i use is .025 thick. 1/16" or .040 diameter tungsten with my miller syncrowave dx set at approx. 25 amps max and use the foot pedal to control the heat at the weld. mcmaster carr used to sell a unit that silver soldiers the blade together-our maintenance machine shop had one and i used it a couple times-it worked ok-but i prefer to use welded blades-cutting 1 1/2" thick 4140 or 17-4 stainless steel for hy steer arms is tough duty for a saw and it's blade.oops-forgot to answer your other 2 questions! -yes on your annealing question with a propane torch-heat to dull red and let it air cool-keep the blade clamped on something flat and have the back of the blade against a straight edge. as soon as i weld my blades i anneal them before removing them from my welding jig. as far as blade material-the bi metal blades cost more but last longer.if you are just cutting mild steel carbon steel blades would probably work ok for you.get a tube of wax lubricant when you purchase your blade stock-this is the saw equivalent of cutting oil-your blades will last longer. also-in mild steel don't excede 100 s.f.p.m.-unless you are friction sawing(4000 s.f.p.m.) in order to get maximum blade life.good luck and welcome to the verticle band saw club-they are a handy tool to have in any shop.

Thanks Dave, that will help a lot. I did a bit of looking last night and was having trouble finding bimetal coil stock in 1/4". Fastenall has the pre-welded blades in it, but not the rolls. Couldn't find it anywhere else at all. I've been buying the bimetal blades for my Jet horizontal bandsaw and think that the difference is worth the cost.

I have been getting my band saw blades from this place:

http://www.bandsawbladesdirect.com/

I've been using the Lenox Bi-metal.

Enco.

I just buy the Irwin Bi-Metal.

Thanks Brian,

Do you get the general purpose metal blades at $16 each, or the hard metals ones at $44 each? It looks like the general purpose ones are carbon steel and the hard metals ones are bi-metal. I didn't see any others that could be found in 1/4" X 12'6". How wide are the ones you buy?

Thanks,

Dustin

I buy the bi-metal for the horizontal and the hard carbon steel for the vertical bandsaw. The hard carbon blade seems to be holding up good so far but it is still a rather new to me machine so it doesnt have alot of cut time on it yet. I use a 1/2" wide blade.

Bandsawbladesdirect doesn't look like they have 1/4" blades. Enco doesn't either. I might be ok with wider but want it for cutting odd shapes.

MSCdirect.com is where i get my blades from. 10ftx3/4 starret for less than $30. we run a 14T blade for thin stuff and 6T for thicker.

MSCdirect.com is where i get my blades from. 10ftx3/4 starret for less than $30. we run a 14T blade for thin stuff and 6T for thicker.

Great resource! They have the lenox blade that I want for $55. At that price, its not much more than buying a spool and welding it up myself. The spool of the same stuff through them was a little over $400. As long as I cut it perfect, I would be able to get 8 blades from one spool. I'm wanting to try one out and see before I commit to a spool anyway so I'm ordering one up. They said that since its so late that I won't see it until Tuesday, but to me thats pretty good. They also said that normally I can see it as soon as the next day.

I'll have to do another post showing the gear reducer that I'm using to slow it down. Right now I have it turning at about 160 fpm, so I'll take Dave's advise and get a little bigger pulley to slow it down a bit more.

http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PARTPG=IMLMKD&PMPXNO=3841986

MSC is awesome for next day delivery. i usually get my stuff well with in 48hrs.

you can contact rutland tool and order custom made blades.......

I only use Starret Mattrix II blades for steel cuting... this is for my horizontal
metal cutting bandsaw, but can be used for verticle too.

--Sherpa. BTW, my saw uses about a 111" blade, 3/4" size, and roughly
costs me a bout 65 bucks each..........

I order about 5 or 6 at a time.......... being very carefull to not destroy a
blade is key......... and don't let friends who aren't bandsaw knowledgable
use your saw....... (it gets expensive at 65 a pop when they do a "oops".

--S