Bandsaw Blade for PT wood

[Andre Cormier]

Hi,

I have lots of leftover PT SYP that I want to turn into various outdoor things and lots of the cutting will be done on the bandsaw (Laguna 18" China version). Most of the cut's will be between 1"-8" cross/rip/resaw. Might be a few cuts up to 11" but not often.

I have been using this blade and I am fairly happy with the results Fast cut, thin gauge/kerf.

http://www.lagunatools.com/accessories/bandsaw-shearforce/bandsaw-bb3050#


I have also been using a TW 1 1/4 1.3 TPI bandmill blade. Works well but has a bad weld and wanders back and forth a bit. Also I'm not fond of the .042 gauge on my 18" wheel. Not sure of the Kerf but it's fairly wide.

New to the bandsaw and I will be odering a few other blades to get a feel for them. For this purpose I'm mostly looking at feed rate over cut quality

At $17 I will be ordering a Woodmaster C 1 1/4 1.3tpi to just compare it to the TW blade. The woodmaster has a .035 Gauge/.72 Kerf. There is also a 1.1 and a 1 Tpi in this blade, not sure how much different that would be, probably more useful in the bandmills.

There seems to be lots of Diemaster 2 fans. How would it do for the cutting I just described.

For the Diemaster 2? Maybe a 1/2 .25 4tpi or a 1/2 .35 3tpi?

Any other suggestions/recommendations

Thanks

[Josiah Bartlett]

PT wood is usually very soft but tends to have embedded grit, so get something with tough teeth you don't mind throwing away.

[Van Huskey]

If you plan to do a lot of PT sawing I would get the Woodmaster B (bimetal) with a fairly low tooth density in the 1.3 TPI range, if not your carbon WM should be fine. You also want a blade with decent set so it does not bind in the PT wood.

[Peter Quinn]

PT eats metal fasteners, just imagine what it willmdo for your bs bllade. I!m thinking that most pt arrives pretty wet, so a blade with decent set meant for green lumber is probably called for. TW has a green lumber line of blades that might be worth looking into.

[Andre Cormier]

Thanks for the replies. Thankfully the leftover PT has been sitting around for a while so it's fairly dry.

Van I looked at that Woodmaster B but I'm not sure I will be doing that much PT cutting and at $60 I might put it towards a woodmaster CT ($113).

I'm thinking of the Woodmaster CT for lot's of cedar resaw I have coming up. Is cedar hard on blades?

[Josiah Bartlett]

Cedar (at least the Western species I have sawn) is very easy on blades as long as the bark is removed.

Good point on the tooth set. PT tends to be very wet and also has very gummy sawdust even when dry.

I use a crummy old 3/4"x3tpi hook tooth when I cut stuff like that and rely on horsepower. I wouldn't spend more than $25 on a blade to cut PT. Save the expensive blades for the good projects.