Band saw question

[Kent E. Matthew]

I am using and old Walker Turner 14 inch band saw at work. I am cutting up some reclaimed pallet oak. Some white some red that roughly measures 40 x 5 x 3 inches. Trying to cut them up in 3 equal pieces along the 5 inch side so I get roughly 3 pieces 5 x 1 x 40. I bought a 1/2 blade 4tpi. My problem is each cut is taking about 15 minutes. Any way I can speed this up a bit? I've tried increasing the speed, but that just seems to take longer.

[Rick Fisher]

15 minutes ? Whats the motor on that saw ? The Blade could be coarser but 4tpi isn't fine .. Weird.

[Buck Permenter]

Sounds like the blade is on with teeth pointed up. That blade on the worse saw should cut faster than you can control it.

[Mike Cutler]

Kent

That blade isn't gong to last long in that application, so it could be that it's getting dull. You may have hit some hidden staples too.
Resawing 5" thick hardwood material on a 14" bandsaw is working that saw a little bit. As others have stated the motor may not be enough.
Now for the big question;
How uniform are the resawn pieces that you're getting? If you're getting good results, I can see that it will take some time. 15 minutes seems a bit much, but you're not just gonna push that material through that saw, with that blade, and get good results. It's going to take some finessing.

[Jim Matthews]

You may have hit some hidden staples too.

Symptoms of a dull blade described in the OP.
Unless the oak was treated with Titanium Sulfate
it should whisk right through.

You could check to see if the tires are slipping,
but it walks like, talks like and sounds like a blade that has gone off.

[Kent E. Matthew]

This band saw doesn't have tires on it. I have checked to make sure the set is not effected. The wheels are tapered so I think the set is okay. I bought the blade at Lowes. Paid 10 bucks for it. I wasn't sure this was going to work so I didn't want to drop a lot of cash. Perhaps a better 3/4 3 tpi blade is in order?

[John TenEyck]

You won't be able to adequately tension a 3/4" blade on that saw, so stick with a 1/2" one, but get a better quality 3 tpi one. I use Olson's MVP bimetal blades on a 14" Delta with a riser block, and it can whisk through 10" oak or maple when I make veneer. Of course, I do have a 1-1/2 HP motor on it but still, you should be able to cut several feet a minute with even a puny 1/2 HP motor. I've used 1/2" - 3 tpi blades from Grizzly as well, and they cut pretty well and lasted a fairly long time, too.

But no tires? Never heard of such a thing on a 14" saw. Maybe someone removed them at some point. I don't know how you'd run a blade on wheels with no tires w/o dulling the teeth on the side that lays against the wheel, unless the wheels are aluminum, in which case the teeth would probably leave marks in the wheel. I have no direct knowledge of the WT bandsaw, however, but I'll bet others here do and will chime in on whether that saw is supposed to have tires.

John

[Myk Rian]

Cheap blade, and having no tires is wearing the blade out.
Saws with no tires are generally meat cutting saws.

[Kent E. Matthew]

Okay, this is beginning to make sense. This saw has always had a metal 10/14 varitooth bimetal on it with no tires. First couple of cut took less time and were clean cuts. Shortly after that some burning began to appear on the wood after the cut. Okay a new blade and tires are in order.

[Gus Dundon]

Definitely needs new tires and blade.

[Shawn Pixley]

I was resawing curly walnut 6"x48" 4/4 yesterday on my Rikon 20-325. It took 5-7 minutes per cut. I feel that taking that long, my resaw blade was dull. I'll change it out before I use the saw again.