Repairing broken BS

[Al Launier]

Have any of you braized these blades? I have a few broken blades in good shape that I'm tempted to silver solder. I have some bronze braizing rods that were bought at Home Depot that are supposed to work on steel, and have bot a Propane & a Map torch. I've no experience with this, but am tempted. I can grind the mating surfaces & can make a fixture to align & hold the ends in place, but is it an exercise in futility? Any experience with this, good or bad?

[Erik Loza]

Blades are actually welded at the joint. I don't think brazing would be anywhere near strong enough.

Personally, I don't really see the value in trying to "repair" blades. At least mild steel ones, considering what a new one costs and what my time is worth. Just my 2-cents.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Loren Woirhaye]

I solder blades regularly. I bought coil stock and make blades up as I need them. I'm using a 3 wheel saw and the 1/4" blades break on me sometimes. Considering the savings though I would do it anyway even if my saw wasn't prone to breaking blades.

1/4" Blades for my saw cost about $24 each if I buy them welded and they would still break. Soldering my own they cost me maybe $4 or $5.

I use a fixture to hold the blade aligned for soldering. I think I bought it from Lee Valley. I use a grinding stone in the drill press and a tapered wood block to grind the scarfs.

[Al Launier]

Thanks Loren.
Could you tell me a bit more specifically what you use for solder & flux,or do you use the LV materials? I found the LV source http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=41049&cat=1,41036,41048 & plan to make my own fixture. I like your method of using the drill press & tapered block. That approach would appear to provide better control, more consistency & better mating of parts. Have you tried a braizing rod as described above and if so what results?

[Loren Woirhaye]

I use the solder and flux from Lee Valley. There's enough solder to make a lot of blades. There's a seller on ebay who sells the same solder too and I think he supplies the woodworking stores with blade soldering kits. I don't know who makes the fixtures. I have not tried braising rod. Soldering takes only about 30 seconds with a propane torch. I usually do a few blades at a time.

[Gus Dundon]

I haven't tried this but many have. I googled this, there are bunch from other forums. This sounds practical. Good luck!

[Al Launier]

Thanks Guys! This is a GO!

[Brian W Smith]

Didn't read above.........

Here it's Tig.....309 and silicone bronze getting the nod more often than not.We strive for perfection on the joints.

[Myk Rian]

Use silver solder.

[Al Launier]

Well, I recently received the mailings of 2 types of brazing silver solder (.031" wire & .020" ribbon) & 2 types of silver solder flux. Now that I just finished another project I can start making up a holding fixture. Then I'll try my hand at brazing broken BS blades I have on hand, plus cutting a few brand new blades to proper length that are too long for tensioning. Hard to believe I ordered 93 1/3" long blades & they came in at 95"-95 1/2" long (Simonds blades). Not worth the price of shipping to return, but they'll make good candidates to develop a good brazing technique.

[Al Launier]

Well yesterday I made a simple holding fixture & brazed my first broken blade. Today I tried it out on a piece of poplar that varied in thickness, up to 4”, cutting (2) 1/8” slices plus a “contour cut as shown. I initially belt sanded (1"x 42" sander) the solder joint, mounted the blade on the saw, tensioned the blade & then used the tensioned blade to hold the blade tight while using a Dremel tool to finish grinding the joint to remove the excess solder. There is a “bump” as the blade goes through the guide bushings, but I tend to set these bushings too close, ~ 0.002”-0.003” versus the 0.016” (folded dollar bill) that is recommended in the Grizzly manual. A couple more repairs of broken blades and shortening of 3 “too long” blades should give me enough experience to do a better job. Will be "loosening up the settings on the guide bushing to minimize the "bump" & save the bearings. All things considered it’s looking good!

I used http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-FT-54-HARD-SILVER-SOLDER-BRAZING-WIRE-031-1-32-/121360908546?ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123 solder & http://www.ccis.com/home/hn/page8.html flux. A Propane torch worked on this narrow blade - may have to use my Map gas torch on wider blades.

I also bought http://www.ebay.com/itm/310987385041?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT thinking this might work better on the wider blades(???). Time will tell.

[Rick Gibson]

R&D bandsaws also has a splice kit which includes the blade holder and silver solder to repair your blades. https://www.tufftooth.com/sure-splice.php