Laguna 14/12 blades keep breaking

[John Hodge]

I had a 3/4" Resaw King on my 14/12 with probably less than 1 hour of use break while I was in between making a cut. I had just resawn a board and before I could go back and start the next cut the blade broke while the saw was just idling. Laguna was great and sent me another blade for no charge but in the mean time I picked up a non-carbide 1/2" resaw blade from Woodcraft and was using that on the saw.

As I was cutting a 1/8" inch thick board today I was making a curve that was maybe 6" radius and the 1/2" blade snapped while I was in the middle of the cut. Again this second blade probably had less than 1 hour of actual cutting time on it.

Now that I've broken two relatively new blades from two different manufacturers I'm thinking that either I must be doing something wrong or something is not setup right with the saw. Help?

[Van Huskey]

First thing is did they break at the weld?

[John Hodge]

The Resaw King did not break at the weld; the 1/2" one that broke most recently did.

[Steve Cowart]

Wow, That seems very unlikely to have been two defective blades. How new is the machine? It sounds like maybe the tension is WAY too tight. I have a 14/12 and have never broken a blade, I have a Resaw-King, a 3/8 and a 1/4.

Could you describe how you are setting the tension.

[John Hodge]

I usually just play with the tension until I'm happy with the way it cuts. Going by the built-in tension gauge usually shows the blade in the middle of the marked range for the size of blade I'm using.

The saw is around two years old.

[Nick Lazz]

I broke one blade on my 14SE and it was a Laguna blade. It did break at the weld and I noticed other blades from Laguna were rough around the weld. It doesn't sound like you are over tightening it to me. Cutting radius' can put a lot of torque on the blades, so I imagine your feed rate was too fast through the cut or the blade was to large for the radius you were trying to cut.

[Doug Hepler]

John

I have that saw. Two points: 1) the only time I have broken a blade it was because the bottom rear guide had slipped back and was not supporting the blade during the cut. It seems that you can think that you tightened the bottom guide adjustments properly when you have not. Have you checked the guides?
(2) based on my very limited personal experience with Laguna blades, their quality is inconsistent. I usually just buy normal steel blades from Highland Hardware.

Doug

[John Hodge]

I've adjusted the guides each time I changed the blade and occasionally in between times if I'm doing a thick resaw or something. From what I can tell they were always still tight and not in constant contact with the blade. I've noticed that when the saw is idling there is a faint ticking from the guides. Should I move them further back if that's the case?

[Doug Hepler]

John,

Maladjusted guides was my most promising hypothesis. Excessive tension would not cause a blade to break as quickly as you report, and you said that the dial on the saw showed that the tension was about right. Next would be bad welds, but you said one blade did not break at the weld. I am at a loss.

The ticking is probably the weld striking the guides. I consider mild ticking that goes away to be normal. You can carefully and gently place a slipstone against the back corners (well clear of the set of the teeth) to grind down the weld or whatever is hitting the guides, or just wait for the ceramic guides to do it for you.

Doug

[Van Huskey]

The 1/2" blade broke at the weld, chances are you just put a little more side tension on it during the curved cut than a poor weld could handle. The RK blade should be tensioned right at the max capability for that saw, it can't produce enough tension to cause and otherwise good 3/4" RK to break. Too little tension has probably broken more blades than too much because it lets the blade go places and do things it shouldn't.

A little ticking is indeed normal especially with ceramic guides that "prefer" to be set very close to if not touching the blade.

While it flies in the face of the odds, I think you may have had two bad blades UNLESS you were running unusually low tension on both OR there is something significantly wrong with your basic setup and tuning of the saw.



PS the 1/2" blade was not the right blade for that cut, you want a very high TPI blade for 1/8" stock, the normal rule of thumb is three teeth at a time in the stock but you wont get that with 1/8" stock so you want at least 12-14 tpi.

[John Hodge]

Well, I have a 1/4" on there now and I figured I'll wait and see if I can use this blade for a while without breaking it before I put the new 3/4" Resaw King on. From a setup perspective the saw seems to cut really well so it seems like it shouldn't be too far out of adjustment or anything like that. Thanks for all of the suggestions everyone.

[John Hodge]

I've been using the saw a good bit lately and fiddling with various things trying to see if there are any issues. This is my first saw so I'm not entirely sure what is normal and what isn't.

I mentioned earlier that I've noticed a ticking sound when in use. Expanding on that a bit, what I'm noticing is that when I'm cutting a piece of wood not only does the ticking sound increase in volume but I can feel in through the wood as I'm feeding it in. I can still make decent cuts but I notice that there is a slight gouge every 1/8" or so in the wood once it comes off the saw. This behavior is the same regardless of which blade I have on the saw.

I had read that some of these particular saws had problems in the past with the stock tires. I replaced both tires with Carter blue tires but didn't notice that this made any difference in performance. However, one thing I did notice is that as the saw starts up / slows down there is a slight wobble. It only seems to be apparent as the saw passes through that one speed as it's starting/stopping. I've also noticed that the top wheel, when looking at it on-edge through the window while spinning it by hand, seems to have maybe a 1/16" or so of runout.

Could all of this and the breakage be due to a bad top wheel?

[Jesse Silver]

I have a 14bx and had a 14se a very long time ago (when they made it) and honestly have never broken a bandsaw blade let alone a 3/4" resaw king. Sorry to hear about your experience!
In my opinion a 3/4" blade is too wide to be cutting 6" radii but that may not be the official problem.
One thing you may want to do which I do to my bandsaws when I get them, is to remove your blade, and then set up a dial indicator with the point on the bandsaw tire. Slowly rotate the wheel (do upper and lower separately) and see what sort of highs and lows the wheel has. If you have big high or low spots, that might be stressing the blade.
Also, might want to triple check your ceramic guides. Hard to go through this online, but they should be kissing the blade but not squeezing it. And the side ones should support as much of the side as possible without have a chance of hitting the carbide teeth. Not sure if it helps, but it does seem like something is out of whack :(

[Joe Craven]

I also have this saw.

The ticking sound that you're hearing is contact with the ceramic guides. It's impossible to tell which one you're having contention with until you go through the setup in a concerted fashion.

I had slight issues - not breaking blades, but more about drift - with my 14/12 (first bandsaw I have owned) until I reviewed "Band Saw Clinic with Alex Snodgrass" on YouTube; his method seems to be pretty good for me and I think it was also referenced by others on this forum recently. Taking the table off isn't a big deal on this saw and I feel like it allows you get things aligned properly. Now when I'm changing blades, if I hear any of that ticking during setup (for resaw / general use), I know that I still have a little work to do.

If I could only get some sort of alarm to prompt me to release the tension in the blade before I leave the shop for the night, it would be perfect...

[Curt Harms]

I also have this saw.

..............................................
If I could only get some sort of alarm to prompt me to release the tension in the blade before I leave the shop for the night, it would be perfect...

I'm not familiar with that saw but mine (Rikon 10-325) has a lever style detensioning mechanism. i unplug the saw when I move it to its stored position. I hang the cord over the detensioning mechanism. It's easier to hang the cord over the lever when the lever is in the detensioned position. Remove the cord, move the lever to tensioned position. Works for me.

[Steve Cowart]

I bought a magnetic LED light that I have on my Laguna and when I tension the blade I turn the light on. I don't turn it off unless I release the tension on the blade. The light makes a great reminder.

[John C Cox]

Yes... 2 good lessons in here I learned the hard way..

Take the tension off the band when you are done cutting.
Dont cut curves with resaw and low tooth bands.

[John Hodge]

My problem is forgetting to tension the blade when I go to turn the saw on. I'm hoping that I've broke myself of that oversight.

At any rate, I was playing around with the saw again. I needed to make a small resew so I went ahead and put the RK blade on and tensioned it towards the top end of the 3/4" setting on the scale. It was doing the whole ticking thing during the cut along with little stripes when examining the cut with a light off to the side.

I noticed that the blade just didn't really feel as tight as I might expect so I went ahead and increased the tension significantly. Although the tension gauge is well into the red, I still have some space between the coils of the spring. The thing is, from my preliminary testing it looks like the ticking/stiping is gone.

Could it have been a lack of tension all along that was causing my problem?

[Al Weber]

To avoid starting the saw without tensioning the blade I remove the little yellow lockout from the power switch, and stick it to the table with a magnet so that I have to insert the lockout piece when I get ready to use the saw again. Just glue a small magnet to the lockout piece.

[John Hodge]

I found out tonight that right now the tension gauge seems to be completely worthless. While I was changing blades I noticed that the gauge can be tensioned up to the 3/4"+ area even when there is no blade on the saw. I suspect something is binding in the upper wheel assembly causing the spring to get compressed prematurely.

Maybe this weekend I'll start taking stuff apart and see what happens.

[Larry Frank]

The best thing I did was to measure the actual tension. I have an older Jet 16" and to my surprise the gauge on the saw was very close.

I followed the suggestions of an earlier thread and used my digital caliper attached to my blade.

[Barry McFadden]

My previous bandsaw was a Craftsman 12" and in 30 years the only time it was de-tensioned was to change the blade. When I got a new saw recently it is the first for me with the tension lever. I was afraid that I would start it up with the tension off as well so I printed this out and glued it onto a piece of wood and put a rare earth magnet on the back. Now when I go to use the saw it's staring me right in the face. When the saw is in use I just stick it on the back above the tension lever so I see it when I de-tension and remember to move it to the front....

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