Help-a-noob... Band saw blade choice advice

[Vinito Caleb]

Ever since I brought my new band saw home last weekend, I've wanted to fire it up and give it a whirl.

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I whipped up a cord and installed a proper outlet and did just that today. Good news is that the machine itself seems to be just fine. Bad news is that the installed blade is just awful. It appears to be bent or twisted, or bent and twisted, quite a bit. This is not a total surprise as I saw it running when I picked it up and noticed the blade moved around a fair bit, it's just worse than I thought. So now I'm in the market for a decent blade. It came with a couple others but honestly they don't look all that whoop-tee-doo either, except for maybe the "doo" part.

I could order a $250 carbide tip blade like I see recommended all the time, but for the moment I'm feeling a little broke and there is a lot on my list coming up which all cry out for money as well, so I was thinking maybe I could go budget for the moment as I won't be using it much for a couple months anyway. I'm figuring that at first I might be using it to do a little radius stuff to make some arched shutters for the shop/garage and beyond that I don't have anything planned for the saw to do yet. I'm sure that will change quickly enough, but for now...

So what do the learned here recommend a guy in my shoes do considering my current situation? I will be using this machine for some resawing eventually, but it's not a burning need at the moment. Probably just using it for a bit of nibbling here and there and the radius stuff mentioned earlier. In a few months I'll feel better about adding a really nice blade to the arsenal. Just want to pick up something for now that's decent but won't be disappointing, if that's possible.

Thanks for any help.

[Van Huskey]

Just order Lenox Flex Back blades in the size or sizes you think you will need in the near future, should run you about $15 each for a 12' 10" blade which IIRC the MM16 requires. Not only will it be cheap now but will let you decide which blade sizes you find most useful when it comes time to spend more money later.

[Curt Harms]

Here are a couple of my sources:

woodcraftbands.com

http://www.supercutbandsaw.com/how_to_choose.html

I haven't ordered a new blade in quite some time. Due both to little bandsaw use recently and SuperCut's premium gold blades seeming to be pretty durable. They are not, however, carbide blades in the usual sense of the word, there are no brazed on tips.

[Jim Andrew]

Look for a shop that sharpens for commercial shops. I ordered 3 blades from B&S saw shop very inexpensively. Get at least one 1/4" blade, for curves.

[David Eisenhauer]

I run a Lennox Flexback on my MM 16 for general, utility cutting (ply, hardwood, twoba lumber, tree limbs, etc). I just broke a several-years old 1' wide one and replaced it with an on-hand new 1/2" one for the same purposes. I broke the 1" one by horsing it on a rapidly pinching rip cut on a 2x12. They cut easy and clean and leave a typical, small bandsaw "ripple" behind when cutting. Ripping on material other than expensive exotics or veneer stock (I don't do that) leaves a decent surface easily cleaned up by hand or power planning.

[Erik Loza]

Agreed with the other: Don't spend $250 on a blade unless you need to. The MM16 really makes any blade, regardless of brand, perform at its best. I would personally buy a range of inexpensive blades, get a feel for the machine, then decide later if you really need a carbide. You wouldn't really want a carbide for everyday use. Best of luck,

Erik

[Vinito Caleb]

Great!
Thanks for the advice, folks.
I'll pick up two or three carbon steel blades and I'm looking forward to trying the new machine out with a true-running blade installed.

This blade thing brings one more question comes to mind.
Premise: From what I can gather, the blade guide you choose to use may depend on the width of the blade for things to function optimally. Is that correct or am I mis-interpreting things?

I kind of like the ease of setting the blade guides which came with the saw. In other B S related posts, other types of guides are either recommended or preferred by some people. So I'm wondering if I change the setup from resawing to using narrow blades for curves (say), would it behoove me to have another type of guide to install? Seems like it's also set up to be fairly quick and easy to change guides on this machine, which leads me to believe that maybe it was designed that way to be able to change blade widths/types for optimum performance on a whim. So am I reading too much into this or should I expect my guides work well for any blade (providing I like how they work in the first place)?

Thanks.

[Dave Cav]

Don't overthink it, just get some inexpensive, decent blades and get some experience with it. I would get a 1/4 or 3/8" 4 tooth for general work and a 1/2" 3 tooth (or so) to practice resawing. After you have spent a few weeks or months changing blades, adjusting guides, and learning the quirks of the saw, you will be in a much better position to judge what kind of guides and other details work for you. I had saws at school with really, really bad guides and was still able to make them work reasonably well. We used the cheapest Olsen blades I could get, and they worked fine while they stayed sharp. Usually they got kinked or broken before the got dull.

[Vinito Caleb]

cool. Thanks.
I'll just get the blades and play.
I need to start making some stuff. Had some sort of bug for a few days and it slowed me down - I keep getting more and more behinderer. I think I've been sitting at this computer too much during the bug since I wasn't up to moving around much, dreaming up problems that I don't have.

[Van Huskey]

This blade thing brings one more question comes to mind.
Premise: From what I can gather, the blade guide you choose to use may depend on the width of the blade for things to function optimally. Is that correct or am I mis-interpreting things?

I kind of like the ease of setting the blade guides which came with the saw. In other B S related posts, other types of guides are either recommended or preferred by some people. So I'm wondering if I change the setup from resawing to using narrow blades for curves (say), would it behoove me to have another type of guide to install? Seems like it's also set up to be fairly quick and easy to change guides on this machine, which leads me to believe that maybe it was designed that way to be able to change blade widths/types for optimum performance on a whim. So am I reading too much into this or should I expect my guides work well for any blade (providing I like how they work in the first place)?

Thanks.

For straight cuts like ripping and resawing a wider blade (of the same type) that is properly tensioned will have a higher beam strength which is what you want for those cuts. I would go with a 1" blade, not because the saw can't tension a 1 1/4" carbon blade but wider than 1" is a pain to get on and off the saw. For curved cuts the minimum radius of the cuts you plan to make dictate the maximum blade size. Google bandsaw blade radius chart.

Guides: while it is true some guides work better than others on wide or narrow blades the Euro guides on the MM saws are actually very good. They work fine down to 1/4" and I honestly wouldn't bother to change them. Now if you are doing a lot of tight radius with 1/4" blades (or smaller but smaller blades can be a pain to track on flat tires) then you might want to get a Carter Stabilizer I think the one that fits MM saws is a Jet 1 but verify this or I can if you like, I have one to fit my MM saw but honestly never use it, I also have the narrow blade cool blocks that Minimax makes, also never used since I have other saws set up for smaller blades. A second saw really is THE answer...