when to switch bandsaw blades

[Paul St.Onge]

Just curious. At what moisture content does one switch from a bandsaw blade designed to cut green wood to a blade designed for dry wood? Also, what is everyones idea moisture content for dry or wet wood? Thanks for all the info!! Still learning, a process that never stops!

[Roger Chandler]

I pretty much leave my green wood blade on all the time. If I were going to build furniture and do a lot of veneering and resawing, I would put on a wood slicer blade, but for the occasional cut, I just use the green wood blade because its the correct one for bowl blanks etc.

[John K Jordan]

I pretty much leave my green wood blade on all the time. If I were going to build furniture and do a lot of veneering and resawing, I would put on a wood slicer blade, but for the occasional cut, I just use the green wood blade because its the correct one for bowl blanks etc.

I do what Roger does. Either a Lenox 1/2"-3tpi or 1/2"-4tpi depending on how many I have left. I cut both green and dry up to 12" thick with these and only change when one gets dull and I'm tired of resharpening it. Maybe not the best to resaw fine veneers but I've resawn plenty of "thick" veneer from wide dry boards.

Moisture content for dry wood? You wrote "idea", did you mean "ideal"? My shop has heat and air and most wood ends up reading 9-11% on my pinless meter. But I don't rely on that, since these meters depend on the wood density and it may vary with different trees or parts of trees. Instead, I weigh the wood and write the weight in grams on the a piece of tape on the blank. I reweigh ever month or so and when the weight quits changing the blank is as dry as it's going to get in the shop. I don't weigh every piece but select a few typical candidates from a batch - I figure if one is dry the others about the same size are also dry.

But how dry is dry enough might depend on what you are turning. Table legs, bowls, ornaments, lidded boxes? I want my box blanks pretty dry for the fit. The dryness for ornaments, finger tops, wands, gavels, shovel handles, and a variety of other things doesn't matter as much but spindle blanks usually dry quickly anyway.

JKJ