1/8 inch blade tracking

[Virgil Stensland]

I have a Rikon 10-3061 bandsaw saw. I am wondering if anyone has used an 1/8 inch blade on there saw. I bought an olson 1/8 .025 and could not get it to track in the middle. I called Rikon and they said it should work. The owners manual says if using an 1/8 inch blade the needs to be .018 to .020 thick for it to work without tracking issues.
I am wondering if my first blade was defective or do I need to find a thinner blade? I can get the stock blade and a new 1/4 blade to work fine. Just the 1/8 .025 is trouble. It is very hard to find anyone that sells a 1/8 .018- .020 size blade. I would hate to order another blade and find out something else is the problem. So I thought I could check here and see if anyone has this saw and used an 1/8 blade.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I have a 10-305 and have used a 1/8" blade a few times in it. I didn't check whether it was centered on the wheels, just that it stayed on when running. A 1/8" blade is not going to make as good cuts as a 1/4" blade, it's too flexible to be precise, but if you need to make really tight curves it can be useful. At least that's been my experience with them.

[Bradley Gray]

I use an 1/8 - 14tpi by Lennox with a 5 tooth pattern (left right left right raker)

I run it buried in "cool blocks" graphite guides

[Tom Bender]

I have run a 1/8" blade on my 17" Grizzly without problems. You might not be able to track it exactly in the center but the thickness should not be the issue. Maybe your tires have a groove.

[Jim Becker]

In the very rare moment I put my 1/8" blade on my MM16....which is a flat tire saw...I have to completely reset the tracking since it's impossible to follow normal practice for a flat tire saw and have the teeth off the edge...that ain't gonna happen with such a narrow blade. I seem to remember having to slightly retrack on the 14" Jet I originally owned, too, but it wasn't as "dramatic". Blade guides to come into play with such a narrow blade...cool blocks or wood equivalent is best but Carter has a special kind of guide that's excellent for this kind of thing, too, albeit at a cost.

[Tom M King]

I run one with the Carter stabilizer on a 10" saw. I just stuck it on there, and it tracked fine, so sorry no help for the problem.