What's a good first blade for the LT18? I thought I'd get a Resaw King, but unsure between 3/4" 1" or 1 1/4" widths. Primary purpose is really getting to know the saw, but I do have some 6" thick oak planks to dimension and resaw.
I live in the UK
Two pieces advice I would suggest
(1) Always check you have tensioned the blade before starting the saw I forgot to reternsion the blade and ignored the unusual sound made the saw The blade came off the wheel and destroyed the lower bandsaw tire The cost of a replacement tire was many hours of research ,$200 and 2 round trips of 120 miles to take it the be rebonded
To remind me to retension the blade I have a laminated sign which I attach to the blade with a magnet
If you damage the edge of the ceramic guides you can simply remove the ceramic guides from the bandsaw and turn them 180 degrees and remount
I put a 1" Lenox Woodmaster B bi-metal blade on my Grizzly. Grizzly said it's tension an 1 1/4" blade but I think that might be a little optimistic. I wanted to get to know the saw and tune it before investing in a carbide tip blade. Call me a chicken but I really didn't want to put a blade costing nearly $200 on a saw and have a major problem. It works well for resawing. The LT18 is a step up from my Grizzly so you probably could go with the 1 1/4" blade. They are well under $100 so it's not a big investment and it's nice to have a blade that you can use down the road for wood that's dirty or otherwise questionable vs a carbide blade. Then if you like what you've chosen you can get the Resaw King (that's my plan but so far I haven't gotten around to ordering the resaw king yet).
1” is the widest you can reasonable tension on that saw and 3/4” would be better.
It’s unlikely that you would even notice the cut difference btw a properly tensioned blade of either 3 widths. You will notice a difference in the cuts of an improperly tensioned blade - and that chance increases with wider blades on that saw.
You might also look into the Lenox Woodmaster CT blade at roughly the same price as the Resaw King. I frequently find myself holding a piece of resawn wood up to the light to see if I'm looking at the planed side or the resawn side.
Congrats on the new saw. It's a fine machine.