Chinese carbide bandsaw blades

[Tai Fu]

I wonder anyone tried them? They look to be about similar to a Lenox Trimaster in terms of tooth geometries...



I just ordered one for my new bandsaw. And so far it cuts GREAT, like any carbide blade I'd expect. No idea how it copes with a 26" wheel and hope it doesn't break...

It costs about 300RMB, or around 50 USD and shipping isn't too expensive. It seems to have quite a bit of carbide meat on it so hopefully this means it can be sharpened quite a few times...

Seller says to watch for blade dulling, he says if it dulls it will break due to blade flexing too much. Another told me that it's hard to tell that carbide has dulled so to keep on a lookout for that and sharpen it as soon as possible.

Anyone had a carbide blade break on you before?

[Mikail Khan]

Two broke with me so far. Think they will all break eventually. They outlast regular blades so guess fatigue sets in eventually.

Where did you order from? What size was it?

MK

[Tai Fu]

Ordered direct from Taobao. Size is 30mm wide, teeth size is 16mm. Thing is they never list their teeth size/pitch/spacing and you have to ask sometimes... it can be frustrating at times. Blade thickness starts at 0.9mm and goes up from there. I think smallest blade they sell is 16mm wide.

I do notice that the Chinese blades, at least the carbon steel ones, are more brittle compared to bimetal blades from Lenox or Starret. Which meant unless your wheel is larger it had a nasty habit of breaking prematurely... I'll see if this one is the same, though it says the backing material is imported (to China). The bimetal blades from Starret is actually quite tough, took a lot of effort on my part to break it intentionally.

By the way how do you tell if your carbide blade dulls? I think the seller told me that it is vital to keep the blade sharp at all times because when it dulls, it flexes more, causing it to fatigue and break. But others have said it's hard to tell carbide is dull... It looks like there's so much carbide "meat" on this blade that I could just use an angle grinder with a diamond wheel to sharpen it every so often...

This is their size chart



Top is width, bottom is thickness. All figure is in mm

[Erik Loza]

Two broke with me so far. Think they will all break eventually. They outlast regular blades so guess fatigue sets in eventually....

No opinion on this brand but will add that I have snapped nearly-new Lenox Tri-Masters in the past by pushing them too hard on green wood. Due to the flat kerf design on carbides, they don't clear sawdust as quickly as a skip-tooth blade and (I think) wet sawdust can't clear the gullets fast enough, so super-heats the blade and fatigues it. Or, the tooth face angle is so sensitive to feed rate that you end up just stressing the band and snapping it. Basically, the blade was cutting great until it wasn't and whatever threshhold I hit, it was sudden. So, it might be that these particular blades don't last long but there are also some variables that could contribute. Just my 2-cents.

Erik

[Tai Fu]

Given how much Trimaster cost wouldn't it make better sense to buy the cheaper Chinese blade?

[John TenEyck]

You can tell when a blade gets dull because it will take more force to push it through the cut. If you get a 10 or 20X lens you also will see that the beak of the teeth no longer form a sharp point. There will be a flattened/rounded corner that reflects light differently. While carbide blades cut a lot more wood before substantially dulling, it's still surprising how quickly they can begin to dull. I've seen my Woodmaster CT begin to dull after only a few hundred BF of Sapele. Deciding when or how often to sharpen is still a work in progress, but since I built the sharpener described below I'm more inclined to do it as soon as I notice the performance starting to fall off.

The sharpener is based on an approach from Derek Cohen and uses inexpensive diamond disks on a Dremel. You sharpen the back of the tooth rather than the front. It doesn't matter which face gets sharpened as long as you get back to a sharp beak.



The indexer makes sure each tooth is at the correct position to be sharpened so all teeth are consistent.



John

[Tai Fu]

I saw on Youtube where someone used an angle grinder, that can be propped up in such a way that it will grind away the front of the tooth evenly every time. Basically the idea is to move the angle grinder disk into place, gently grind the tooth, raise it back up, back the angle grinder out, advance to the next tooth, and repeat. Far more tedious but it seems to be able to do it in a way that will not affect the teeth profile. Carbide blades have certain profile that can get messed up if you try to sharpen from the back/top of the teeth. That geometry allows the blade to have no set but still cut straight. I imagine when Resaw King gets sharpened they do this.

[Tai Fu]

I just wanted to post an update.

I tried to resaw some green Acacia wood with the carbide blade as a test to see how good it is. Not good at all. While it cuts, it takes a bit of force to push it, and when I push it hard enough to engage and cut, the blade makes this weird sound, that sounded like it is fluttering and vibrating. I stopped halfway through and changed back to the 2" spring steel skip tooth blade. Now it cuts great but the finish looks like crap. So I learned now that carbide blade does not like green wood...

In dry wood it just cuts smooth and gives nice and smooth finish.

However in the advertisement for this blade, I see it used to resaw padauk veneer, and while cutting the saw is spraying water at the blade. Why do they do this? Would this damage the wood in any way?

[Dave Sabo]

How about a link to the blades so we can order some ?

[Tai Fu]

I ordered it from Taobao, but you may try aliexpress...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3277...7685b3a36ceb-9

However I am in Taiwan and shipping from China to Taiwan is very low, so I don't know about shipping to the US.

[Curt Harms]

I checked that link, the U.S. price shows $188.90 so no bargain.

[Dave Sabo]

I ordered it from Taobao, but you may try aliexpress...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3277...7685b3a36ceb-9

However I am in Taiwan and shipping from China to Taiwan is very low, so I don't know about shipping to the US.

Well, it may be worth a try at $50. But the linked price is more expensive than a version from Lenox or Laguna or one of the German manuf. blades that have known quality.

You also need to change your location, because it says you're in California, USA.

[Tai Fu]

Yea it may be that it was quoted with shipping or something. I can attempt to get some on your behalf from Taobao but I have no idea how much it would be to ship it to the US. Maybe that's why it's not seen on ebay.

[Tai Fu]

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm...12023lrtq5d09c

This is the link to the Taobao item... currency is in RMB.

[Herr Dalbergia]

You can tell when a blade gets dull because it will take more force to push it through the cut. If you get a 10 or 20X lens you also will see that the beak of the teeth no longer form a sharp point. There will be a flattened/rounded corner that reflects light differently. While carbide blades cut a lot more wood before substantially dulling, it's still surprising how quickly they can begin to dull. I've seen my Woodmaster CT begin to dull after only a few hundred BF of Sapele. Deciding when or how often to sharpen is still a work in progress, but since I built the sharpener described below I'm more inclined to do it as soon as I notice the performance starting to fall off.

The sharpener is based on an approach from Derek Cohen and uses inexpensive diamond disks on a Dremel. You sharpen the back of the tooth rather than the front. It doesn't matter which face gets sharpened as long as you get back to a sharp beak.



The indexer makes sure each tooth is at the correct position to be sharpened so all teeth are consistent.



John

Wow, that´s cool to see and a great idea. Respect!

I am using also the Woodmaster a lot. They are a bit pricey, but well...they do the job.
I had them once resharpend by a guy who knows what he is doing, but I was not happy with the result at all.
The cutting results where not like with a new blade.

Anyhow, I would like to copy your setup and give it a try, BUT I am wondering:

The blades I have do not have the same teeth geometry with all teeth.
One has a straight edge at the tip, the next one has a straight tip, BUT the sides are angled.

Is this differnt with your blades, or what is your secret?

Hoping for an answer, thank you in advance, cheers, alex