Welding bands

[bandmiller2]

Has anyone had any luck buying or building a machine to butt weld 1 1/4 &1 1/2" bands.I've done alot of 1/2 and 3/4 for a doall metal cutting bandsaw enough to know its a tricky deal sometimes good sometimes problems. Frank C.

[Tom]

Zap welders that will take band over 1" are in the $25k or better range.   I tried to silver solder them, but never could get them to hold.  I had a band shop in town that would weld them for $1-$3 each but I found that the bands were usually work hardened and didn't last much longer anyway.

[bandmiller2]

Thanks Tom,reason I ask is I can have a whole box of new bands too short for my mill thinking about adding.Frank C.

[timberfaller390]

It's probably not worth the trouble. In my short expierance bands that have broke and been rewelded don't last long enough to put up with the hassle of taking them to be fixed.

[shinnlinger]

WHat size are your new bands Frank?  Probably can unload them here pretty easy and then buy the size you need way easier than messing with welding bands...

Dave

[pineywoods]

I did a bunch of tinkering with broken blades. Took some to a sawshop that had a big resistance welder, they welded them for $2. Worked ok, but the blades usually broke again somewhere else rather quickly. I tried acetelene welding with a stainless rod, never could get them to hold. Best results I have had was using a wire welder with gas, ie mig. There's a thread on here somewhere, probably in the crash archives. My take is welding broken blades is not worth the time and trouble. If you have new blades that are too short, my advice would be to find somebody with a mill they would fit. If they are regular bandmill blades, they likely fit some of the smaller mills like the norwood.

[backwoods sawyer]

Welding cracks is commonplace in the big mills to extend the life of the saws. The more welds that they have in them the worse they run. However, end welding is not done in those same filling rooms.

[Qweaver]

In the 20 years that I taught welding I always bought my metal cutting bandsaw blades in bulk rolls and silver soldered them as needed.  I fabricated a jig to hold them in place for soldering but it still requires that a really accurate bevel be ground on the ends.  My joints usually lasted through the whole life of the blade and I could make the blades at nearly half the cost of buying factory made blades. 

I won't mess with it for the cost of sawmill blades tho'.  We had a blade welder in the machine shop but it would just not make good welds in the hardened steel that the metal cutting blades were made of.  It worked fine for the blades that we made for the woodshop.

[coastlogger]

Ive welded them successfully with a wire feed and gas, .023 wire.Aligning them takes a bit of time unless of course you have a jig. Me I used a 2x4, some nails and c clamps. Make a recess in the 2x4 for the weld area.Turn blade over and weld other side too.Key seems to be to anneal them after.I found out most of this by internet searching(not the 2x4 that is my deal....).It definitely can be done Frank,and of course you can practice on junk blades.Almost all the blades I did broke somewhere else next time.
clgr

[Chris Burchfield]

bandmiller2 when I was young and out of high school, I worked in a metal shop making implants. We had a DoAll bandsaw that had a welding attachment for blades. You would clamp the two ends butted together. Been a while but I think this also applied spring loaded pressure to the two pieces. You then pushed a button for weld. Sparks would fly at the weld joint. The welder had a small grinder where you'd dress the excess top and bottom of the blade. Then you'd reclamp in the welder with a wider opening between the clamp points. There was an anneal button you'd push on to create heat. When the blade turned cherry red, it was ready for use. I've not looked online for one that would do my 1 1/4" blades.

[Tom]

That's what has been called a Zap welder and those bigger than 1" get really expensive.  We had a blade shop go out of business here, years ago, and I went to see if I could buy their Zap Welder.  The remaining blade shop in town had already bought it.  He said that you probably won't find one on the open market because blade shops buy them up to keep them off of the market.  He told me that he had several of them in a warehouse just to keep them off of the street.

[bandmiller2]

Tom, it makes me mad when I see that.A local saw and knife grinding co. was filling a large roll off with nice old grinding machines [they went computerized]would not sell one for love nor money,they lost my business never went back.Frank C.