Does any of the Axe Women team members compete in a bow saw competition? If so, what size saw do you compete with, and do you custom make your blades?
Have seen pics of them using crosscut saws, but not bow saws.
I have only competed a few times in bow saw. I don't enjoy it as much as most of the other events. But I know that several of my girls compete in it quite often. I will ask Laurette to answer this one!
Since posting this query, i have searched for competition bow saw blades, and cannot find any readily. I am about to resign myself to the fact that if I want a longer (48"-60") bowsaw, i will have to fet my own piece of high carbon strap stock and cut and file my own blades. It can be done. Unless someone has a lead on where I can get longer blades. The longest blades so far I can find are from sweden made by G-Man, and are 42" long.
Have you checked with Sandvik?
Sandvik(Bahco) makes blades up to 36". Same as Gilmore and Ace Hardware.
First off I'm not familiar with bigger bow saws but what I have seen isn't much different in size from a band saw blade. If the 36" blades are similar in width and thickness to a band saw blade then buy 2 and cut and weld what you want, many machine shops have band saw blade welders. Just a thought.
That is a good suggestion gspren, i will consider that. The big difference in cutting performance between the competition blades and the run of the mill hardware ones is the rather large gullet on the rakers of the competition blades really makes them perform spectacularly vs the std peg and raker greenwood blades. In order to get that kind of profile, you just about need to. Start with a new piece of blade strap steel. Mcmaster Carr has high carbon strap stock that is not too unreasonable in price, and would yield a superior performing blade to anything you could come up with by modifying or combining std hardware store blades. It will be worth the effort. With a few specialty tools it wont be hard to punch out and profile a blank. Your thought though, is still a very worthy consideration, and may be worth a go. Thanks for the suggestion!
you might could make 1 out of a bandmill blade ???