Turning buzz saw blade into ripping blade.

[Joe Hillmann]

I am thinking of building a swingmill but don't really want to spend $500-$1000 on a blade that will cut ten inches.

I can find all sorts of old buzzsaw blades  from 18 inches up to 3 feet for $20-$30 a piece.  Would it be possible to convert on of them into a ripping blade?

I know I would have to drill and countersink holes to mount it since a swing mill blade can't be mounted with a simple arbor and nut.

I was thinking of removing every other tooth and reshaping the ones that I leave into ripping teeth rather than crosscut teeth.

Is there any reason this wouldn't work?

[Kbeitz]

Buzzsaw blades have zero or neg rake. You might need to resharpen
them to a different geg.

[Joe Hillmann]

Buzzsaw blades have zero or neg rake. You might need to resharpen
them to a different geg.

I have one sitting here and it looks like it has about 8 degrees negative hook and every other tooth has an alternate face and tip angle.  I would reshape the teeth so they have a 10 -15 degree angle with a flat top and flatter face,  I may still keep some of the alternate face angle though. 

I had also thought of knocking of three teeth, leave one, knock off another three, leave on and so on but I think that would require cutting a deeper gullet on the remaining teeth.  So now I am thinking it may be better to remove every other tooth (which would require changing the set on every other tooth a lot and could cause them to break off)or leave them all causing each tooth to take a smaller bite.

[bandmiller2]

Joe, its doable, you will need to put some hook on the teeth. If you draw a chalk line from the arbor hole to the rim and measure half way. Run a straight edge from that mark up to a tooth face that should match it. As Kbeitz said cordwood saws have zero rake that is tooth face will follow a straight edge to the arbor center or negative rake which is less. How efficient the saw will be I don't know it may pull hard. Myself I think I would buy a saw with bits and shanks like a head saw or a commercial edger saw. Frank C.

[bandmiller2]

Really Joe, a circular saw running at speed is not something to cut corners with, or its mounting, you will be so close to it. Frank C.

[Ljohnsaw]

Really Joe, a circular saw running at speed is not something to cut corners with, or its mounting, you will be so close to it. Frank C.

And I'd be concerned about getting it balanced after all that cutting and grinding...

[Darrel]

I tried making a rip blade out on a 10" negative rake blade once about 40 years ago and I came to the conclusion that it was a whole lot more work than working to earn the money to buy the blade I really wanted. I did learn a bunch and I proved that it could be done. As I recall, I ended up taking all the teeth off and starting over with about a third of the teeth of the original blade.

[Kbeitz]

You might want to look for a good blade on E-bay.
This is where I got my blades for my swing chop saw.
I got 16" new in the box blades for only $20.00 each
and I'm very happy with them.

[TKehl]

How big of a cut are you wanting to make?  Used 40-42" circle blades from say a Bel-saw are out there fairly cheap.  Not as common as buzz saw blades, but nowhere close to rare.

[Joe Hillmann]

How big of a cut are you wanting to make?  Used 40-42" circle blades from say a Bel-saw are out there fairly cheap.  Not as common as buzz saw blades, but nowhere close to rare.

That's way bigger than I am looking for.  I am thinking 20"-24" for the blade.

[TKehl]

New 24" blade for Lucas model 10; $240 + shipping.

P/N:  DT10 18

[Joe Hillmann]

New 24" blade for Lucas model 10; $240 + shipping.

P/N:  DT10 18

That is much more reasonable than the ones I had found.  I'm not sure what brand I was looking at but a 20 inch blade was around $500 and the same size blade with inserted teeth was around $1000

[Kbeitz]

On E-bay now...

20" Buzz Circular Mill Saw Blade 100 Teeth 1" Arbor  $44.99

Large Saw Blade 20" 40 Tooth 6 Hole Bolt Pattern Carbide Tipped  $40.00

20" Buzz Circular Wood Mill Saw Blade 54 Tooth 1" Arbor $44.99

[Joe Hillmann]

On E-bay now...

20" Buzz Circular Mill Saw Blade 100 Teeth 1" Arbor  $44.99

Large Saw Blade 20" 40 Tooth 6 Hole Bolt Pattern Carbide Tipped  $40.00

20" Buzz Circular Wood Mill Saw Blade 54 Tooth 1" Arbor $44.99

Can you pm me a link to the middle one?  I can find the other two but that one I can't and that looks like it may be closest to what I am looking for.