Blade Design

[Tom]

Bandblades have strong and weak beams, different degrees of rake and tallness of tooth.  Some folks like more teeth per inch (tpi) than others.  I don't particularly like to test new teeth configurations but do on occasion.  This post is about a brand new Lenox Woodmaster C.  To set the scene properly, it was properly tensioned, running in the right direction and had water dripping on it for lubrication. The ambient temperature was about 95 degrees which may have had something to do with the results.

Just about the time I think I know everything, something happens to bring me back to earth.  It's not that I don't make mistakes, I make them all the time,but, I get to where I do things by "wrote" and quit thinking....therein lies the rub.

Blush !



Usually when I choose to test the metallurgy of my blades against my dogs, it is when I'm cutting cypress.  Well, today I gave one a really good test.  You can see that there are NO teeth left on the blade.  The picture is of a coiled blade and the rest of it looks just like these sections.  

Some of you newer fellows worry about things like this but you have to understand that it just happens.  This blade cut one slab and one dog.  I took it off.

Could be old timers disease.  I've been accused of letting my mind slip into the ether as I do things over and over and over.  I like to think that it is a deliberate test.

It makes a pretty good racket.  The customer and all his office help came running out of their office onto the second floor balcony and yelled, " What happened".  They heard it over their office chatter, phones and the planer that was going downstairs.

I yelled back, " Just testing a new blade".

[Kevin]

That`s never happened before eh?  :D
You`re just lucky you didn`t start a forest fire with that many sparks!  :D

[Geoff]

Try rubber bands.  They're easier on the dogs & clamps....



HAAAAAA


oh sorry, forgot the  :D

[woodman]

I cut into my dogs  just a little off the top  :D :D 8)

[DanG]

I gotta give you bandmillers this one. What'd that cost you, Tom, maybe $25? I hate to think what my setback would be if I sawed a dog instead of a log.

On the other hand, my mill is set up so it couldn't hit the dogs if it wanted to. ;D

[Bro. Noble]

Tom,

I had some blades that looked like that (I'm not going to say how many).

I used them to measure a horseshoe.

Must have been about 100 uears ago someone picked up this shoe and hung it on the limb of a young red oak.

The tree grew into a very nice specimine and I was slicing board after board of FAS when things came to a halt.

I used a hammer and chisel to determine what it was.  It was time to turn the log anyway so full steam ahead remembering not to saw past the width of a horseshoe.

Got a lot of good lumber out of that log, from all four sides.  Bet you can't guess how many blades it took for me to determine that that horse must have been a great big Clydesdale or such.

I did ease up to the area of the log in question so only ruined one blade.  The others got by with setting and a heavy grind.

Noble

[D._Frederick]

Tom,
I have a number of blades with no teeth laying or hung around the barn. I counted them up and found that I was working toward the 200 dollar figure. I went to Grainger and bought a snap action limit switch / Coil Spring actuator. Grainger P/N 3A096 .
I mounted it on my mill so that it would make contact with the squaring post before the blade does  and shut the power off.  It had saved me enought blades to more than pay for the effort.

[Tom]

Hey "D", that's a good idea.  I'll have to consider where I might mount something like that. Usually when I do something like this, my mind is tied up on more than one thing.  I'm the kind of guy that has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time so something is going to suffer.

The other situation that leads to this horrendous noise is cypress.  When I cut cypress, bark is hanging all over the place.  The mill is covered in it and the ground is covered in it.......it's everywhere.....everywhere.

The dogs will be raised (or lowered) behind strands of this stringy bark hanging from the log and if my attention is misdirected, I'll not notice that it is in the way of the blade.  It doesn't help when Off Bearers stand between me and the dogs making it difficult to see around them.  With all these obstacles along with a case of ''Attention Deficit Disorder"  (I diagnosed myself) I'm bound to tear something up. :D

Actually it isn't all too bad.  I don't do it frequently enough to worry about it too much.  I hit the dog of my woodmizer once way back in the early '90's and the clamp somewhere around 98.  This mill has had its dogs hit 3 times since I purchased it in 99.

[J Beyer]

The next time you saw into a dog and PETA heres about it, you are screwed! :D :D :D

People Eating Tasty Animals might do this to you if you do not share next time:

   

[LeeB]

I would really like to know about the blades. how did they do, or did you not actually get to do any sawing wood with them? Is this a new version of the woodmaster c? I have been using a blade from lenox called woodmaster c for about a year and a half. Pretty good blades. Pics of the new one in the mags look like it might be coated with something, ie. the purle color, or is that just the picture fooling me? PLease tell us about the blade. LeeB :P

[C_Miller]

I was cutting a white pine with a crotch that had been skidded thru the mud top first.

I scraped off the mud and was going great guns when the blade ground to a halt. that was literal bty. they had jammed a fieldstone about  1 1/2" thick by about 5" around into the crotch and i had it split into 3/4" slices halfway thru.

Carried that rock in my truck for years just to remind me.

[Tom]

For a serious moment, Leeb, I have been using Lenox woodmaster C blades on my Baker 3638 for 3 years now and they perform very well.  I had problems initially with their life but it turned out to be my having my guides not properly adjusted. If I don't do something stupid I get 1000 to 1500 feet before they dull enough to give me problems.  I have gotten over 2000 feet in cypress but the soft wood is cut even by a blade on the dull side. I pull them before they dull too much because the heat and stress destroy them whether I notice it or not.  My blades are 17' 4" and even though I get more footage than on my 13' 2" Simonds Red Streaks for my Woodmizer, I don't get but about 2 or 3 sharpenings  to the Red Streaks 5 to 8.  

Some of this may have to do with the encreased horsepower on the Baker allowing me to push harder or it may be just the nature of the beast.  I've noticed that the Lenox is stiffer than the Red Streak.  I've tried the Lenox on the Woodmizer without very good results.  I tried the Red Streaks on the Baker without very good results.  They both perform good on their individual machines.

It's not to my advantage to do too much of this type of testing.  Neither was designed to cut metal, I think. :D :D