I have a Blade Question

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

There is a sawmill about 30 miles from me that saws anything and everything and ships lumber to China. 
A couple of guys I know work there and they brought me a band blade that was thrown out from breakage.
This blade is 8 inches wide and about 35 feet in length.
I used 22 feet of it to put a border on my shed.



 

 

Ya see the teeth......then on the opposite edge the edge design was made to remove sawdust more efficiently.

So my question is....if Woodmizer, Kasco and other blade companies designed their blades this way would it remove more sawdust than it does now?



 

[firefighter ontheside]

My thought is that it would not be as noticeable on 1 1/4" blade as it is on an 8" blade.  Also, would those "teeth" need to hang off the back of the wheel?

[Lawg Dawg]

I would think that would not work with the roller guides, but I'm thinking I need a saw to run a blade like that! Dang, how many board feet a day do they run?

That's what they call a Nitro Turbo 7  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

David,

   I saw a blade about that size used on a big commercial sawmill in The Central African republic around 2003 or so when we vacationed there. I don't know what the tooth profile looked like because that was long before I was a mill owner or interested in becoming one. They were cutting tropical hardwoods. We watched them cut about a 4' diameter log. I stood beside one in the log yard that was over 6' in diameter. I remember them moving a laser template around the small end of the log till they figured they had maximized the yield then they locked it in and the mill rotated and clamped and cut the profile selected which I thought was super cool especially in such a remote and desolate area.

   I saw 2 men carrying a blade like you describe and it was a pretty good load for both of them. They had another blade on a sharpening station and a welder was welding a spot of metal on each tooth to build it up then it was run through a sharpening station to grind each tooth to the appropriate hook angle. 

   The mill was run by a French concern. OSHA was not around. Workers were wearing shorts with flip flops and no shirts. I don't think I saw a pair of gloves or a hard hat on the site. The only white man I saw was a Frenchman apparently grading logs in the yard. He warned us to be careful around an old machinery pile as there were pythons and cobras in it. He told us a python had eaten the Project Director's dog the week before. They let us go anywhere in the mill and take all the pictures we wanted. We ended up in the boiler room where the sawdust was being blown in to burn and generate the steam to run the plant. I don't think my wife ever got all the sawdust out of one of her lenses. 

   I remember the log yard was overrun by goats who were scampering over the log piles everywhere. The slabs were dumped near the front gate as a PR project and the whole local village seemed to have been built with them and everyone was burning them for cooking fuel. It was a neat visit.

[Southside]

I was told that the back "teeth" were actually there to reduce the strings that come out of the exit side of a cut when sawing wood like poplar and such.  I think they break them off.  

[Lawg Dawg]

 I think they break them off.  

The teeth or the strings?

[LeeB]

Perhaps New member @SeaPickle will come along and help with this. He works with those big blades.

[Banjo picker]

That made for some nice decoration there Mr. goat.  Banjo

[Southside]

I think they break them off.  

The teeth or the strings?

Sorry, I think the "teeth" break off the strings to clean up the cut.

[Bradm]

A few mills local to me run almost that exact size of blade.  That tooth on the back is a splinter tooth.  They help on the single cut band from catching splinters when the carriage returns.

[CCCLLC]

Bradm is correct, only I always called them" sliver teeth". Keeps the back of saw from snagging on wood on the return gig. 
Yes, I've actually seen them cut a few inches on the back return. Not straight tho!

[thecfarm]

I have seen them at a pallet mill. They had a softwood mill out back and I saw them blades there. I can't remember if they looked like that or not. I remember wide and a big loop.

[curved-wood]

 
Here is some other options with band blades. Denis Marceau is an artist that use 10'' band saw that has teeth on both side so they cut backwords as well. He cuts it in strips, weld back with the teeth face to face. With a lazer he cut some historical image about the history of the river with many scene about logger and wood floating. They are like pictures frames in a film. That piece has a lenth of around 10 feet.