Need help ordering blades

[Joe Hillmann]

I have my mill built and in order to go any further I need to get a blade(I only want to order one for now to make sure I get the right length) I am planing to order a lenox woodmaster C. 

I plan to get 1 1/4x .035x 1 tpi.  I mostly expect to cut pine.  Should I be looking at a wider blade or more/less tpi?  I will be running it on a homemade mill using car tires for wheels and a 14 hp engine.  I expect the final blade speed to be around 4800 fpm.

[Delawhere Jack]

Did you build the mill to use a standard blade length? 12' and 13'2" are the most common on smaller mills. You can have custom lengths made, but standard lengths are generally in stock and ready to ship.

1 1/4" bands are your best choice. .035 or .042., 7/8" tooth spacing. What diameter are your band wheels?

7 - 9 degree teeth will work fine. With 14HP tooth angle won't make a noticeable difference.

[hackberry jake]

Call Menominee saw. There is a link on the left of this page. They will set you up.

[Joe Hillmann]

Did you build the mill to use a standard blade length? 12' and 13'2" are the most common on smaller mills. You can have custom lengths made, but standard lengths are generally in stock and ready to ship.

1 1/4" bands are your best choice. .035 or .042., 7/8" tooth spacing. What diameter are your band wheels?

7 - 9 degree teeth will work fine. With 14HP tooth angle won't make a noticeable difference.

I didn't take blade length into consideration when I built the mill.  I just built up a mock up blade out of plumbers strap soldered together and mounted it on the mill.  I kept taking it apart and making it 1/2" shorter until I got it to the length that worked.  I need to measure it in the morning to find the length.

The wheels are 24" in diameter.

[Delawhere Jack]

With 24" wheels you can use thicker bands. But with 14HP you probably won't want to go thicker than .045.

My first mill was 13HP, and 9deg bands worked well for any wood I milled. You probably don't want to go to any greater hook angle as it would be too aggressive for the amount of HP you have.

[bandmiller2]

A few thoughts Joe. Your tire wheels are big and you will need longer bands to give you width of cut. Thicker bands will resist having the set taken out of the inner set teeth by the tires. Possibly wider bands like 1 1/2" will be more stable. I would go with the standard 7/8" tooth spacing. Call band suppliers many will send you a test band free. Usally when designing and building a bandmill you start with a band first and build a mill to fit it. Frank C.

[Cguignard]

I run a smaller mill, 13hp, and have used the woodmaster c bands.  I have had better results in pine with .042 Lenox woodmaster c sharp.  These bands are made for sawmills, the woodmaster c are made for resawing. I have had blade breakage issues with them on my mill, but the c sharps have run fine, in pine, hemlock and red oak.
Just my .02$

[Magicman]

Give Wood-Mizer a call.  They will weld up any length blades that you need.  Also, they will then resharpen it.