Audible band blade tension gauge

[StorminN]

Hi guys,

The recent blade tension strain gauge thread reminded me that I've been meaning to ask if anyone has ever tried tensioning a band blade using a "plucking" method, to see what note it rang out as?

I came across this guy's web page recently... you enter six values for your blade and saw, and his web page then calculates the frequency that the band should ring out at, when properly tensioned. You can then use an inexpensive guitar tuner and make sure your band is tensioned properly... "in tune".

We recently got some new blades for our Baker resaw... carbide tipped Lennox's... might try it out on them. Check out the web page here, I'd like to hear what you guys think:

Thien Audible Tension Gauge for Bandsaws (Beta)

-Norm.

[Chico]

Interesting
Chico

[bandmiller2]

Twang your majic twanger frogie, why not ,probibly more accurate than a strain gauge.Possibly deflection between two points with a standard force applied would also work as they tension belts.Frank C.

[StorminN]

why not ,probibly more accurate than a strain gauge.

Yeah, the guy says that the main problem with the strain gauge method is that you're supposed to start with the blade having no slack in it, but no strain either... and that's a gray area... so the baseline is hard to repeat with any accuracy... and if you can't get and accurate baseline for the strain gauge, you can't get an accurate reading when tensioned.

This blade plucking method makes sense to me, just like a big bass string...

-Norm.

[Chico]

That what I was saying every saw would be diff you'd have to mark every saw and keep up with them for the individual measurements which would change as the saw is used as the back strecthes jmo
Chico
I like the tone idea  we always set every saw the same with a pressure ga. on air strain or a level mark on a manual strain

[Stephen1]

someone on here a while ago mentioned that he likes to hear a certain note when he taps his blade. I have tried that and I am not certain what the note actually is but the blade cuts the best when I hit it. I should get my sons guitar tuner out to see what the note is ;D

[barbender]

C Sharp!

[LeeB]

You could always use the flutter method. Then it would play B flat.