One blade to cut them all...

[ArkTinkerer]

I am cleaning/fixing a large vertical bandsaw (5hp 3ph) for general use in the shop. Changing blades on it will be a pain. I will change blades if I have a lot of a specialized cuts for a project but most of the time I just want a blade to make a somewhat clean cut and not bind or get dull too fast. I have purchased a VFD to allow variable speed. I want to have a good general purpose blade on it that is good for both wood and metal. I'm figuring bimetal but not sure what blade is best for all around usage. I do have a blade welder--got a good buy and it seemed to make sense given the unusual size and cost of blades. (Never tried to weld bimetal blades before--is that an issue?) What do you folks think are the best general purpose shop blades?

 

[FMB4]

Lenox bi metal at a mid or lower tooth count imo.

 

[CallumRD1]

The real question is what do you plan on cutting and what blade speed range do you have. With a bimetal blade, wood cuts best above 3000 feet per minute, aluminum around 1000, mild steel around 200, and stainless steel below 100. If your saw is designed for woodworking speeds then it will work great for aluminum but you're going to have trouble slowing it down enough get your blades to survive cutting steel. That being said, I'm a fan of Lenox Diemaster 2 bimetal blades for pretty much everything I cut. I keep a 6/10 variable tpi blade in my bandsaw that gets used for cutting ~1/2" aluminum most frequently. That blade will do fine cutting 1.5" thick aluminum and wood but I'll switch to a 4 tip blade for cutting thicker stock or resawing wood.

 

[dr_clyde]

While we all would love to not change blades on the bandsaw, that's not realistic if you cut a variety of materials. A blade designed to cut 1/4" steel will do poorly on wood or plastic, and vice versa.

I use a 14/16 variable tooth blade on my DoAll vertical saw. It mostly cuts metals, up to 1/4". I change blades if going thicker or will be sawing any sort of soft material.

You can probably get away with 3 blades, one for thin-ish metals, one for thick-ish metals and one for wood. Of course, this doesn't take into account contour sawing, which the blade width is very important. Can't cut small circles with a big thick blade.

 

[slowtwitch73]

Bimetal is a ***** to weld with a blade welder. Works to Tig it and some guys silver braze it.

 

[RTM]

Terrifying thought for me. I run 3TPI in my wood bandsaw, and up to 24 in my PortaBand. I can't imagine the speed loss on the wood end, or the quality on the metal end from using an in between blade. But I'm just a DIY guy.

 

[slowtwitch73]

I cut wood on a metal blade if its already mounted and the project is small and not critical in any way.

Never cut metal with the wood blade although some guys do cut Al with wood blades.

Changeout isnt that big a deal.. in a perfect world I'd have dedicated bandsaws.

 

[tyyost]

That’s a decent sized saw. Like the other posters I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d try to cut a piece of 2” Schedule 40 pipe steel and then resaw an oak log. Tooth count, blade speed, etc all matter way too much.

That said if I was a metal shop that occasionally cut some wood I’d get a Lennox Bi-Metal diemaster 2 in whatever width suited you and a 10/14 tooth count.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

I was thinking being able to vary the speed would make up somewhat for the difference in tooth count. A lot of my metal cutting gets done on a cold saw and I plan to revisit my plasma cutter soon. But sometimes a big vertical bandsaw is just what one needs to make a few cuts on metal. I realize it is a tradeoff. If resawing wood or a big wood or metal project of some sort I'd almost certainly change the blade out. But I see lots of cutting of modest materials of all sorts and changing the blade on the big saw is not like one of the small saws. And frankly, the shop is getting too crowded. It is hard to have dedicated tools for every task. The small saws will be going away.

 

[RoninB4]

It's a rule of thumb to have at least 2-3 teeth in the material to avoid ripping out teeth. So your material cross section in the cut can make quite a difference. I've always liked Lenox blades at work and prefer not to weld blades. Most of the time there is an existing blade welder on the vertical band saws at work but sometimes they can be finicky to get a decent weld that holds up. Sometimes the blade welders work just fine and then it's not a big deal. I'd buy a quality made blade and be more concerned about feed/speed to make it last and THEN try finding out if the welder works well or not. Just my .02

 

[slowtwitch73]

You end up getting burning/smoking on wood if you run a metal cutting blade too fast.