Official Luthiers Forum!

So I will be receiving my new bandsaw here on Thursday and am very excited. I ended up getting the Grizzly 17" G0513X2B over the Rikon for a few reasons, the biggest being that I really like having a blade brake.

Anyways, I have been look at blades for a week now and am probably as undecided or more than I fist started looking. The selection is endless. I do think I know what I want for a resaw blade so that is not my issue (Lenox Woodmaster Ct). It is the general purpose baldes I'm struggling with. There is a ton of info about resaw blades but general purpose bands seem to be overlooked.

I would like a blade for cutting out my top and back plates to rough shape without fear of breaking anything with such thin wood (Just starting my first guitar so bear with me). I would think a 3/8" to 1/2" blade would be fine for this but am just not sure what tooth count to look for. I also want to be able to cut curves in furniture parts at around 3/4" to 2" while leaving a decent surface that only needs a little work with a plane/spokeshave (I like to avoid sandpaper). And lastly I want a blade that will straight line rip rough sawn lumber without working out my resaw blade.

Some direction on where to find these general purpose blades would be a huge help as well. I was originally thinking of going with Highland's general purpose blades as they seem to be reasonably priced. But am not sure if the 3/8" blade they offer is fine enough for cutting out top and back plates (3/8" 4TPI and 1/2" 3TPI)

3/8" 6t skip is a great general purpose blade .

Also , 1/4" 6tpi for cutting tighter curves .

1/2" would be to wide to do much of anything helpfull other than straight line

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Ditto on 1/4 to 3/8" skip tooth (4 or 6 tooth).

I prefer a skip tooth over a "regular" hook tooth because it doesn't self feed. It requires a little more feed pressure but I find it easier to control & more precise.

I don't know about a 17" saw, but on larger saws (i.e. 36") you have to use the brake lightly because you can damage the tires. Granted, ruining a tire is better than loosing a finger, but hard braking for the sake of braking comes at a cost.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I have been using Timberwolf blades for the last few years and have been pretty happy with them. I strictly use the 6 tooth 1/4" blade.....Mike

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+1 timberwolf, for a better quality blade Ask their tech staff to help and advise you.They answered my questions and I bought a bi-metal blade to do occassional resawing.Other places I bought blades from,were order takers and had O tech experrtise,which translates into me spending a lot of $$ on unsuitable blades. By the way anthony it took me 1year to figure out how to set up the 3 planes I bought from japan woodworker, now owned by woodcraft.They never sent me the plane setup sheet . I called woodcraft on monday, downloaded it and spent 5 hrs yesterday, slowly setting up the planes to work correctly 1 smoother and 2 polish planes very very detailed and tricky . Having the planes sit for 1 yr in the house the dai dried out quite a bit and there was a lot of fussing and fiddlng to get them set up properly. I appreciated your experience of using the more expensive kanna by tsuanseburo san ?? But it will be awhile until I have been able to use and master these planes that I will go on and purchase a high quality plane. Thanks for sharing.

Ideally, you want a minimum of 3 teeth in the stock at all times. The thinner the stock, the finer the pitch (more TPI) needed.
As we all know, not everything falls under the definition of ideal, but anytime you have less than two teeth in the cut you're gambling.

To determine if you're using a suitable blade, divide 1 by the TPI, then multiply by 3 (or if you want to be "more risky", multiply by 2). This will tell you the minimum thickness of stock for which you should be using that blade.
Example: You have a blade with 14 TPI. Seems very fine compared your coarse resaw blade, but you wanna get an idea before you start cutting into that expensive backplate. 1 divided by 14 = .0714 multiplied by 3 = .214" minimum stock thickness. If you want to take more risk and calculate 2 teeth in the stock, your minimum thickness could be .143".

Most soundboard material is supplied around .140"+, but I've seen many back plates come as delivered closer to 1/8" (.125") and sides even thinner than that (some side material came in as low as .100"). Some people like this, because it's less thicknessing for them. Some even have the supplier send it already sanded to spec because either they don't have the equipment to do it or they don't want to do it. But keep in mind that the thinner the material, the finer the blade needed for "safe" cuts (safe meaning for the wood).

You can get "fine-tooth" blades in 14, 18, 24, and 32 TPI.
Usually, the 18 and up are only available in narrow widths, but not always. For woodworking saws, premade blades in this pitch range are most commonly sized for the smaller saws. If you can't find a premade blade in your desired TPI that fits your saw, plenty of places will be all to happy to make you one. (Metalworking shops come to mind.)

BTW, I fully realize that lots of folks have used coarser blades for the thin stuff, and I've been guilty of that, too. But you said "without fear". Can't blame you; nobody relishes the thought of having to do repair work at the beginning of a build.

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Always have plenty of sandpaper; it's rough out there!

OK, my experience is with older saws that basically have an automotive style drum brake & a pedal. If you stomp on the pedal, you can snap blades & trash tires.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

1/4" 6T for curves, 1/2" for straighter cuts but you can even use your Woodmaster CT for that... as far as the 3 teeth in the stock, well I have cut rather thin materials on a 6T before, and it works however the cut quality isn't that good and it makes a lot of noise. However you should be cutting the stock larger than they should be particularly soundboards, as you tend to have a little bit of movement and the larger stock gives you room...

I don't know about Timberwolf but enough people have said they are no better than regular carbon steel blades (and this includes prominent people like Iturra) that it's not worth the higher price compared to carbon steel. Just go with bimetal. I am currently using carbon steel 1/4" 6T for curve cuts, because I have a coil of them that I just weld up... going to wait until I run out of that before I get some diemasters.

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