Q: Bandsaw Speeds?

Evening all,

I've taken delivery today of a 3-speed Warco band-saw. Can anyone suggest please, which speeds I can or should use for 2.0" EN-8 and 1.25" EN-19?, both round bar. At the moment I have the supplied carbon blade of 14TPI. The speeds available are 21/30/44 m/min as printed on the machine, (slightly different to the website data).

Also, how do I judge the cutting pressure? Is this something learned through doing?

Thanks,
Ed.

Just as a matter of interest, the 2" EN-8 has taken me 24 minutes to cut through by hand, with a few breathers in between.

The manual I have suggests 80FPM Ed.

From the manual

Tool, Stainless or Alloy steel 80FPM

Bearing Bronzes, Mild Steel, Hard brass or Bronze 120FPM

Soft Brass, Alluminium, other light materials 200FPM

30m/min should be about right.

I have a similar bandsaw and leave it on the middle setting for everything...

Lovely job, thank you guys.

Regards,
Ed.

Ed, your carbon steel blade may be just fine and may last a long while. If it loses teeth or breaks repeatedly though, consider replacing it with a bimetal HSS type blade from a good name supplier like Starrett or Lennox etc. I've had exceptionally long life with my blades of this type, in many types of steel including tool steels and stainless, as well as copper based alloys and aluminum alloys. My saw runs at a fixed speed of 150 FPM for all. I never force it, just let it cut, and it does the job asked of it. Good luck with your saw.

Thank you Jeff, that's good to know.

Cheers,
Ed.

Admittedly I have the smaller saw than yours but have had all sorts of trouble with bimetal blades - they seem to be much stiffer and stress the weld in the tight twists - eventually breaking before the teeth are close to being worn.

The good news is though that flexible HCS blades (such as those from tuffsaws **LINK**) will cut just fine - even cutting silver steel and stainless without too much trouble. My bandsaw stays set on the slowest speed as it's too much of a fiddle to change and that way my blade lasts longest and it doesn't take too long.

HTH

Jon

I would have thought that a carbon steel blade cutting mild Steel would be safest on the lowest speed. A saw blade gets plenty of cool time so higher speeds may be OK as long as the section is small enough to not overheat the teeth while cutting. The higher speeds would be appropriate for sawing light alloy etc. The posters above with practical experience of their saws seem to be happy with the higher speeds. It is only going to cost the price of a blade to find out if the higher ranges are a bit fast for your choice of blade. Heat is the enemy of a carbon steel blade and they fail very quickly if overheated. High speed steel is much more tolerant of heat and can be worked harder or abused without failing. The nice thing about saws is they can be left to get on with the job while you do something else, if possible a bit of forward planning should not have you waiting for the saw to finish but of course that is not always the case.

Mike

Me too, but I was able to fix it.

Of all the Chinese gear I've bought, the bandsaw was by far the roughest. It came with a Carbon Blade that only lasted a few months, but at least the blade wore out without breaking. I replaced it with an expensive bimetal blade that snapped across the weld after about a month. However, whilst fitting the new blade, I'd noticed quite a few minor problems with the bandsaw:

• The blade wasn't running quite true through the rollers.
• It was impossible to adjust the blade tension properly because the cast body of the saw fouled the adjuster. Not by much, 10 minutes with a file fixed it before fitting the second blade.
• After fitting the second blade, suspicions aroused, I first made certain the blade was true before listening carefully to the blade running off load. I heard a tiny periodic click traced to a slight ridge on the motor end drive wheel, again a casting problem. This too was easily fixed with less than 60 seconds filing.

I think the first bimetallic blade broke because the weld was stressed by the combination of over-tensioning, slight twist, and bumping over a ridge. Since applying the fixes the second blade appears to be immortal. It's still cutting well after nearly 5 years. For reasons of laziness I usually run the saw at it's lowest speed, which probably helps too.

Despite the problems and obvious shortcomings, this cheap bandsaw is by far the most appreciated tool in my workshop. It cuts straighter than I do while saving huge amounts of time and much hard labour!

Might be worth giving yours a critical inspection, quite likely it would benefit from a little fettling.

Dave

Thanks for the tip Dave, I might give it the once-over then and try again with a bi-metal blade.

Jon