Five Essential Tips For Choosing A Band Saw Blade

The metal cutting industry is advancing with the growth in the technological aspect of the manufacturing business world. These days you can come across a wide range of tools, which are used for achieving precision and accuracy in metal cutting and giving a finished look to the final product. Different projects require different metal cutting tools and techniques to achieve different finished products. One of the most common tools that you can find in all the fabrication centers or every metal cutting industry is Band Saw Blades. If you come across any of the professional saw operators, then you would get to know that they require multiple saws and blades based on the material they wish to cut or what level of precision they wish to achieve. You cannot use just one saw for all the different projects. But the essential point here is how to select the best Band Saw Blade?

When it comes to choosing the right band saw blades, you need to consider various factors such as blade type and blade tooth, size, width, thickness, the shape of the tooth, and pitch. All these factors play an important role in helping you find the right band saw blade.

#1 The Metal Material Used For Cutting: 

While choosing the band saw blades, you must understand what type of material you would cut with it. If the metal is harder then you would require harder blades. If you end up choosing the wrong blade, you might damage the material that is being cut and even the blades. Generally, there are three major types of bandsaw blades that can be used for cutting metals:

High-Speed Steel Band Saw Blade

Carbon Steel Band Saw Blade 

Alloy Steel Band Saw Blade

You can make use of carbon steel blades if you need to cut softer metals such as aluminum, brass, copper, bronze, and various other non-ferrous metals. Besides this, you can use the alloy steel band saw blades for stripping harder metals, and high-steel blades could be used for cutting stainless steel material. 

#2 Choosing The Right Tooth: 

The tooth of the band saw blades is another important factor that will help you in making the right choice of the band saw blades. So you need to focus on the TPI — Teeth Per Inch for determining the feed rate that would be attained to obtain the desired products. So the simple thing to note is that the more the number of teeth, the finer the cut. 

There are different types of bandsaw blades based on the teeth shapes and TPI.

1. Regular-tooth Bandsaw blades

2. Hook-tooth Bandsaw blades

3. Skip-tooth Bandsaw blades

Considering The Measurement Of The Bandsaw Blades: 

You should consider the length of the bandsaw blades, which will help you make the choice of the bandsaw blades really quickly. If you desire to cut a material that is hard and thick, then you should make use of the bandsaw blades that are long and have a high axle-dimension. On the contrary, if the thickness of the material being cut is less, then you can make use of the bandsaw blades that have a low axle-dimension. 

You Must Consider The Pitch Of The Blade: 

Pitch refers to the distance between the one tip of the tooth to the next. If you are required to cut just a thin section of the metal material, then you would need a fine pitch; whereas, if the metal is thick, you should choose the bandsaw blades with a coarse pitch. You can also avail of either constant pitch blades and variable pitch blades for cutting different materials.

Focusing On The Properties of The Bandsaw Blades:

While choosing the bandsaw blades, another important factor that you should consider is the properties of the blade. It will help you to understand what type of cutting you need to perform. The width of the blade refers to the edge of the blade to the tip of the tooth. If the bandsaw blade is wide, you can accommodate, except when cutting contours.

Tooth rake. The rake angle of the tooth is the major deciding factor that will help you in making the right choice. If the rake angle is set positive, then the angle will maximize the tilt of the tooth face and is best suited for thicker solids and heavy-duty wall tubing. If you desire to have a bundle cutting, then the rake angle needs to be less positive. 

Summary:

These are some of the most important tips that will help you to understand what type of bandsaw blade you should select based on what finished products you wish to achieve.