welded bandsaw blades

[Paul Steiner]

My shop goes through 50 blades a year. We use starrett's 93.5 and 95. We are considering getting a welder and buying 100' coils of blade. Buy our estimations the machine would pay for itself in 2 years or less. Do the welded blades last as long? Feedback is appreciated.

[Richard Coers]

All blades are welded, no matter where you buy them. Silver solder (hard solder) works very well too on a skive joint on the blade stock. I haven't bought a pre made blade in years. The hard solder is easier, welding high carbon steel isn't easy and annealing is needed after the weld, besides of course the grinding of the weld to make it smooth.

[Chuck Saunders]

We had a welder in the shop I was in and welded all our blades. Done correctly, you will have no issues at all.

[Gary Curtis]

My new bandsaw blades (3) came from a saw sharpening shop that serviced lumber mills near the Calif/Oregon border. He silver soldered. To give you some perspective, my bicycle is made of Italian tube steel. Extremely thinwall tubing. It too was silver soldered and has seen 6,000 miles with no ill effects.

[steven c newman]

In a Maintainence shop at a factory I once worked at, their Bandsaw had a welder attached to the machine. Break a blade, re-weld it right on the spot, re-install and get back to work. Like I said, the welder was a part of the bandsaw.

[John McClanahan]

If you look at large band saws on ebay, many of them have on-board blade welders.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Welding blades is both a science and an art. You can read about the right techniques, but practice is everything. Some (not me) have a better knack for welding blades.

[Van Huskey]

As has been mentioned all bands are welded from band stock like you are considering. Most metal cutting BS have onboard welders because of the frequency of blade breakage. It takes some time to get the hang of it but it isn't that hard. Start with bands as long as the saw will properly tension, that way you can reweld if you don't get it right without losing 8 feet of band.

[Bruce Page]

I welded a lot of blades back in my machinist days. Like Van said, once you get the hang of it, it is not difficult to do. Not all welders are created equal. I always had the best results with the DoAll welders.

[Guy Belleman]

I am not an expert, but I think there are two different methods for joining the ends of a saw blade; brazing and welding. Seems like I have seen brazing kits for less than $50, that uses a small torch. Probably a better jig wouldn't be much more. Don't know about a welding rig, but I would think that a full size setup wouldn't be needed, so the cost wouldn't be too high. The experts here might be able to offer some advice on jig setup to get and after brazing/welding, the grinding needed to smooth out the joint.

[Paul Steiner]

Thank you all for the input. I plan on practicing on broken blades before starting on the new blade coils. Can anyone recommend a vendor for blade coils?

[Bruce Wrenn]

As little as Woodcraft Bands charges for blades, I can't see myself wasting precious shop time welding blades.

[Van Huskey]

MSC carries a bunch, they used to carry Lenox and Starrett I don't know about now. You should be able to find it local without any issues.

Bruce is right DoAll makes an excellent welder, I also really like the Grob as well. You may want to look for a used one, the only potential issue is a lot of them are 3 phase. One other option that may sound rediculous would be to look for a used DoAll or Grob. I have seen these in good shape go for less than the cost of a new welder and who doesn't need another bandsaw... This option would only probably only be viable if you have three phase power.

Edit: You know I just went back and reread the original post, "only" 50 blades a year, you may want to rethink your math OR find a resonably priced source for bands. If you are going through that many bands I assume you are using bi-metal, which although I haven't done a hard price on bandstock Lenox bi-metal usually runs about $4 a foot in 100' coils. An 8' blade will be about $32 in band stock you can get 8' Lenox Diemaster 2 blades for $34 from Spectrum Supply (just as an example), buy 11 or more and get them under $30. You may be able to get the band stock cheaper but I don't think you are going to save the cost of a welder (certainly not a good new one) on 100 bands. Welders are generally used in situations where you BREAK bands a lot, like metal work.