Laguna 14/12 blades keep breaking

[Steve Cowart]

I bought a magnetic LED light that I have on my Laguna and when I tension the blade I turn the light on. I don't turn it off unless I release the tension on the blade. The light makes a great reminder.

[John C Cox]

Yes... 2 good lessons in here I learned the hard way..

Take the tension off the band when you are done cutting.
Dont cut curves with resaw and low tooth bands.

[John Hodge]

My problem is forgetting to tension the blade when I go to turn the saw on. I'm hoping that I've broke myself of that oversight.

At any rate, I was playing around with the saw again. I needed to make a small resew so I went ahead and put the RK blade on and tensioned it towards the top end of the 3/4" setting on the scale. It was doing the whole ticking thing during the cut along with little stripes when examining the cut with a light off to the side.

I noticed that the blade just didn't really feel as tight as I might expect so I went ahead and increased the tension significantly. Although the tension gauge is well into the red, I still have some space between the coils of the spring. The thing is, from my preliminary testing it looks like the ticking/stiping is gone.

Could it have been a lack of tension all along that was causing my problem?

[Al Weber]

To avoid starting the saw without tensioning the blade I remove the little yellow lockout from the power switch, and stick it to the table with a magnet so that I have to insert the lockout piece when I get ready to use the saw again. Just glue a small magnet to the lockout piece.

[John Hodge]

I found out tonight that right now the tension gauge seems to be completely worthless. While I was changing blades I noticed that the gauge can be tensioned up to the 3/4"+ area even when there is no blade on the saw. I suspect something is binding in the upper wheel assembly causing the spring to get compressed prematurely.

Maybe this weekend I'll start taking stuff apart and see what happens.

[Larry Frank]

The best thing I did was to measure the actual tension. I have an older Jet 16" and to my surprise the gauge on the saw was very close.

I followed the suggestions of an earlier thread and used my digital caliper attached to my blade.

[Barry McFadden]

My previous bandsaw was a Craftsman 12" and in 30 years the only time it was de-tensioned was to change the blade. When I got a new saw recently it is the first for me with the tension lever. I was afraid that I would start it up with the tension off as well so I printed this out and glued it onto a piece of wood and put a rare earth magnet on the back. Now when I go to use the saw it's staring me right in the face. When the saw is in use I just stick it on the back above the tension lever so I see it when I de-tension and remember to move it to the front....

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