Check those band saw blades!

[mudnducs]

You have to take into account the fact that a blade can only be mounted on the saw in one orientation, i.e., with the teeth on the outer side of the drive wheel.

Try this gedankenexperiment...


Blade on (assumed vertical) bandsaw - teeth pointing down (will cut on downstroke)

Flip blade as shown on video, teeth still point down but I have to rotate blade 180 degrees about vertical axis to remount on bandsaw (toothed side of blade must be on outside of drive wheel).

Teeth now point up and will not cut.


Draw some teeth on a strip of paper and try it using a coin or bottle cap to simulate the bandsaw drive wheel.

I'm lost. If the teeth are pointing 'out'...you just orient the blade so the teeth are pointing down when you install it...?

[NortonDommi]

Try this with the piece of paper strip:
Cut strip off long side of piece of A4 paper about 3/4",(19.05mm), wide.
Glue ends together with paper glue.
Draw teeth on outside with an arrow above denoting direction of cut and which edge faces 'down' towards material to be cut.
Flip loop of paper inside-out as per video and place with drawn teeth in 'down' position.
Drawn teeth and arrow will now be on the [I]inside[B][B] of paper loop and facing in opposite direction to what was originally drawn.

I've been caught out enough times by assuming something that I make a conscious effort to double or triple check all set ups before applying power of any kind including human.
Assumption is the mother of all stuff-ups and presumption is the father.

[gunsgt1863]

A place I used to work at had a BIG old Grob band saw with a built in blade welder so we would make our own blades. So the FNG that "knew" how to do it made a blade with the welded ends opposite each other (teeth on one side on one side of the weld, teeth on the back side on the other side of the weld so the blade ended up a Mobius strip!). So I said (after the WTF moment) "we can cut the weld and re-weld it" since there was about 2-3 inches of adjustment. So I cut the weld, clean the ends and sure enough, he cut it 6 inches short. BTW, he was fired 4 months later.

[Frank S]

A place I used to work at had a BIG old Grob band saw with a built in blade welder so we would make our own blades. So the FNG that "knew" how to do it made a blade with the welded ends opposite each other (teeth on one side on one side of the weld, teeth on the back side on the other side of the weld so the blade ended up a Mobius strip!). So I said (after the WTF moment) "we can cut the weld and re-weld it" since there was about 2-3 inches of adjustment. So I cut the weld, clean the ends and sure enough, he cut it 6 inches short. BTW, he was fired 4 months later.

Those guys usually don't last long, they can bring a well functioning shop to it's knees in a short while just having to go behind them and correct their mistakes.