Bandsaw Question?

M

Mike Trudel

Well-known member
Will increasing my pulley size from 2 1/2" to 3" give me more power when cutting thick wood?

I replaced my 1/2hp motor last winter with a 3/4hp sealed motor and dropped from 4 tooth skip to 3 tooth skip on my blade, but have not seen an increase in cutting power.

My friends tell me the Sears Craftsman 12" bandsaw is a hobby saw, but my use is now beyond "hobby", and that I should by a 2hp bandsaw, but my funds this year need to go towards a new layout boat, as my my 50+ year old one has given up the ghost.
 
Will increasing my pulley size from 2 1/2" to 3" give me more power when cutting thick wood?

I replaced my 1/2hp motor last winter with a 3/4hp sealed motor and dropped from 4 tooth skip to 3 tooth skip on my blade, but have not seen an increase in cutting power.

My friends tell me the Sears Craftsman 12" bandsaw is a hobby saw, but my use is now beyond "hobby", and that I should by a 2hp bandsaw, but my funds this year need to go towards a new layout boat, as my my 50+ year old one has given up the ghost.
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If you are talking the drive pulley, then no. If you increase the size of the drive pulley you will speed up the blade and lose power. To increase power you would go with a smaller drive pulley, but lose blade speed.
 
I tried to correlate this with my bike sprockets, but isn't blade speed tantamount to increased cutting capacity in thick wood? The faster the blade turns, the quicker the cut wood is expelled, right?
 
I tried to correlate this with my bike sprockets, but isn't blade speed tantamount to increased cutting capacity in thick wood? The faster the blade turns, the quicker the cut wood is expelled, right?
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You said power, and I interpreted you to mean torque. If you increase the drive gear size, you will increase the blade speed, but it will take less force to stop it. I don't know what the magic ratio of speed to torque is for cutting thick wood. I would say before you mess around a lot with changing out the drive pulley, I would look into different blade styles and manufacturers. Have you tried any of the fancy blades (like timberwolf, but there are a few), I've used them in the past and they are very noticible in terms of cut speed and quality (almost to the point of being dramatic), but they are expensive and you can ruin one just as quick as a regular blade if you cut a nail or stone (in cork). I think a hook style blade would be the go to blade for thick wood, but I always use the same as you 3 or 4 TPI skip tooth.

Where is Jeff when you need him?

T
 
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Mike,

As Todd mentioned what you need for cutting thicker wood is more torque, not speed. Going back to your bike analogy, the thicker you increase the wood is the same as increasing the grade of a hill you are climbing with your bike. To make it up the hill you shift gears to either a smaller one on the crank (the motor) or a larger one on the wheel hub (the driven pulley). Doing so gives your legs (the motor) enough strength (hp) to carry the increased load.

Yes this will decrease the blade speed however that is not necessarily a bad thing. The act of sawing wood generates heat. Doesn't matter if is a hand powered saw or a large sawmill it all generates heat. The thicker wood will capture more heat than a thinner piece. It can capture enough that the blade heats up to the point of causing problems. A slower blade speed will offset this by decreasing the amount of heat generated in the first place.

Keep in mind that a slower blade speed will require you to feed the wood thru at a slower rate as well. Your 3/4hp motor is only going to do so much work. No matter how you gear it you can't increase the total output.
 
Mike, I have the same bandsaw and understand your problem. A lot of the weakness of this saw is the weight of the wheels. They are too light. If they were made out of cast iron that would help some. Mine the motor is too small. You have put on a larger motor that's fine. A smaller pulley on the motor as mentioned will give you more power and slower speed. This as mentioned will help for not heating up the saw blade. "This is critical " A new sharp blade can be ruined in one cut. Again as mention not all saw blades are equal. Cutting out a decoy head 2" thick is slow going. I cut out a full lenght maple gun stock for a muzzel loader with mine real slow. After burning up several blades this is what I learned. Harder the wood smaller the teeth on the saw. What worked best for maple was a metal cutting saw blade. I also lubercated the saw blade You can use wax or fuel oil. Do this often. Go slow, Saw starts to bog down back off with the Craftsman you know this is often.

I have Three bandsaws a 8" which is good for real small pieces of wood 1/4" 1/2" The twelve inch Craftsman and 30" Fay & Eagon. Each has its place. If money were no object a 16" would be ideal.
The largest bandsaw I operated was a 40" monster with 4" wide blades. We had a cabinet maker come in and ask us if he could resaw some 14" boards, no problem.

The Fine Wood Working Magazine put out some books years ago on wood working machines that had a artical on building a saw for cutting thick wood. 6" by 8" The fellow who wrote the artical had to cut a bunch of wood blocks and built the saw. It was patterned after some antique saws he saw. Operated by foot power. Looks like you could build it in a couple of days. If you are interested I could find the book and give you the details by Email. Are you going to the Oshkosh show this year?
 
You also want the biggest, nastiest toothed blade you can fit on your saw for resawing thick stock. Sharp turns are the hardest thing on blades.
 
Mike - The larger the pulley, the easier it is on your blades. They will fatigue slower. Increase in power would be dependent on HP of motor. Personally, I'd recommend 1HP or greater for decoys because of the thickness of wood we use. I use a 4 teeth per inch, hook tooth, 1/4 inch blade for all my decoy work. Thinner blades have less friction.

I also get all my blades at

AAA Saw & Tool Service & Supply
1407 W Washington Blvd
Chicago, IL 60607
(312) 738-4100


They are the best! They will make any blade you want to size, carry all ranges of quality and generally have them at your door step within a week of your order.

See you at Oshkosh!
 
Mike, I agree with Pat on the HP of the saw, seems a bit underpowered. For the big stuff that you do sometimes I would assume your feed rate is really slow on those geese for the profile cuts. Bigger does matter, however, getting a nice huge 17 or 20" saw is hardly justified for most of us.

His tip on saw blade size is nice too, I agree on the 1/4" 4 TPI but I use the link below. Check them out. They will not fail to impress you on just how long they stay sharp right out of the box.

http://www.tufftooth.com/

I am not real sure where Pete was going with the harder the wood the smaller the tooth though, that is quite contrary to most everything I have witnessed or read. Mark Dunginske of the bandsaw handbook fame will state that less teeth with aggressive cut with LARGE gullets are the key (that is why Tufftooth is picked by me FYI)

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Your-Bandsaw-Mark-Duginske/dp/B000H6ECBK

Good luck either way.

Oh, when is the Oshkosh show this year?

Pat, you are going?
 
Erick, In hard maple with the 12" craftsman. 2 1/2" thick The saw is under powered. The blades were bought at Fleet Farm. Not the quality of blade that should be used in hard wood of that thickness. They would dull and over heat in just a few inches. They would be alright in soft wood. Only blades that we had that would cut were metal blades. We cut out two different gun stocks, Very slow going but at the time our only option.

The optimum solution is get the best blades you can. They will pay for themselves in the long run. Know the RPM and talk to the blade seller like Tuff tooth. Tell them the RPM and what wood you are cutting. A soft wood blade is different than a hard wood blade A band saw set up right is a beauty one that isn't is the other word that starts with a B..... That's where a book on tuning one is worth it's weight in gold.

Mark Dunginske is right on. The key here is good blades with enough offset to maximize the width of the cut. That promotes less heat on the blade. The gullets large enough to take away the cut saw dust. An aggressive cut is what you want in soft wood less so in hard wood. The amount of money I spent on consultants for both saw and blades I could have bought a nice 16" band saw.
 
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