Official Luthiers Forum!

hello,

in near future I have to buy new Bandsawblades for resawing Ziricote etc. After spending hours in the net, searching and reading I am willing to pay about 700 Dollars for 5 Woodmaster CT. I have to order at least 5, otherwise they won't start manufaturing for me.

This is quite a bit of money for me, so this will be my last post about this, too often, discussed topic, BUT:

Do you have any thoughts, recommandations, tips or hints for me?

The kerfmaster looks also nice, but the price....olalalalal

What do you think?

THANX a lot, Alex

I just got my big bandsaw up & running & put a Woodmaster CT 1.3 tpi blade on it. I bought the blade from Spectrum Supply.

Unfortunately, it's the first carbide tipped bandsaw blade I've used so I can't compare it to anything but it works great. I've heard that the kerf is a little wider & the finish is a little rougher than the Laguna. The Lenox can't be resharpened where the Laguna can be resharpened 3 or 4 times assuming it's practical to send it back to Laguna.

I did cut Walnut, Ziricote, Cocobolo, Padauk, African Blackwood, Bubinga, Wenge, Camatillo, and Sapelle with it. The only woods that gave me any issues were the Cocobolo & Camatillo but this was the sticky oily dust sticking to the freshly sawn wood - perhaps a faster feed rate would have helped. The finish on all the woods was better than any carbon steel blade I've used.

I don't know anything about your saw, but be sure your saw can handle a 1" blade. I know that my smaller saw (14" Delta) can't.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Thanks for sharing about the woodmaster CT. What make and HP of saw are you using ??. Am planning to upgrade my minimax s-45 to a dedicated bandsaw resaw machine.

I bought a couple of Woodmaster CT's (1" wide - 1.3 tpi) for my Rikon and I've not come close to observing any wear on the first though I've resawn enough material for about 30 instruments. I just finished 32 fretboard blanks out of cocobolo. Love these blades but I don't have another point of reference unless you want to count the near useless blade that came with the saw.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Amen brother - the blade that Rikon sends with the saw was nothing more than an experiment to see how quickly it would rust when I threw it out.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

My saw is a vintage 36" Yates American with a 5HP direct drive motor.

If you have a means to move & house a big old saw, you can usually find them for a pretty reasonable price.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Thank you very much so far.
Especially Todd, thank you for the link to the comparing thread about the CT and the RK.
That was very good, and also a bit like I expected, the RK has just too many teeth, too high TPI for 10 Inch high resawing of exotics. I will go for the CT then.

BTW, my blades have to be 196 inches long, so the resawking from Laguna would be about 350 dollars....then shipping, tax to germany and so on.

I already tried to order / mailorder at spectrum and so, but they don't want to sell / produce / send only one or two blades, but the european distribiution from lenox is very good and helpfull. I can just order at them and I don't have to deal with the customs or so.

For the bandsawjunkies:

This is my saw, a german made Bäuerle BS 70 from 1964, about one ton of steel, wheel diameter about 30 inches, 4 hp 3 phase motor. Big toy.

http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http ... x=56&ty=28

http://www.graf-maschinen.de/vkGrafik/b ... 0er_BG.JPG

FYI..... The Resaw King blade stock is made in Germany.

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Lance Peck

I haven't had much luck with the Re-Saw King blade. Cuts fantastic when new and will cut the softer woods like butter.
Give it a hard wood or a wood with a lot of silica and it will die a quick death. I have been using the Woodmaster CT for quite a while now. The cut is not quite as smooth but it lasts a hell of a lot longer. I still have problems with cocobolo. The dust packs between the blade and the wood pushing the wood sideways and ruining the cut. I recently ordered a Lenox BiMetal blade The Woodmaster B. Wow it works well cutting cocobolo or most really hard woods. The cut is rougher but uniform thickness from end to end. Not sure how long it will last. So far so good.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Nice saw "Mr. Rosewood".

Thanks for the blade info Bob. I think Cocobolo is the most evil stuff to resaw & even worse to run through a sander. I just ruined a belt on my new drum sander trying to thickness some Cocobolo.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

The only experience I have with carbide bandsaw blades is with the Lennox Woodmaster CT, but I can tell you that it has made my old 24" cast iron beast perform like a champ. I resaw mostly softwoods and the occasional exotics, so unless something really weird happens, I don't think I'll need a new blade for a LONG time.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

"FYI..... The Resaw King blade stock is made in Germany."

Oh that explains soooooooooooo much to me, then this ResawKing Blade is just a "normal" blade from this company:

http://www.wikus.de/index.php/de/carbide-program

or perhaps from:

http://www.wespa-simonds.de/nc/produkte ... ebersicht/

I already phoned quite a while ago with the really friendly and helpful guys from Wikus, I already nearly ordered a blade, but for my taste their blades have too much TPI, and they can'T / won't produce a blade with less TPI.

I think you get a really nice "planed like" surface with this high TPI, BUT it is also responsible for glogging, slimying the blade when you cut BRW or COCO.

I also think it is not so important to have a perfect surface with resawing, because I am drumsanding down everything to the real thickness anyhow. So just not too deep marks from the sawblade is ok for me...

Called now with the european Lenox distributor and they are working something out for me. I will let you know as soon as I have some results.

Regards, Alex

I have used both the resaw king and the WM CT on my 21" Bridgewood. I had expected the RK to provide a bit cleaner cut, but I don't see it, and the WM cuts with a bit higher feed rate. I got the WM from Spectrum. I have resawed black walnut, bastogne walnut, bubinga, koa, mango, and butternut into dozens of sets using both blades, and so far both seem to be performing quite well.

Ken