FAQ Category: Carbon Flexback

• When Cutting Curves, The Width Of The Blade Will Determine The Smallest Radius That May Be Cut

• Wide Blades Are Most Often Used For Resawing Or Straight Line Cuts

• Smaller Width Blades Are Used For Smaller Radius Cut

• To Achieve A Smoother, More Refined Cut Choose A Blade That Has More TPI

• The More TPI, The Finer The Cut Will Be; The Fewer Teeth Per Inch, The Rougher The Cut Will Be

• High TPI Configurations Should Be Used On Thinner Materials And May Require A Reduced Material Feed Rate

• Low TPI Configurations Should Be Used On Thicker Materials And May Require A Higher Feed Rate

• Carbon steel blades are usually the best choice for sawing wood, plastic, aluminum, and similar easy-to-cut materials.

• Bi-Metal blades have the best balance of heat resistance, wear resistance, and chip resistance to productively saw most steels and other metals.

• Tungsten Carbide blades provide superior heat and wear resistance for sawing extremely tough metals or very abrasive metals and non-metals.

There are many types of band saws that can use flexback saw blades including Jet, Wilton, Kalamazoo, Tannewitz, Doall, Grizzly, Harborfreight, Powermatic, Wears, 14″ bandsaws, Hyd-Mech and many others. Any light to medium duty vertical bandsaw or horizontal bandsaw typically run carbon bandsaw blades.

Most hobbyists and craftsmen with a bench top bandsaw or a 2 or 3 wheel bandsaw prefer the many benefits of using these types of bandsaw blades.

There is an 80/20 rule in the band saw world. 80% of machines are built with the teeth pointing one direction, while 20% are built with the teeth pointing the other. We weld all of our blades to comply with the 80%. Thankfully, there is a simple solution. If your teeth are pointing in the wrong direction, place your hands at 9 and 3 (think of a clock).

While pinching the blade between your fingers and thumbs, rotate your hands so that the blade will flip itself “inside out”. The teeth should now be pointing in the right direction.