These are some steel-cutting bandsaw blades,
and I want to try them on my 20 inch bandsaw.
Now, the problem with this is these blades need to run
much, much slower, much slower than I can get
with just putting a motor on here, so I'm thinking
of putting this pulley on the back of the motor,
and then powering that with another slower motor.
I made this pulley many years ago when I was experimenting
with building an apple grinder.
And, the problem is, it's got a 1 1/4 inch hole,
and so to fit it on a 5/8th inch shaft,
I need to replace these flanges, so I need to
cut the old ones off, cause they’re glued on.
But even if I move the blade guide all the way
into the housing,
I still don't quite have enough room to get under it.
So, I think I'll just have to remove the table.
And, now I have a full 15 inches,
or 39 centimeters. I can move the blade guides
down a little bit again.
This wood screw locks the pulley in place.
Not the most precise pulley, but it's running very slowly,
and so far this is just an experiment,
and the saw is running nice and slow.
Now, I don't want to scratch up the plywood table,
or my metal cover, so I'm making a temporary plywood cover.
So, will it work?
That is the question.
Nope, it doesn't.
It looks like when it stalls, this pulley's still turning,
but the V-belt is slipping, so I need a bit more
tension on here.
Well, that belt is on quite tight now
so hopefully this will work.
Man, that is super-slow.
Let's try some aluminum.
Well, at least the blade is not getting warm.
Man, that's just annoyingly slow.
Let's try cutting something else.
So, I applied a little bit of oil to the blade,
cause that always seems to help with metal-cutting.
So, some of those chips coming off were definitely hot,
cause they hurt when they hit my hand, but the blade,
blade is still cool cause it's got all this way to go around
to cool down before it cuts through again.
That was one inch square steel, and the cut quality
looks pretty decent.
Well, it's not too bad, in terms of steel
getting stuck on the inner tube
although rubber tires for a metal-cutting bandsaw
is definitely not ideal. I also tried
cutting some two millimeter thick material,
and this cut much faster, this part of the video
is not sped up.
I just uncoiled this massive blade, but the problem is,
the teeth are facing the wrong way around, because
these massive horizontal-cutting bandsaws,
always run counter-clockwise, whereas vertical bandsaws
tend to run clockwise, so I have to turn this blade
inside out to get the teeth facing the right way.
And, before I try to flip it, I think I'll put
the protective plastic back on the teeth.
I flipped one of these blades before, but I don't quite
remember how, so let's see how it goes.
How does this go?
Ta da! Yup.
Goes the right way around now.
Okay I'm kind of afraid of this, it might damage my bandsaw.
But, if I do, I'll just have to make some spare parts for it.
Well, that cut a fair bit faster than with the other blade,
and it's got an interesting, sort of pattern on it,
from the teeth. It's a fairly clean cut, but not quite
as clean as the cut I got from the 13 TPI blade.
All right, let's try another pop can.
Whoops.
I also tried cutting some wood, but it just kept binding.
But, running it at high speed, it worked just fine.
So, this bandsaw actually can be used to cut metal.
But, this crazy three TPI blade, is really only suitable
for very thick stock. What make more sense is,
a blade like this, this one is 13 TPI,
and it's closer to what you'd put in a porta-bandsaw.
Now, if I wanted to optimize this saw for metal cutting,
there's a few things I would change, I would put
the thrust bearing to be against the blade, like this,
because there's an awful lot of pushing against here.
I would also reduce the height here,
because you're never gonna be re-sawing a big chunk of metal
like that, and that would make this guide post
a lot stiffer, again because there's a lot of force on here.
The other things I'd change is there's really no need
for rubber tires on there, and I would make the pulley
that's behind it actually almost the size of the wheel here
just so it's easier to get more torque on there.