Recommended Bandsaw Blades for D2, A2 and S7

[AndyF]

I’m looking for blade recommendations for cutting these steels. All of the pieces will be 1/2 - 1 1/2” thick. I will be using a Kalamazoo 8CW horizontal saw and 20” Delta/Rockwell vertical saw.

 

[1 Jaw Chuck (Chuck Evans)]

Andy,

I cut S7 all the time with a Do-all C4. Just the same coarse blade I use for mild steel, nothing special. Just cut 4" Dia. Inconel 718 with it the other day.

Material is annealed right?

Chuck

 

[Garwood]

I cut through induction hardened chrome cylinder rod with the normal 4-6 blades I use for everything else.

 

[Cole2534]

I've had great luck with the folks at sawblade.com, maybe give them a call.

 

[sfriedberg]

Length, width and thickness of blades will be entirely determined by your saws. That leaves tooth pitch, tooth style, and material.
I am a big fan of variable pitch bandsaw blades. If your minimum stock thickness is 1/2", a 4/6TPI or even 3/4TPI blade should work fine. If you mostly do 1/2" material, you might lean 5/8TPI. I would definitely avoid 10/14TPI if your max thickness is 1.5".
Bimetal construction is good (and very common). I don't think you need carbide teeth.
Generally, once you've picked your tooth pitch and bimetal construction, that pretty much nails down the choice of tooth style for you.
If you have access to a resharpening service, you can at least double the life of your blades if you swap them out before they get terribly dull. If you let a blade get too dull, you may as well throw it away.
It's pretty common for distributors to weld-to-order bandsaw blades (either in-house or drop shipped from the blade stock makers). So you are not limited to lengths already made up on the shelf someplace.
Lenox, Morse and Starrett (among others) make good blade stock.

 

[memphisjed]

I would start with m42 bi-metal Morse, 5/8 with positive rack for the saws you have.
Hang a few hundred pounds off the horizontal and go with neutral rake if you are brave.

 

[dkmc]

Wikus marathon blades have me convinced they are superior to most other brands.
There is a distributor in Homer, NY ......welding supply store among other supplies.

 

[Garwood]

I've had great luck with the folks at sawblade.com, maybe give them a call.

Thier blades performed poorly for me and service sucked. Took a week for them to ship my last order they said would go out next day. They did the print the shipping label and sit on it deal. Then blamed UPS.

 

[dkmc]

Thier blades performed poorly for me and service sucked. Took a week for them to ship my last order they said would go out next day. They did the print the shipping label and sit on it deal. Then blamed UPS.

Got 2 blades from them few years back as trial offer. Both blades 'jump' at the weld, and the weld looks poor. When I called and told them about it, they were like 'oh well we tried'. Crossed off the list.

 

[BT Fabrication]

Wikus marathon blades have me convinced they are superior to most other brands.
There is a distributor in Homer, NY ......welding supply store among other supplies.

just started using these here in ontario also, local tooling rep gets them made from somewhere in quebec. almost fell over at the price was almost half of the regular $60 bimetal blades i was getting. They are really good, I ususally get a year out of them on the saw and I cut a ton of material, hundreds of pieces a month of everything.
Bimetal will work for tool steels just fine if not hardened.

 

[dkmc]

just started using these here in ontario also, local tooling rep gets them made from somewhere in quebec. almost fell over at the price was almost half of the regular $60 bimetal blades i was getting. They are really good, I ususally get a year out of them on the saw and I cut a ton of material, hundreds of pieces a month of everything.
Bimetal will work for tool steels just fine if not hardened.

I'm not a Wikus spokes model by any means, but I've found they run unusually smooth and quiet right from the start, and seem to last longer than the typical starrett, lenox, morse, etc. I wish I could find a more interested distributor tho. It can feel like having to coax the sale.