When did Starrett get into bandsaw/hacksaw blade manufacture

TDegenhart · Jun 30, 2018

Seems strange for a maker of precision instruments and tools would be making saw blades. How and when did this come about?

Tom

L Vanice · Jun 30, 2018

My Catalog 20, hand dated in ink 1914, has lots of hacksaw blades. I do not see any bandsaw blades. They say they have lots of blade experience, so probably started making blades earlier.

Larry

awander · Jun 30, 2018

These are the pages from their 1895 catalog, listing hack saw frames and blades.

No other saws are in this catalog.

awander · Jun 30, 2018

Starrett Catalog 17 lists blades separately:

awander · Jun 30, 2018

...and the "Supplement to Catalog 16" shows these blades. The fact that it is a supplement may imply that these are be a new item in this catalog.

Starrett Hack Saws-Catalog 16 Supplement.jpg

Bill D · Jun 30, 2018

To make good tools you need to understand good steel and good heat treating. Seems logical to make cutting tools using that knowledge not just measuring tools. I know they make punches and metal cutting chisels. Files? Did they ever make wood cutting tools? like saw blades and wood chisels.
I think of them as strictly metal working shop stuff.
Bill D

awander · Jun 30, 2018

Catalog #26, dated 1938, has 10 pages of Hacksaw Blades, but still no Bandsaw Blades.

Danny VanVoorn · Jun 30, 2018

I don't know how long they made blades but do use their blades on two machines and for my hack saws, seem to work as well as any other name brands I've used. I can only compare them to the hack saw blades stocked at work (Sandvik and Lennox), the Starrett blades I bought for the home use. I have a power hack saw and never put coolant in it, one of their HS blade lasts a lot longer than I have a right to get out of it. On the band saw I have a mix of band saw stock Morse, DoAll, Simmonds, etc. bought all at different times and usually because I wanted/needed a different pitch or set so comparisons are not apples to apples so to speak but the Starrett stock welds easily and seems to cut as well as it should.

Joe Rogers · Jul 1, 2018

awander said:
These are the pages from their 1895 catalog, listing hack saw frames and blades.

No other saws are in this catalog.

View attachment 231884

I used to have one of those Starrett frames. Hated it. Inherited it from my dad. No idea where he got it as he was not into mechanically aligned endeavors.
Joe

JRIowa · Jul 1, 2018

I remember the band saw blade stock back to the early 70s. Just high carbon, nothing fancy.
JR

DDoug · Jul 1, 2018

Interesting how Lennox (another major manuf) is nearby.

Got to be a disgruntled employee story in there somewhere.

Much like Hypertherm & Thermal Dynamics are in the same town.

tnmgcarbide · Jul 1, 2018

i haven't had a positive experience with starrett band stock . seem to be heat treat problems.
one coil was soft as mush . another would strip teeth in the cut and ruin the
rest of the band . nicholson and simonds blades on same saw (kazoo) and same
steel had no such problems . they do make a great tap wrench though...

litlerob1 · Jul 1, 2018

I had no idea, but I gotta say it makes sense that Starret specializes in Hack saws.

R

TDegenhart · Jul 1, 2018

Joe Rogers said:
I used to have one of those Starrett frames. Hated it. Inherited it from my dad. No idea where he got it as he was not into mechanically aligned endeavors.
Joe

What didn't your like about it?

Tom

SIP6A · Jul 1, 2018

Starrett not only makes hack saw and band saw blades. Almost any hack or band saw blade you buy was made on Starrett machinery. On a tour there quite a few years ago I was taken through that Dept. They were building machines to punch the teeth put in the set and heat treat the stock for band saw blades in a continuous operation.

Garwood · Jul 1, 2018

I've never heard anything good about Starrett hacksaw or bandsaw blades. I had a bunch of them come with one of my bandsaws. I finally threw the last dozen of them out a few weeks ago because they are just shit. Not worth the time to install one. 2.5 years out of a Lennox blade on my manual saw. 3 days out of a Starrett bimetal. Total garbage.

Sandvik makes the absolute best hacksaw blades. They make amazing bandsaw blades as well, but my dealers don't carry their stock.

Armstrong-Blum makes the finest by far hacksaw frame.

EmGo · Jul 1, 2018

Garwood said:
Armstrong-Blum makes the finest by far hacksaw frame.

I dunno, Gar .... had an 11" x 11" Peerless that came from some type of pipe manufacturing place, it had fifty years on it when I got it and kept on bang-clunk-scraunch-chuckachucka sawing away for another twenty. Noisiest pos on the planet, the band down the building used to come ask if I could not run the saw for a while because they couldn't hear themselves, but it kept on sawing. In fact, it's kinda immortal now because the sound became the background rhythm for a song called Peace by Piece. If you ever need to hear a Peerless, look it up.

Helluva hacksaw, just a helluva saw. They aren't gonna make anything like that again

crrmeyer · Jul 1, 2018

One warning on Starrett power hacksaw blades. They changed over from inch dimensions to metric a few years ago, so the hole spacing on the blades changed. Unfortunately they reused the original part numbers so at the time of the change who knows what you would get. So the original ones would fit my Miller Knuth Sawmaster but the later ones were too long to be tensioned properly. No dimensions were listed in the catalog at the time so there was no way to verify they would fit other than buying some. It was a bit frustrating.I ended up just avoiding Starrett and finding NOS saw blades that fit.

Garwood · Jul 1, 2018

EmanuelGoldstein said:
I dunno, Gar .... had an 11" x 11" Peerless that came from some type of pipe manufacturing place, it had fifty years on it when I got it and kept on bang-clunk-scraunch-chuckachucka sawing away for another twenty. Noisiest pos on the planet, the band down the building used to come ask if I could not run the saw for a while because they couldn't hear themselves, but it kept on sawing. In fact, it's kinda immortal now because the sound became the background rhythm for a song called Peace by Piece. If you ever need to hear a Peerless, look it up.

Helluva hacksaw, just a helluva saw. They aren't gonna make anything like that again

I wrote hacksaw frame, not power hacksaw. I'm talking about a hand saw.

Look up Armstrong-Blum hacksaws. They're just beyond awesome.

DMF_TomB · Jul 2, 2018

i have used a lot of Starrett saws and bandsaws and rarely have problems.
.
i have had steel with slag hard spots in it and when a saw hits one the teeth can break off. recognizing slag hard spots in metal is important. many possibly blame the saw.
.
i have wiped out 6 sets of 7 carbide inserts trying to get past one slag hard spot before. if tough on carbide it is tough on hss too obviously

When did Starrett get into bandsaw/hacksaw blade manufacture

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