Learning About Bandsaws2

Learning About Bandsaws

Bandsaws have many uses, including making cutouts of radial type curves, and odd shapes. They are used in many different types of shops such as metal shops and wood shops. The bandsaw has a thin, narrow blade that is flexible and is made in a continuous circle. It has teeth all along the edge of the blade. The bandsaw blades are slid over two wheels that act like pulleys and drive the blade.

Automated bandsaws are used in mass production environments. There are advantages to this automation. All feed rates, returns, falls, part clamping and part feeding is preset and automatic. In many manufacturing facilities it is neither possible nor cost effective to have an operator to run each saw. In the case of automation, one operator is capable of overseeing many saws at one time. Many automated saws use CNC or NC controls to perform precise, accurate and faster cuts.

Loggers and mills often use headsaws, which are large bandsaws that make the initial cuts into large logs. The tooth spacing on the bandsaw blades are usually about two inches on the cutting edge and the back side of the blade has sliver teeth. The sliver teeth do not cut; they wipe the splinters out of the way as the band backs out of the log. Resaws are used in cutting logs along the grain to produce boards or veneers. The bandsaw blades used for cutting veneers are larger, averaging about three inches. Double cut saws have teeth on both sides of the blade and are generally very large saws.

Bandsaws are preferred and used by logging mills for the ripping process because they have a smaller kerf than circular blades and produce much less waste. Bandsaw blades in logging mills can be as wide as sixteen inches. They are tightly stretched across two wheels which drive the blade in a circular motion. Saw filers and saw doctors are the men responsible for the blades and the saws in a sawmill. They maintain the machine itself, determine the needed depth of the teeth, and make sure that the bandsaw blades are sharp to avoid damaging the lumber.