Blade Width

When choosing the width of your bandsaw blade, the decision comes down to two things: the minimum radius you want to cut and the maximum capacity accommodated by your bandsaw. You can always start by checking the manufacturer’s instructions when making this choice.

You’ll want to use your bandsaw’s maximum blade width to keep the cuts nice and straight and get a decent feed rate without breaking your blades.

Blade Thickness

This is an important choice as continual flexing, heating, and cooling of the blade causes metal fatigue and ultimately, failure. The blade thickness is determined by the diameter of the wheels and the work you are doing. Thicker blades can withstand additional cutting strain during straight cuts but are more prone to breaking from bending and twisting motions. Thinner blades will perform well for lighter work.

Teeth

You will need to determine how many TPI (teeth per inch) your job requires. While you can cut most things with any number of teeth, the quality or speed of your cut will be affected depending on what you choose. Blades with fewer teeth cut faster but with a rougher finish, while blades with more teeth will cut slower but much cleaner. For precision cutting the general rule is to keep three teeth in the material at all times to add stability and accuracy. This applies to cutting both metal and wood. For re-sawing and cutting thicker materials, you should use coarse tooth blades (2-3 TPI). For general wood cutting in 3/4″ material, a 4 TPI blade will give you coarse but fast cutting while a 14 TPI blade will give you a slower, smoother cut. 6-8 TPI provides good general-purpose performance. For cutting thinner metals and plastics under 1/4″, use an even finer blade of 18-32TPI.

KAMA Bandsaw Performance

With KAMA bandsaws, choosing the right blade for the job is easy. Our saws come standard with a bi-metal blade and either a 6-10 Variable Pitch blade for stationary saws or an 8-12 Variable Pitch blade for our portable saws. We also have various tooth configuration add-on options. Our stationary saws come with a 6’3″x3/4″x0.035 blade. KAMA bandsaws also come with adjustable blade guides which eliminate the guess work in regards to blade thickness as you never have to worry about your blade twisting or bending!