Band saw blade question

[Atlas Knife Company]

A question for the machinists: I'm cutting a lot of 7.2# 5" channel, is there a reason I shouldn't use 6TPI blades for it? The packaging states wood, composite, and non-ferrous metals. Reason would tell me that it's because at 6TPI, only 0-1 teeth would be on standard 1/8" thick metal at any one time. Even 1/4" would only have 1-2 teeth at a time. However, cutting 5" channel flat side up, I have 15-20 teeth on the metal most of the time. Only at the very end of the cut would I have 2-3 teeth on the metal.

On a side note, does anybody know for certain what type of steel is used in Morse 64½" carbon hard-edge flexible-back blades?

 

[Mark Knapp]

Hi Zaph, Those blades are not intended to be for steel, they will cut mild steel for a short time if you slow your saw way down. Bi-metal blades would be much better. The biggest problem you will have, though, is that when you get to the thin webs, where you have few teeth in the material is that the teeth try to take too much of a bite and they get sheared off. It is much better to try and orient the material in the saw to try and get a similar number of teeth in the cut all the way through it and use the appropriate pitch

I checked all of my old Morse dealer literature, (I was a Morse dealer before I switched to Lenox) and it does not say what their blades are made of. The Lenox tech. guy will tell you that their blades are made of an alloy especially made for them to their specifications, not something that we would know like 15N20 or L6