Bandsaw blade recommendation for ripping Micarta.

Nathan the Machinist said:
My goal is to turn that 12-in wide, 3 in thick, 8 ft long piece into 8"x12"x.375" sheet that I can run on my vacuum fixture.

No, this is a machine shop, I have metal working tools but I don't have things like drum sanders. I have some enormous surface grinders?
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I was going to say a drum sander would make short work of surfacing the cut slabs. If one of your surface grinders is converted for belts that would also work great. If you have access to a bandsaw mill I’d definitely try it for atleast one cut, it may give more waste to clean up but I’d imagine it would be much faster than chopping and resawing all the individual blocks especially since you are wanting to keep the width at 12” that would be a chore to resaw
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I have a bunch of micarta that I need to rip up. Quite a bit of it coming in today. I'm wondering if you can run micarta through a sawmill? You know those portable sawmills that are band saws that you can use to slab up a tree? I'm wondering if one of those will work in micarta? Would something like a wood miser cut reasonably flat sheets of micarta? Slicing big thick 12" wide strips that are 8 ft long into usable sheet. I've got a bunch of old international paper micarta that I want to be able to run on my vacuum fixture for scales production. Some of it is over 3 inchs thick and I'm not sure the best way to use this material.
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If that’s the stuff I think it is, let me know how it turns out!! :D
 
We used to spend more than $1,000 a month on bandsaw blades. We break in every blade before using it to cut materials. We cut more than 1,000 pounds of micarta/phenolic a month. Using a break in procedure helps the blades last longer and saves money.

Chuck
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I have a bunch of micarta that I need to rip up. Quite a bit of it coming in today. I'm wondering if you can run micarta through a sawmill? You know those portable sawmills that are band saws that you can use to slab up a tree? I'm wondering if one of those will work in micarta? Would something like a wood miser cut reasonably flat sheets of micarta? Slicing big thick 12" wide strips that are 8 ft long into usable sheet. I've got a bunch of old international paper micarta that I want to be able to run on my vacuum fixture for scales production. Some of it is over 3 inchs thick and I'm not sure the best way to use this material.
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After cutting it to suitable dimensions, you can split it /just like we do with wood/ with suitable chisel. That's how we work here with G!0 and micarta if it is too thick.
 
Natlek said:
After cutting it to suitable dimensions, you can split it /just like we do with wood/ with suitable chisel. That's how we work here with G!0 and micarta if it is too thick.
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I'm going to take a 3-inch thick slab of micarta that's a foot wide and 8 ft long and split it to suitable dimension with a chisel? Idunno man, that sounds a little crazy to me?
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
I'm going to take a 3-inch thick slab of micarta that's a foot wide and 8 ft long and split it to suitable dimension with a chisel? Idunno man, that sounds a little crazy to me?
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That s why I write ........................After cutting it to suitable dimensions :) You can split it only in one direction but you know that / 3 inch thick to split in suitable thickness / just to be clear this time .
say you have cut 1.5 x 4 and 3 inch thick piece of micarta.You can split it to seven pieces of about 10mm thick slabs.
 
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Signalprick said:
Unfortunately this isn't my experience. I bought a carbide tipped, 3 tpi Lennox for resawing micarta blocks and for whatever reason it doesn't want to smoothly cut the blocks at all. It binds up when I start feeding the material and it's pretty scary when it does. Not entirely sure why. It seemed like a good idea in theory but it hasn't worked well in practice.
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Did you start off cutting micarta with the blade?

Carbide bandsaw blades have this sort of fresh out of the box aggression, where they will pull themselves into and bind and mess up if the first cuts made with them are in something dense.

They recommend slowly sawing up some 2 by 4s for 5 or 10 minutes with your new carbide blade before cutting into anything you care about. I never saw that either but i definitely learned my lesson.
 
Joshua Fisher said:
Biggest thing I’ve found between different blades is using skip tooth over hook tooth style blades, it clears the dust better which prolongs the blade and gives smoother cuts with less drifting (drift is partially caused by tooth loading)
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Josh is right here. Without sounding like someone giving ancient proverbs, the spaces between the teeth are just as important as the teeth themselves. If you cant clear the swarf out of the cut it is impossible to get a good cut. A lot of people see high tpi as their answer to smooth finish, but that only works if the material is thin enough that the small gullets are able to effectivly clear out the sawdust. For a lot of bigger sawing operations larger and skip tooth blades will often clear a cut better.

This Video by Mattais has a great demonstration of the reasons for skip tooth and the issues with bandsawing.
 
Fixall said:
What a total and utter failure of a day, lol. Some vintage Westinghouse rag Micarta definitely saw the graveyard today. :(


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First I tried a metal cutting blade from Blade Serpent at the suggestion of a person who processes a LOT of Micarta. I was expecting it to work because of the speed of my saw, but we thought it might be worth a shot. For the first couple of inches it cut REALLY well! Then the teeth all clogged and it just burned the micarta.

Then I tried the Starrett skip tooth blade. It left a very poor finish in the Micarta, but worst of all, there was a pretty big thickness variance when going from the top to the bottom of the material. I was worried about this considering the blade is only 3/8" thick. I'm going to keep it around for rough cutting handle profiles though. It'll beat making relieve cuts on the Portaband constantly.

Then I went back to the Timberwolf blade. It made a great cut that had an even thickness all the way through, but could only make it through about one or two cuts before it was so dull it would drift a bit.

I have a 3/4" carbide blade from Sawblade.com coming in tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas for slabbing up the gears.

Maybe I should give the wet tile saw a go? They don't look to spendy, though I don't know what I'd ever use it for again. Would something like that be able to make a straight, even cut through five inches of Micarta...?

Other than that, I think I'm stuck using abrasive belts to sand the gears to thickness after cutting them in half.


Up top is the cut from the Timberwolf blade. The middle is the skip tooth. The bottom is the metal cutting blade (look how burned it is!).
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The only saving grace was that I got another ~60 maple burl blocks in my ghetto kiln (I start at 80 degrees and slowly go up from there)...
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And processed another ~150 redwood burl blocks. They'll go into the kiln when the moisture reading drops to around 10%.

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K&G just received the four large, flat-rate boxes I shipped them the other day too. :)



Oh... And I picked up this WW2 era Seabee propeller made from Westinghouse Micarta. :D No idea what I'm going to do with it, lol.
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So.... Any other ideas on how to slab up this 48" x 5-3/8" rod of Micarta into 3/8" slabs, lol? If not a tile saw, I was thinking about looking into a water jet service?

Look at this beast compared to the 2-3/4" rod, lol.
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I don't know. Agghhh.
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Who's your Micarta connection?!? How does one skip the middle man and find a dealer?!?

-Thank you, I'll hang up and listen.
 
Tcarltonw said:
Who's your Micarta connection?!? How does one skip the middle man and find a dealer?!?

-Thank you, I'll hang up and listen.
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Honestly, you just have to keep your ear to the ground and constantly be on the lookout. Micarta was used in more industries than I can count.
 
Tcarltonw said:
Who's your Micarta connection?!? How does one skip the middle man and find a dealer?!?

-Thank you, I'll hang up and listen.
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I have two tips:

- new stuff - check if there is a local company that sells whole boards of composite materials - Micarta is just a brand, google things like laminated paper, laminated fabric or similiar - usually these places do wholesale of large panels or cut to measure for orders - they will have loads of off cuts and if you pass by they might give them for free - I offer beers, wine and chocolate in exchange

for vintage stuff:
- electricians/construction workers - electrician occasionally change old electric panels, that were made from micarta (a friend of mine knew straight away what I was talking about when I asked him), the same might go for construction worker that are demolishing old places
- flea market - classifieds - thrift stores - some old electronics had boards or casings made from micarta, same for tabletops and chairs

keep your eyes open and ask around.
 
FredyCro said:
I have two tips:

- new stuff - check if there is a local company that sells whole boards of composite materials - Micarta is just a brand, google things like laminated paper, laminated fabric or similiar - usually these places do wholesale of large panels or cut to measure for orders - they will have loads of off cuts and if you pass by they might give them for free - I offer beers, wine and chocolate in exchange

for vintage stuff:
- electricians/construction workers - electrician occasionally change old electric panels, that were made from micarta (a friend of mine knew straight away what I was talking about when I asked him), the same might go for construction worker that are demolishing old places
- flea market - classifieds - thrift stores - some old electronics had boards or casings made from micarta, same for tabletops and chairs

keep your eyes open and ask around.
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Word, I appreciate the tips. I have a buddy who's an electrician and I just shot him a text. As far as local I haven't came across anyone yet. I'm in Austin, TX so everything is new here! There are some outlying towns that are experiencing growth now so I might check there. Appreciate it again!
 
*bumping this for hopeful answer. FYI I'm working with a rikon table top bandsaw & 1x30 x 5 combination belt x disc sander
 
Tcarltonw said:
What would a jig look like to aid in cutting round stock like that?
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Sorry, I forgot to answer. You would want a sturdy rectangular piece of wood that is larger then your stock and then slit it so your rod stock fits tightly. You can then bolt the round stock in the slith with pressure or put screws in the round stock, taking care not to cut, where the screws are. You stock is large so you could also build your jig/cover from boards around the stock. Check youtube to see more ideas.

Please note that cutting round stock on table saw is not considered very safe, so proceed cautiously.

I can do a pic of my "jig" for slothing dowels next time I am in the shop.

You could also sacrifice a bit of the material and take one side of the stock down to plain so you can cut it on the fence. Plain it in a vice with a hand held planer?
 
I cut ivory tusks, wood rounds, and odd shaped pieces by epoxying them on a suitable size piece of plywood. Orient the piece you want to slice up so it aligns parallel with one of the plywood edges.
I set the bandsaw or table saw fence to the width of cut I want, and then I slice up the plywood along with the piece I'm wanting to cut up. From there it is just slicing it into scales or blocks.
 
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