Blades for Re-Sawing

High-quality blades will pay for themselves in lumber yield, replacement cost, and labor time. January 14, 2009

Question
We want to re-saw 12 inch thick slabs of wet wild cherry. We have an 18 inch Laguna band saw with a 5 hp motor. Who makes the best and most affordable 1-11/4 inch disposable re-saw blade?

Forum Responses
(Sawing and Drying Forum)
From contributor J:
The best, most affordable, disposable? You are going to have to compromise on some of those points.

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From the original questioner:
Good point. I guess we want cheap disposable blades. We have a lot of logs to saw and we don't want to spend a fortune. The logs were free. However at some point it would be cheaper to just go buy the wood.

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From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
With an inexpensive blade, you will have more variation in lumber thickness, so you will not be able to achieve the highest log yield. Usually, yield gains outweigh the cost of a good to excellent blade many times over.

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From contributor A:
Contact Cooks' saw. They sell more blades than just about anyone, and they have good prices.

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From contributor B:
A cheap blade will not last as long as a good one so after you finish you would use more cheap blades resulting in more money spent.

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From contributor T:
For re-sawing on a low powered saw a cheap blade is probably the worst choice. As Gene mentioned you will sacrifice yield, and you will also have hours and more labor in the re-sawing and blade changing. Buy a Lennox Trimaster Carbide tipped, get the job done quickly, accurately, and safely and you'll have years more life left in the blade after it’s done.

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From Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor:
I was looking in my files for the blade name that contributor T just mentioned. It is my suggestion too. One might not like carbide when there is bark with stones involved, but for a re-saw this would not be an issue.

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From contributor S:
Re-sawing 12" material on an 18", 5hp bandsaw is going to be a tedious chore. My re-saw runs 1.5 " blades and has a 25hp motor, a 15 hp hydraulic power pack, has air hold-downs and is considered a somewhat small machine.

If you are talking about sawing a few boards on the Laguna saw, that will be ok, but for sawing a larger amount of logs, I'm skeptical it’s going to work for you.

If you really want to try it, call Suffolk machine and explain to the experts there what you are trying to do, they'll match up a blade for your saw. I'm guessing one blade will run less than $20. The blades for my re-saw cost about $32. If you are getting the logs for free, maybe it would be better to hire a portable sawmill to do the job?

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From contributor W:
Those green slabs of cherry are going to weigh a ton and getting them to behave in an upright position on a vertical bandsaw is going to be a real chore. What are you making? Why not just take them to somebody with a horizontal bandmill and have them re-sawn that way. I've had good luck doing this.

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From contributor D:
You may find that the first 400 lb log that drops off the stands and crushes your foot and destroys the bandsaw. You can invest $4,000.00 into a 28" small bandsaw mill and keep making lumber for a life time and save yourself a lot of pain and downtime. You will continue to get free trees that are damaged in storms. I started with that same decision four years ago and I'm setting on about 8-10,000 bd. ft. in Ohio.