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Portaband blades

rockota

rockota

white collar hillbilly
Joined
May 28, 2020
Member Number
1642
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3,637
Who are we recommending these days? Saw that saw blades.com was mentioned in another thread, but they don’t have anything that’ll work for a Bauer, that I can find.
 
The Bauer uses a different size than a Dewalt/ Milwaukee? Looks like theyre all 44 7/8” no?
 
Need to tell us which of the 3 sizes you have

But they should be standardish and not specific to the brand of saw.
 
2 sec google search with your provied name/# shows its the standard 44 7/8" full size potra.

I use milwaukee bands on my med sized and my bosses full sized for the last 5 years with nothing to complain about them.
 
total newb said:
2 sec google search with your provied name/# shows its the standard 44 7/8" full size potra.

I use milwaukee bands on my med sized and my bosses full sized for the last 5 years with nothing to complain about them.
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Covid f’d up my Google fu
 
aczlan said:
I have the same thing, but mine came from Amazon.
No complaints.
We use the same blades at work in our band saws there.

Aaron Z
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which TPI are you using? 14, 18 or 24?
 
rockota said:
which TPI are you using? 14, 18 or 24?
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I've been using the milwaukee multi TPI blades, the tooth count varies every inch of the blade. Work ok, no complaints other than it does seem easy to knock teeth off the blade sometimes.
 
rockota said:
which TPI are you using? 14, 18 or 24?
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18 at work. 14 at home, they say you should have 4-6 teeth in the metal at all times for the optimum cut and blade life and that goes off of wall thickness for tube.
If you're doing a lot of thin work, having too few threads per inch will cause the teeth to catch and can rip it off as they go in and out of the metal.
Here is a chart for solid steel from: TPI SELECTOR – DeWalt Band Saw Blades
standard-tpi-chart(1).png

As I understand it, you use that for wall thickness as a starting point.
If you are cutting at an angle (or in the long direction) you can use a lower tooth count because the part that the blade is running through is thicker.

Aaron Z
 
Lenox Wolf Band variable TPI has been good for me. Cuts through leaf springs pretty well.
 
As much as I complain about portabands on here this was some 1/8 plate today. I have lennox
 

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there's a guy on ebay that had portaband blades in bulk quantities for cheap-ish, only had the extra double fine like 32tpi ones though
 
[486] said:
there's a guy on ebay that had portaband blades in bulk quantities for cheap-ish, only had the extra double fine like 32tpi ones though
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Those would be nice for thin wall tube.
 
bdkw1 said:
Those would be nice for thin wall tube.
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I run them in everything, just makes cuts take longer
tires on the saw are worn out anyways, so there's limited power transmission before the blade falls off
 
Mike Honcho said:
I've been using the Lenox blue box 3 pack from lowes for $21. Seem to cut mild steel no problem.
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I have had a few of these snap on me before they get worn out. Maybe I'm pushing the saw too hard? One time the blade sprung out and hit me right in the safety glasses:eek:

Other than that they work fine.
 
Morse is all i use. get them from the weld shop and are very competively priced.


they are the only blade that has yet to irritate and always runs smoothly. i dont know how half the shops that i go to all have band saws with heads jumping around from blades not being broken on and not used right.

blades in the porta band matter far less, as its rare to wear a blade out before damaging it. i'm generally not the guy to say dont use my tools... but the prota band is one i dont like anyone using. the blade always get effed up and not uncommon to bend the fence.
 
Picked up some Lennox blades and returned the Bauer saw.

Long story short, I couldn't make the Bauer work with the SWAG stand, because the Bauer seems to have been machined with very loose tolerances for the built in guide (which are the two threaded bolts used by the SWAG mounting plate). SWAG was AWESOME in responding and helping.

I chalked it up to nothing more than loose tolerances w/ Bauer...

Bit the bullet and picked up a Dewalt.. didn't really want to spend the $, but yellow is the standard in the barn, so... and it bolted up to the SWAG base perfectly.

Can't say enough about the quality of the SWAG components. Should have purchased this years ago. Haven't tried the Lennox blades yet - the Dewalt happened to come with a blade, so that's what's on it.
 
I ordered some Lenox blades off of amazon and they work just fine.
 
14tpi Ram blade in my big horizontal. I know the Lenox holesaws kick ass so I’d say their porta band blades probably do as well.
 
rockota said:
Picked up some Lennox blades and returned the Bauer saw.

Long story short, I couldn't make the Bauer work with the SWAG stand, because the Bauer seems to have been machined with very loose tolerances for the built in guide (which are the two threaded bolts used by the SWAG mounting plate). SWAG was AWESOME in responding and helping.

I chalked it up to nothing more than loose tolerances w/ Bauer...

Bit the bullet and picked up a Dewalt.. didn't really want to spend the $, but yellow is the standard in the barn, so... and it bolted up to the SWAG base perfectly.

Can't say enough about the quality of the SWAG components. Should have purchased this years ago. Haven't tried the Lennox blades yet - the Dewalt happened to come with a blade, so that's what's on it.
Click to expand...
Hmmmm, my Bauer bolted right up to the SWAG stand.
 
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