Aldi bandsaw, when new it ws good, until it jammed once. since then it had a knock which was once per revolution of blade, I assumed a slight kink. Yesterday I broke that blade and the knock is still here on the replacement. Any ideas?
It does seem to be at the join, even after smoothing it off on a diamond wheel. I tried to cut this unknown lump 50mm tonight and blunted the blade in one cut, which I think was the kick rather than material hardness. Any ideas? The bearings seem ok, I couldnt unbolt the seat to check it.
Mark, I had the same recently after cutting some square copper, it was fine when I first got it doing round steel bar.
Is this on the original saw blade like mine? I might swap out to the Milwaukee blade tomorrow to test . Cheers Chris
No the original blade snapped at the join, probably caused by this. It is still very sharp. I will order some new blades I dont like these and too fine for aluminium.
Milwaukee blades are thinner than Ferrex ones. Mine wern't straight at the joint which caused the same problem (Kick) you have. Just bought some new ones (0.65 M42) item 233521375687 EBay, initial cut with one and check for straightness of joint for all the others seems fine.
Mine has a similar issue, I've not investigated the problem yet but did notice that one of the wheels isn't very concentric and wondered if it was caused by that. I'm still on the original blade
The guide bearing gap does not seem to be an issue as set out of the box - at least on mine.
Surprised and disappointed when closer inspection of the Milwaukee blade join on how poor they are, check the pic of the join & poor tooth cut and what appear small cracks at the join.
The 1st two are unused, the 3rd one ive used a fair bit but has started to kick worse over a bit - 18tpi. The 4th one in pic is what came fitted 14tpi 1mm taller and about .3 thicker at 1mm. I cannot see a join on that at all! I've just refitted that and no kicking through inch sq copper. So even compared to the original workzone blade those Milwaukee ones are rubbish.
@fizzy - looked at those prior to buying, but they seem to be the 20 thou blades and not the 25 thou for Ferrex (current Aldi) bandsaws.
@Gragson - the Milwaukee blades I bought fortunately don't have the cracks, but put a straight edge against the blade and they were all out of line, unfortunately I was new to bandsaws, if I bought them now I would just send them back.
@Kram - take the blade off and check it for straightness along the back edge (other edge to the teeth).
I took grinder to the back of blade and smothed it right down, the knock is still very there, but it no longer feels unsafe. Therefore I tried to cut some tough 100mm bar.
Thinking it'd take a while a small f clamp holds the trigger on. I used lowest speed and it literally took an hour. This would have been fine if it wasnt going off ******, trying to jam or rip work out of the rubbish vice.
The angle is correct on the horizontal axis problem is the vertical is 10-15 degrees off! I dont know if its the blade bending or just the mount.
Yes it is a lightweight machine but its the same on aluminium. On low speed the motor was not even warm so I dont think its doing any harm cutting solid bar.
Im going to try on 100mm wood posts, see if its the same, and look at the pivot to see if its bent.
I had to use some spacers on my vice to get it to cut vertically square, that was cutting 2" steel box with a 10/14 blade and I made a different clamp system as I didn't like the std one.
If you are cutting rounds, you could make up some simple wooden V blocks to make sure the bar is firmly held. You might also use that to adjust for vertical alignment if it's off.
Longer cuts are generally made with a coarser pitch because each tooth has to drag the chip all the way through the material, so the very first teeth are going to be jammed full long before they get to the other end where they can dump their load. You also need a stiff wire brash to evacuate the tooth before it goes back in again for another cut. This cleaning feature is often missing (or useless) on cheaper/hobby bandsaws.