Band Sawing Tips

Most companies treat their band sawing department as an entry level operation. In reality, the sawing operation is what paces your entire shop whether you are a machine shop feeding mills and lathes or a fabrication shop feeding welding stations.

While taking an assessment of your band sawing department, we recommend reviewing these 3 points;

Saw selection for your application
Blade selection for the material you are cutting
Saw maintenance

Saw Selection
Are you using the correct tool for the job? Look at the types of materials (solids, tube, structural) and types of cuts (straight or miter). While every application is different, here are a few rules of thumb:

Horizontal Straight Cut Saws are a good solution for cutting blanks from solids. For larger solids, a wider blade will improve cut times and cut straightness. Consider an automatic feed saw for higher volume parts and to improve length accuracy. Most automatic feed saws will shuttle material to within +/-0.005”.

Horizontal Miter Cut Saws are a good solution for cutting miscellaneous materials with occasional miter cutting. The setting for the miter angle is usually a manual operation and typically this type of machine only miters in one direction.

Vertical Cut Saws are a good solution for straight cutting and miter cutting of tubing and structural profiles. Because the vertical saw uses a consistent feed force pressure (not gravity feed like most horizontals), the vertical is ideal for the varying material segments encountered when cutting tubing and structural profiles.

The vertical saw is also the easiest saw to set the miter cut angles. Because it has the ability to miter in both directions, the need to manually flip parts around is eliminated. Automatic feed vertical saws can also have the ability to automatically feed material to the desired part length and automatically change the miter angle. This takes the operator error out of measuring the part length and setting the miter angle.

Automatic Feed Saws are a good solution for all higher volume part runs and will provide a more consistent and accurate cut. Automatic feed saws also allow the operator to perform additional tasks while the saw is running in automatic mode make them more productive.

Blade Selection
While it would be ideal, there is no one blade that cuts everything well. As a rule of thumb you want to have 6-12 teeth in the material during the cut. Solids will run a more course blade, thin wall tubing will run a finer tooth blade. The type of material to be cut will also determine the type of blade (tooth shape) due to the type of chips that come off the cut. Choosing the correct blade tooth size and design will have a huge benefit in your cut time and quality.

There are several online saw blade selection applications to help you choose the correct blade. Some of these will also give you estimated cut times for your applications. Here are a couple of links for blade selection:

http://amadamt.com/amadaftp/BA/

https://www.sawcalc.com/

Saw Maintenance
Just like your car or truck, your band saw requires routine maintenance. To keep you saw running in optimal condition regularly check the following:

Clean saw of chips and debris. Do not use an air hose to blow the chips. This will only scatter them to places you don’t want them. Use the coolant wash down hose if you use flood coolant or use a whisk broom or paint brush to brush away chips.
Regularly check the condition of the blade guides. These require proper tension on the blade to keep it guided in the cut. The blade guides also must be cleaned of chips.
Regularly check the condition of the blade brush. The purpose of the blade brush is to clean chips out of the gullets of the blade. If these go not get cleaned out, the chips will build up and severely affect the performance of the cutting.
Check blade tension. Running a saw with blade tension either too loose or too tight can impact both blade life and cut accuracy.

Action Machinery is happy to help you with assessing your band saw needs and providing preventive maintenance programs for your saws.