Soldering broken bandsaw blades

[Dave Moore]

I have always used the welders built into some bandsaws, but I have seen silver solder used a couple of times. In each case, the guy joining the blade ends ground a taper on the flat side of each blade where they joined. I think it was about 1/4-inch of taper on each end. Then he put lots of borax on the joint and heated it with a torch until it was red before adding the silver solder. I was skeptical about the strength of a soldered bandsaw blade joint, apparently it works well if done correctly.

Silver solder is quite strong, we use it for soldering copper pipe in Oxygen services. Normal Oxygen pressure is about 15 bar.
Regards,
Dave

 

[Hutzul]

I have both a mig and tig. What size wire did you mig with?

Can't remember tbh. T'was under 1mm methinks.

 

[Grantx]

Ended up buying a new blade, in the process, I came across this video on how to set up the bandsaw properly. Excellent video! Sharing for anyone reading this.

1. I didn't know how to fold away spare blades properly but it's super easy.
2. get the blade edge running in the middle of the rubber. This small change made a huge difference as I don't get any blade drift now.
3. Get the blade running as close to the bearings as possible without touching.



I've kept the broken blade and haven't given up on the welding/brazing yet. I'm stubborn that way.

 

[dzj]

Here's the little band saw brazer I mentioned earlier.
You grind a lap joint on the ends of the blade, clamp them in place with solder and flux in between.
Heat it up until the solder starts flowing (the blade gets pretty red) and press the ends together.
Re-heat it for annealing (move blade a bit to the left, then to the right of the joint). You need less heat
for this than for the brazing. Can't say exactly how much less, but after you've snapped a few blades, you get
the hang of it.
Tidy up the joint with a wire brush and file and that's it.
I was never quite happy with the quality of this joint, the newer welding machines do a much better job.

 

[Sean Hellman]

Perfectly doable, I wrote an article on soldering blades for Quercus magazine a few issues back, Nick Gibbs newish magazine. Use silver solder and a quality flux. Make sure the blade is held straight along the spine. Grinding the taper on the ends of the blade is easily done with a block of wood clamped to the table of a disc or belt sander, like the R Sorby pro edge. The angle should be around 20 to 25 degrees. The latest article was about sharpening bandsaw blades.