I have a small Dayton blade welder and I've never had luck doing bimetal blades
with it either, but it welds carbon blades fine. I go through the carbon blades
faster but then the teeth don't strip off either. I don't tend to push bandsaws
very hard anyway.

GWE

~Roy wrote:
The first one smoked after just 3 welds...and the welds were not done
back to back so cycle time was certainly not a factor. The blades
being welded were 1/2" width carbon steel blades

The 2nd welder just had problems making a fully closed weld on the
blade ends no matter how they were trimmed and dressed. It always left
a hole, or porosity in the welds. It would not do a bi metal balde to
save its life. I have a bandsaw blade cutter which was part of OEM on
an old DoAll bandsaw blade welder. Cuts made with this blade cutter
would look like swiss cheese after being welded with thre HF welder,
however using that same blade cutter on the Badger welder produced
beautiful welds time after time, and it made no distinction in welding
bi metal or cheap carbon blade stock. It (HF) proved to be too much
messing around to get a decent weld or a weld that would hold..which
has not been a problem with the Badger unit at all...

As to how a battery charger on START would handle it, I have an old
Marquette HD charger......I used to be able to start an old 1952
International 6 cylinder dup truck with it just placing it on start
postion, and that old International with a big 6 cylinder pulled some
amps..however I have not been able to get a decent weld by using that
charger on the welder.....It may be insufficient amperage or what or
it may be just worn out after all those years of use, I don;t know. I
just hook up the welder to my tractor or truck or whatever vehicle
with a 12 volt battery is handy and do the welds anymore.

On 30 Nov 2005 02:11:09 -0800, "flyfisher"
wrote:


===Roy...........Please give a more detailed report on the Harbor Freight
===bandsaw blade welder.
===What was the machine not doing that made it unacceptable?