"eclipsme" wrote in message
...
George wrote:
I use the 3/4 with my 20 year old spring without a problem. The slim
section Suffolk blade. Reasonable feed rates and wood held steady make a
huge difference, of course.



Perhaps it also depends on how often the blade is on the saw and for how
long? I would think that occasional use (such as mine) would be much less
of a potential problem for the tension spring than if the 3/4" blade were
used continuously.


Well, detensioning makes a difference, I should think. Maintaining tension
will exacerbate known problems with blade work-hardening as it is
continuously bent, and any open any cracks accelerated by corrosion.

I took my lathe work blade off the saw yesterday to do some resawing - slats
for the kids' mission-style bed. It's good enough for rough work, but even
with my birthday present - Performax drum sander, it pays to have a good
blade in the saw. My son-in-law, who had never resawn before did a job that
is within one pass with a 120 belt of reality. Back to the less-than fully
sharp and narrower blade today.