In general, I've considered that alumimum should be sawed at about 1000
surface feet per minute, about 1/3 the speed of wood band sawing. And
steel at about 1/10th the speed of aluminum, or somewhere between 80 and
150 SFM.
Another general rule is to have at least 2 teeth in the work at any
given time. At 14 tpi, you'd not quite have 2 teeth in 1/16" thick
stock. a 9tpi blade would be even worse, at about .110 between teeth.
I wouldn't run it any faster just because it has less teeth. To me
that would just mean that the teeth hit the work harder.
I use either 14 tpi blades in my band saws or the 10-14 tooth type.
When I do occasionally cut 14 or 16 ga steel stock, I just take it
easy on the blade. With high quality blades, I have only ever lost one
or two teeth in a blade, over 25 or 30 years.

One neat way to slow down a machine like yours is to go get a used
gearmotor, one that goes a lot slower than your current motor. Install
that motor below or farther away from the saw pulley than the current
motor. Get the proper belt. Then just change belt and engergize the
appropriate motor for the speed you need to run.

Pete Stanaitis
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N4aeq wrote:
As a electronic guy I often need to cut 1/16-3/16" & sometimes 1/2
small pieces of Aluminum, I
have a Craftsman cast iorn 12" bandsaw. They sell metal cutting
blades for these all the time
however I know I will have to drop the rpm. One blade has 9 tpi the
other 14 tpi but neither say
what rpm to run. The stock saw has 1725rpm motor 2/1 pully for 862
rpm of the 12" wheel.
If i figure it right thats around 2700 fpm, again this is for wood
cutting. What would be a good
fpm to go for when cutting aluminum. Another thing is both say for
non ferrous metals but will
also cut thin ferrous metals, one 9tpi and ones 14tpi both fit the
same model saw, I guessing the
9tpi could run a faster fpm?