On Apr 22, 2:30*pm, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Ignoramus12350 fired this volley om:



When I make ships by the bucket, new problems and questions appear, I
had to redo the coolant nozzle so that the blade stays wetter, etc.

Yup... but despite EA's inane protestations, the Starrett bi-metal blades
are good. *I go roughly a year between replacing them on the 8x24
Kalamazo. *I don't make as much steel chips as you do, but still cut a
lot of stock.

I figure - at some point - time is as important as blade cost. *I'm not
one to shirk buying a new cutting tool if one wears out; I HATE dull
_anything_. *But after long enough, you figure a blade must be fatigued
from all the bending, that being just as much or more destructive than
the wear from actual cutting. *My old blades break (usually) long before
they dull.

LLoyd

EA is not the only one. When I worked at Qualcomm's Prototype machine
shop we tried Starrett band saw blades with very poor results. I've
also used Starrett band saw blades elsewhere and they weren't very
good and certainly were nothing special. That doesn't mean all
Starrett band saw blades suck or they they don't have something new
that's great only that I've seen nothing special about them.