Hi Alun

The standard blades are normally for sawing dry wood with a narrow
smooth kerf.
The blades we need for sawing wet wood do need a wide kerf for clearance
and it does not have to be a nice smooth cut.
The standard idea is to have a minimum of 3 teeth in the wood you saw,
so for furniture making where 1/2" and 3/4" wood is sawn regularly you
need 8 or more teeth per inch (tpi).
We saw thicker wood normally so a 3 or 4 tpi is best and if you have
more than one speed on your saw, you can safely go to the higher speed,
the more teeth going through the wood make for a faster sawing feed.
The size of the saw (measured from its back to tooth point, not from the
back to the gullet) is important only for the tightness of the curve you
want to make, for a tight curve you need a narrow blade and a wide blade
helps for making straight cuts.
Also now is a good time to get a book on bands use and tuning.

Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo


Alun Saunders wrote:

I've just got a bandsaw (seems to be a bit of an epidemic at the
moment!) and it came with a blade fitted as standard. I've been
following the discussions here recently on blade sizes, and I'm
wondering how the blade width is measured exactly, so that I can
determine what I've got fitted and decide whether I want to upgrade or not.

So, is it measured to the tip of the teeth, or the hollow between the
teeth (I'm sure there's a 'proper' name for this) ?