Bandsaw electric blade welders ...the secrets ?...soldering as good ?

[lalatheman]

We always struggled with our doall blade welder on the 24 inch doall ....was it just that nobody could figure out and balance all the variables ?
Whats the satisfaction ratio contrasted silver soldering ?

Thanks
Dave

[Andrew R Stewart]

I'm no welder but I do a fair amount of silver brazing (which is what I suspect is actually meant by "silver soldering"). Butt joints with so little surface area make a poor design for silver brazing. Andy

[J Tiers]

The usual deal is to scarf them. A brazed butt joint will not last more than 10 seconds, if that long. Seen it tried.

[CCWKen]

I MIG weld all mine. But I'm used to MIG welding automotive sheet metal and I can dial-down my old Century 140 to practically a spark. I keep .020" wire in it and find I can use that for most all the light welding I do around the shop. I can't even remember the last time I had .030" wire in it.

[Tungsten dipper]

A TIG welder is ideal.

[TGTool]

My experience with the DoAll blade welder was always good. We had to do quite a bit of it sawing interior holes in die blocks. It was grind the ends to a decent match, maybe even trying to space teeth a little, set the blades in the clamp fixture, set the timer, hit the go button, then make sure to anneal the joint by heating again to red heat, cooling a little, heating a little and gradually tapering off the heat over 30 seconds or so. Then just grind the flash off and away you go.

One of the funniest things I've seen on blade welding was one of the toolmakers who had a blade down to below the minimum diameter for adjustment. He'd fairly enough cut off a six inch piece to splice in since the blade wasn't yet worn out. Two splices now to get a nice new endless blade but with a short section of teeth pointing the WRONG DIRECTION. Gotta get the teeth the right side AND the right direction. I suppose an easy thing to overlook since in the normal course of events you never think about it - just two ends and everything is going the right way.

[Stepside]

Years ago I taught High School Woodworking. Our budget was minimal at best. I got real good at scarfing and silver brazing the band saw bands. A good scarf, everything clean, the correct flux and Silver Brazing wire, A decent brazing fixture followed by a slightly "Reducing flame".

Anything smaller than 1/4 inch width was out of the question. The 3/4 inch bands were easy.

Done right they last as long as welded joints.

[BCRider]

I've never used a DoAll welder. Not even seen on in real life actually.

I did make up a little jig to hold the ends and silver soldered a half dozen joints over some years though. As mentioned above these joints were filed to an angled scarf joint and the soldering went well and the joints never let go. Still got the jig around here somewhere.

All in all though it was a fair amount of prep. Not a fast solution at all. I always figured that a specific welder should have been a lot more convenient. But from the stories above maybe not.

[Yondering]

My experience with the DoAll blade welder was always good.

Same, our work shop has been using one for at least 15 years or so with good results. I wonder if those having issues with it aren't tempering the weld? The lead guy in our shop taught me to put the blade back in the welder after grinding it smooth, and apply current just enough to turn the weld area blue. That seems to work well for us.

[nc5a]

10 plus years ago the plant I worked in bought a new (30" I think) DoAll bandsaw with a blade welder. None of the welders, machinists or mechanics wanted anything to do with making blades. So foreman gave away a half a dozen new boxes of bandsaw blade stock. I got one full box of 8 tooth HSS stock and made blades for my 20" DoAll using the blade welder on the new bandsaw. I welded 10 or so practice joints on scrap material since I'd never done any blade welding before. Then went to making blades for my DoAll, 9 total I think. I'm on my 3rd blade and couldn't be happier with the results. The blade material was new old stock and welded beautifully. I can't remember the manufacturer but it was probably the best you could get as the plant generally bought the best you could get of stuff like that.

I also have a blade welder on my 26" DoAll but have not used it since I refurbished the blade welder and bandsaw.

DoAll has a pretty good set of instructions on blade welding and that is the process I followed when making my blades. And, if memory serves me correctly I only annealed the weld once then ground the bead flat.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Two critical things when welding blades
Wash the blade joints before welding with Lacquer Thinner to remove the protective oil coating
Annealing is the secret recipe to success. learn the technique.
We pulsed our joints and SLOWLY reduced the temperature of the weld.
Rich
At Home I silver solder my joints ( with borax) and use a 3 to one ratio of thickness to lap and a fixture that holds the blade tight on one side and snug on the
the other that allows the blade to move/shrink

[skunkworks]

After years fighting with our blade welder - we figured out it was getting too high voltage. We bucked it down and now it works as expected. (I don't recall correctly - but it was maybe 208 vs 220...)

sam

[skunkworks]

btw - we used to use acetone - now we just touch the ends with a torch before welding..

[RWO]

[quote= a good scarf, everything clean, the correct flux and silver brazing wire, a decent brazing fixture followed by a slightly "reducing flame".

Anything smaller than 1/4 inch width was out of the question. The 3/4 inch bands were easy.

Done right they last as long as welded joints.[/quote]

+1

rwo

[Tundra Twin Track]

A TIG welder is ideal.

Do you just fuse them ,you use red tungsten.