I have a 20 year old Sears 16 inch bandsaw... at least that is close...

I have been using a blade which is about 3/4 of an inch thick (front to back) and which has teeth made for sawing wood.

It saws well, but it does wander quite a bit. By paying very close attention, I usually can keep it from wandering more than a mm by moving the piece back and forth.

I was just talking with the machinist at a shop this morning (with a really big Delta bandsaw) who told me he changes the blade on the band saw every few months whenever wander begins... It's cause, he said, is the teeth are not cutting a wide enough swath for the blade to travel through and the blade begins to direct the direction of the saw's travel. We use our saws about the same amount... every few days for less than an hour.

Well, this was the first I had heard of this... I must admit I am using a 10 year old blade on the thing and since it does not slow down (hardly ever) in 3.5 inch stock I have assumed it is sharp enough.

Anyone else that can verify the machinist's interpretation and tell me that my saw would be SO much friendler with a new blade??

I was planning on ripping the cedar 2x4s into 1x4s over the weekend for the new stripper with my table saw (two passes). If the band saw could cut nice and straight, I would use it instead. I will probably rip the strips themselves with the table saw to get a nicer finish on the board and less planing/sanding.

The skinflint woodworker,
Rick