How many teeth are enough?

[Plodmore]

Scroll sawed for a while and am new to bandsawing. I have always used as many teeth as I can for the thickness of wood I am cutting to get the finest cut (hate sanding). I posted a query on blades and one of the replies made a sidebar commented that 14tpi was very very fine. I didn't think much of it at the time but I now start to wonder if bandsaw work is different. The max thickness of wood would be around 38mm (sometimes bigger to get down to this sort of thickness) but I am most likely in the 15 -20mm range (scrolling without the flapping). I don't mind going slower on thicker wood but would like to go faster on my usual. Plywood, apple and pine are the woods I have at present. Is 14tpi too fine?

 

[Roxie]

On the thickness you are using 6 tpi for the 15-20 and 3 tpi for the thicker stuff.

John

 

[sneggysteve]

Just one if your name is Juanita?

 

[RichardG]

From my experience (which is limited) I understand it’s a trade off between finish, speed and accuracy. If the TPI is large then there’s a risk of the blade not being able to clear the sawdust and then the blade will wander or bog down. If TPI is small (rule at least 3 teeth in the wood) then it will cut quickly and accurately but the finish is worse.

I regularly use a 10tpi blade for 18mm plywood with good results and was also recommended this TPI for a bandsaw box by Tuffsaws even though it was 80mm thick. Just cut very slowly.

 

[Plodmore]

Thanks. Will play around to get the tpi I like and alter the speed and bandwidth to suit the wood/cut.