.045 vs. .055 ? Your thoughts please.

[Bibbyman]

.045 vs. .055?

We started out with an LT40G18 manual mill and we used .042x1.25x10 degree blades.  When we got the 96 Super,  we started buying .045 because they’d still work alright on the older G18 that we still had.

Then we sold them both and got the LT40HDE25 Super.  But we continued to buy .045 blades and still had quite a few of the older .042s around. 

Well,  we’ve tried .055 blades before and they worked fantastic.  From the couple we tried,  I don’t think we got the total blade life we were getting from the .045s or .042s. 

At the Mid-West Forestry show last month Mary bought a box of .055x1.25x9 degree blades. 

We had a small mountain of large hard maple logs right away plus a pile of big hickory logs.  We sawed up the maple using the blades and they did a wonderful job.  Cut a good bit faster,  powered straight through big knots, and staid sharp longer.  We even pulled them before we would have had them been .045s.

I’m thinking of starting to phase in .055x1.25x9 degree on all our new blades.

I know I’m going to saw faster and better and probably longer between blade changes.  I’m not worried about loosing the .015 kerf.  What I don’t have a handle on is the blade life.  Will I get 4-5 resharps? Or 2-3?

Also,  the .055s cost $24.80 each when the .045s cost just a few cents under $20.00 each.

Has anybody already gone down this road before? 

[dewwood]

I am also in the process of trying the 55's.  I have gone through about fifty and they do cut faster and straighter.  I feel like they dull fairly fast but maybe I am just  putting more footage through them because of the faster sawing.  I have noticed much more breakage with the 55's over the 45's I have used for several years.  I have a box of 15 ready to ship to resharp and there are three broken blades out of the 15.  I have only had two sharpenings on some therefore cannot say about how many total sharpenings I may get but the breakage would indicate probably not as many as the 45's which very seldom break but usually get too narrow to sharpen any more.

[big_sid]

bibby, I got a box of 10, .55 blades awhile back to saw up some pine and hemlock, they do cut faster and power though knots with no waves,but  ???sent them to resharp one time, started using em again, they started breaking after one sharpning, only have 5  left now. that's my experince, someone else's may be different.

[Tom]

Baker made a good decison recommending Lenox Woodmaster C   1 1/4  7/8 pitch blades for my mill.  I've not had to experiment.  These blades seem to work in most everything.

[wiam]

Tom,  What thickness are the Woodmaster C's?

Will

[gmmills]

     When I ran my LT40D42 Super  I did some experimenting with blade thicknesses and flex life. With the .055's the blade flex life will not be nearly as good as with .045's.   I tried 1 box of .055's and sent them back to resharp. They didn't last long enough to be sent back for a second sharpening. The second box of ten I tried I pulled sooner and sharpened them myself. They lasted for 5 sharpenings. They were ran around the sharpener 3 times instead of the usuall 2 times for .045's. The .045's  would last up to 10 sharpenings. Some would become too narrow and would have to be pulled from service.  I couldn't justify the .055's as my every day blade. I even tried  1 1/2" .050's and they cut faster than 1 1/4 .045's. Their flex life was better than the .055's.  I finally settled on 1 1/2" .045's over the 1 1/4" 0.45's. The 1 1/2"s cut faster than the 1 1/4"s and still gave me the same amount of flex life.  

        The 19" blade wheels on the LT40 are the limiting factor of blade flex life.   On my LT70 I use  1 1/2" .055's and get great flex life. I average 10 sharpenings a blade and even had a few go as many as 14 times. They were getting too narrow. The 24" blade wheels on the 70 and the air bag tensioner attribute to the blades added  overall flex life compared to the LT40's 19" wheels.

        I saw primarily hardwoods and used the 9 deg profile exclusively on the LT40.On the LT70 I'm using 10 deg's and sharpening them at 8-9 deg hook angles. In .055 thickness, WM only manufactures the 9 deg in 1 1/4" width.  1 1/2"s are manufactured in 4, 10, and 13 deg hook angles.  

[Tom]

Woodmaster C's are made in .035 and .042.  I use the .042.    It is a blade designed on the metric system and, I'm told, because of that is a little stiffer and larger than regularly sized blades measured in "inch".

They are hard and cut like a house on fire.  Perhaps their longivity and number of sharpenings doesn't match some other brands but they do a good job of breaking down logs for me.  I get 3 or 4 sharpenings and sometimes 6 to a band.  I push them pretty hard and cut 600 to 1000 feet out of the box.

[Bibbyman]

When we sawed up the hard maple, we pulled the .055 blades after two bundles – 1000 to 1200 bf just because we didn’t want to over run it.  They generally were still cutting well at that point.  They were nice clean logs and the debarker did well on the thin, tight bark.

We went back to the .045 blades for general sawing and noted a little performance drop but got along fine.  But then in mid-week we got back to sawing 8/4 walnut from some big logs – some with really big knots.  I knew the .055s would let me saw faster and better so I put one on.  They did. But I noted so far,  I’ve had to change the blade around or under 1000bf as it was getting dull.  It’d still cut straight but you’d have to slow down in general and way down on hard knots. Walnut logs tend to pick up dirt and rocks like a magnet. Even with a debarker, you still cut through some.

I like the Get-er-done performance of the .055s.

We have a box of .045x1.5x10 degree Silver Tip blades that we’ve not tried.  They are made for re-saw and not intended to be re-sharpened.  Has anyone tried these?

[Percy]

Heya Bibby.
Alot of the LT40 guys around here(mostly deisel supers) are using the .050 blades. KInd of a compromise between  the 45's and 55's. When I had my LT40, I used 1.25X.055's for a while. The key I found to getting decent life ouuta them was to cut as fast as possible withem and remove them alot sooner than youd like(still fairly sharp). The bdftage was the same or slightly better than the 45's but I was getting it done much quicker.

[Gilman]

Who are you getting the 0.050's from Percy?

[Bibbyman]

Who are you getting the 0.050's from Percy?

Wood-Mizer makes them.  Look way down on the list.

Wood-Mizer blades

I think we even tried a sample .050 and it did work better than the .045s but just one blade ain't enough to go on.  That's why Mary bought a whole box of .055s.

[Percy]

Who are you getting the 0.050's from Percy?

Ya, like Bib said, you get them from WM. They only come in 10 degree right now I think. I been using them on the LT70 as well.

[ronwood]

Bibbyman,

When you use the .055 do your change the clearance on your blade guide from what you have for the .045?  What are your thoughts off using the .055 with the 25HP Kolher. It seems to me that it would require more hp to really get the most out of the thicker blade.

Ron

[Bibbyman]

Bibbyman,

When you use the .055 do your change the clearance on your blade guide from what you have for the .045?  What are your thoughts off using the .055 with the 25HP Kolher. It seems to me that it would require more hp to really get the most out of the thicker blade.

Ron

I think Arky uses some .055s on his Wanda.  I'd think you'd be a little short on HP to run them all the time for every thing.

Yea,  I had to adjust the guides for the .055s.  This is why if I go to the .055s,  I'll want to run them all the time.  'Corse,  we've got a couple 100 .045s and a few .042s we'd still use on the light stuff.

[gmmills]

Bibbyman,

    I forgot to mention that you will see better performance form a 1 1/2" blade if you use 1 1/2" blade guide rollers. When I  first tried 1 1/2" blades I was using them on 1 1/4" blade guide rollers. I wasn't real pleased with the performance over 1 1/4" blades. I then tried the blades with 1 1/2" blade rollers and saw a considerable improvement in speed and quality of cut.

     The silver tip blades  can be resharpened quite a few times.  I have been using one 1 1/2" x .055  for the past week mixed in among my doublehard blades. As of today, it has 6 sharpenings on it and still cutting well. The jury is still out on how long it will last compared to the doublehards. It seems, also, to compare well in sharp life with the doublehards. The blade was a free trail sent by Janet Myers along with my two boxes of Doublehards I purchased at the Paul Bunyon Show.

     As Percy stated, the  1 1/2" x .050's are only offered in a 10 deg profile. 

[FiremanEd]

Biddy,

I'm a big fan of the .055's. We're running them on Dad's TimerHarvester as well as the 300. Woody runs them on the 300 till he has to start slowing down on the feed rate which varies but averages over 2, probably closer to 3 hrs, some run over 5 hours. That'll be between 1600 & 2400bf on a normal day. I helped him put on right before lunch today that we both commented on how narrow it was. It'd been sharpened atleast 4 if not 5 times. It was down close to an inch wide.  We looked real hard at sharpenings verses bd feet per blade and determined that we don't care how many times a blade goes to be sharpened. What counts is how many bd ft it saws in it's life. We've tried 4degree, 10 degree and 13degree's and all I order now are double hard, 4 degree's. We saw everything hardwood with 4degree's. We keep a few 13's incase we're sawing pine but the 4's work ok in pine as well.

Eddie

[pigman]

I have only used one .055. The one WM gave me at the pig roast. It was the only blade I could cut a very hard log with last week. On the second log, a small walnut that I didn't need the .055 on but was too lazy to change, I cut completely through a porcelain insulator.   The box I ordered came today. I will try them on white oak, hickory and other hard woods.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I run alot of 0.055's.  The problem is 3 sharpening are about it for them on Wanda.   The 25hp pulls them just fine and I mostly cut hickory and large knotty pine with them in 10degree.   I try not to go over 1,500 bdft on any use but when they come back from 3rd sharpening I just run them till to dull or they break.   I have put them on new and sawn over 2,500 bdft but they will break after just one sharpening.   I have also found not to run the blade unless you are cutting.  If you let it run when backing up it will break faster.

  If you figure cost per bdft the 0.045's will win.  But if you figure cost per hour and number of bdft per day then 0.055's will win under tuff sawing conditions.  If I saw large hickory I get about 150 bdft an hour and about 700 bdft with a 0.045 blade.  If I saw with a 0.055 I get 200 to 225 and hour and get close to 1,000 bdft per blade.  Now if I am sawing good red oak and spitting out ties  the bdftage is about the same per hour and I can not afford to run 0.055's.   Life for 0.045's is around 4,500 bdft and for the 0.055 is around 3,600 bdft.

  There are times when the 0.055's will make and save you money so it is good to have a box around.   Have not tried a 0.050 yet.  Maybe WM needs to send me a box for testing.

[Norwiscutter]

Just ordered some .049 1 1/2 inch munks from Menominee Saw.  Have never run an 1 1/2 blade and am hoping that it will give me more consistant cuts in the red pine I am using it for.  I was in such a hurry to order the DanG things that I forgot to tell them what pitch though.  I am hoping that they will be the same as the last ones I ordered witch I think were 10's.  Will post feedback when I start using them, although they will be the first blades that I run on the mill and therefore won't have anything to compare to.

[FiremanEd]

The blade I mentioned a couple posts above this on had been sharpened atleast 3 times, probably 4 or 5 by how narrow it was. It ran for 7 hours after Woody put it on at lunch that day. He changed it out the next morning at 8:30 and it's going back to be sharpened again. In my not always so humble opinion, the old adage about shutting the blade off when not cutting is no longer valid with modern metalergy. We start the headrig when we set down on the operator's station and leave it running until we expect to be stopped for a good period of time (more than 5 minutes) or when someone is going to be working around the head. When Woody runs a blade for 5 hours it probalby had 4:45 of actual in motion time.

The short and sweet is that these .055 blades are TOUGH.

Eddie

[Bibbyman]

We've been sawing a lot of big walnut the last week or so using the .055 blade.  The sharp life veries from 500 to 1000 bf.  Not nearly as good as when we were sawing hard maple.  The main reason is the dirt and rocks picked up by the cork-like walnut bark.  The debarker just can't get all the way to the bottom of the bark.  Also, often we're sawing into and out of the bark as we're fishing for a good opening face.

But they are tough!  I'll be sawing along and hear a ZIPPP!  I know I've hit a rock.  Sometimes the size of a pigon egg.  Yesterday I was sawing a larger but short walnut log - say 30" dia. x 6' long and was down to the heart saw when I heard Zip, Zip, Zip..  Yep.  three 20d nails about 3" from the heart.  I changed the blade but could only find a few metal boogers on a couple of teath.

[FiremanEd]

Yea Biddy, a couple nails aren't a big deal to them. You can usually finish sawing the log to a tie and framing lumber after hitting nails. Woody has a pic of a flat file he hit a couple months ago... that one cost us a new blade. It was in the 2nd log of a brand new blade