7/8" or 1" pitch bandmill blades?

[deumling]

Hi all, I am trying to understand the difference between these two blade pitches.  Why would someone use one over the other?  I just talked with Marcy at Cooks, and she said the only difference was that a 1" would run faster if it had enough horsepower. 
   I am cutting big Oregon White Oak, which is very tough on blades, and I was under the impression that a 7/8" would do a better job cutting on really hard/abrasive logs.  Maybe I am mistaken though.
   I welcome your input

thanks

-ben

[MartyParsons]

When I see 7/8 or 1" Wood-Mizer refers to this as tooth spacing. I have seen some of the other companies describe their blades as pitch. Wood-Mizer has different tooth spacing blades but most of our customers in the east are using 7/8 tooth spacing. On the tough cutting we use the 4,7,or 9 degree blades. This # refers to the tooth angle. Each angle also has some other things like tooth height and back of the tooth angle and set is less on the blades compared to 10 and 13 degree.
Hope this helps. I can give you much advise on White Oak in Oregon. White oak in Pennsylvania is also different cutting than Red Oak. We are using the 7 degree in White Oak with mills larger than 30 hp.

Marty

[customsawyer]

I have only tried a few 1" tooth blades and found they didn't work very well in hardwood but they do a little better in pine and the other softer woods.

[backwoods sawyer]

What size of motor is on your mill? I am running the 42 hp Kubota on my woodmizer I like the 7* and the 10* with a 7/8" spacing for both the white and black oak we have here in Oregon.

[customsawyer]

At the time that I tried the 1" tooth space blade I had the 62hp cat it now has the 55hp Yanmar.

[bandmiller2]

I believe the gullet shape and hook angle have more to do with it than 1/8 differance in tooth spacing.Frank C.

[ely]

i have ran both 7/8 and 1inch pitch bands, with a 20 hp honda. i really seen no advantages with either, but maybe it was my lack of hp.

i stick with 7/8 these days for sharpener reasons if nothing else. and more recently i have been using the supersharps from cooks.

i get very high mileage out of the new cooks bands like they claim.... but only in very clean logs, such as pine and oak that has been debarked and swept clean. if i cut cedar with the bark on, i dont really see an advantage to them. same with pine logs that have metal in them. :

[Tom]

When the popular mill band was 3/4" (resaws) Woodmizer started touting 7/8".  Some folks liked 1", but woodmizer was developing itself as the "go-to" for band saw mills.  Using 7/8 pitch set them apart from the other band manufacturers (retailers).  Because of this 7/8 pitch, as well as the 1 1/4 width, became the defacto standard.  That was a good move on Woodmizer's part and was in the right direction too.  It gave their smaller engines a bigger bite and fewer teeth to drag through the log.

To emphasize the difference, Woodmizer built it's sharpener with a leaning toward the 7/8 tooth spacing.  That was also a good move and other manufacturer's began to follow suite.  You will find that the 13'2" long band saw band has become a defacto standard as well, over the last 30 years.

While 1" spacing might benefit higher horsepower saws, the standard is still the 7/8" pitch.  It works without complicating things because the equipment has existed for so long that supports it.

There is a lot to be said for standardization, even among different manufactures. It takes a large and strong company, as well as a valid reason, to change standards.  Some might try it to get people locked into their equipment and find that it works against them because their customers don't like having the choice of only one supplier.

The 7/8" pitch works and already has the supporting sharpening equipment in the field.  Why would anyone want to change it, other than to try to control the market?

[barbender]

I've only used 7/8" and 3/4" pitch blades, the 3/4 blades leave a much smoother sawn surface on softwoods like spruce and balsam fir. They tend to tear and end up really fuzzy, other than that, I see no advantage to them.

[NMFP]

I sharpen many bands these days and one problem is that all manufactures are smilar but yet, different.  When i say that, most all companies produce a .75" and .875" band but only a few produce 1".  From a sharpening standpoint, it takes longer to sharpen a .75" tooth space band than a 1" because there are more teeth but.... from experience, its rather difficult sometimes to keep changing back and forth among the different tooth spacings.  To give you an example, I sharpen .50", .75", .875" & 1" tooth spacing bands.  That makes a minimum of 4 different tooth spacings not to mention, I am starting to see a few importend bands (Asian) that are add ball sized such as .625", .8125" & .9375".  Haveing seen these bands, I dont think they will be aroundvery long due to quality. 

Long story short, use the bands you can readily get, readily sharpen and are a good dollar value.  Keep in mind that price isnt everything.  I sharpen many brands of bands and I can tell which bands are Best, Good and Cheap. 

Happy sawing!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

[customsawyer]

I was thinking about this post today and remembered that the blade I tried was 1 1/8" tooth space not 1". Sorry for any wrong info.