Broke my band saw blade mid-breakfast rush last Saturday

I was breaking down a whole pig at 7 AM and my band saw blade snapped right as I hit the spine. The noise was awful and I had about 15 pounds of shoulder half cut. I shut everything down, swapped in a spare blade I luckily had in my toolbox, and finished the job by hand with a bone saw for about 10 minutes. Has anyone else had a blade go bad at the worst possible time? How do you handle it when you don't have a backup?

3 comments

3 Comments

olivia_rivera882mo ago

Keep backups on hand and you won't have this problem again. A spare blade is like $15, way cheaper than losing all that morning rush money.

park.abby11d ago

$15 is a good deal if you find them on sale, but I've been running the same blade for two months now with no issues. @oliver2 made a solid point about sharp blades being safer, but I think the real issue is people not knowing how to maintain what they've got. If you keep your blade clean and don't let it sit wet, a slightly dull one can still cut through most stuff without snapping. I get that backups are smart, but it's not always about money - it's about not wanting to waste a perfectly functional blade just because it's not new anymore.

oliver22mo ago

Did you see that article from a butcher supply blog saying a dull blade actually snaps more often than a sharp one? I always thought you could run them until they failed, but that changed my mind on when to swap. Getting into a routine of changing blades before they start feeling rough might save you that kind of headache.