I tried something yesterday.  I just have a cheep benchtop bandsaw.  Nothing fancy at all.  I bought a metel blade from lowes for another project and while I had it on the saw I had a scrap piece laying there from a glass bow I did (two pieces of glass and two lams of walnut).  I ran though the saw and it cut it great.  It was a nice smooth cut with no splintering at all.  I don't know of any of you professionals have already tried this or not but it cut through it really well.  Just a heads up.

How did the blade hold up? Did it get dull as fast as a wood cutting blade?
Dave.

We knew that D-boy:)

Yes they get dull as fast as wood blades.

I took some advice from a previous post and flipped the teeth so the teeth are facing what you are cutting but reversed and they cut glass limbs great. The only problem is when ya get to the fades and the thicker wood then it doesn't cut.

Cory

Well EXCUSE ME ROY...lolol  But anyway just putting a bug in peoples ear.  Lucky for me I have a POS small bandsaw and new blades aren't much at all.  lol

It's amazing that a blade made to cut metal can be dulled by fiberglass. Unreal....

Troy

I believe glass is the hardest object on earth next to diamonds.

D-boy, I think a lot of glass guys use a belt sander to cut their bows out too. Just sayen son...

I'm by far no expert here but I use a 3/8" 4t skip $14 blade and can get five or six bows out of it. That's cutting the limbs and riser cut outs on a one piece. If I made a lot of bows I'd no doubt use the expensive blades but for me this works ok.

LC, I didn't know yunzs all had lectric sahs down thar, heck didn't even know yunzs all had lectric yet:)

lectric heck no I'm talking chain saws. Sorry for con fusion!

LOL...

Ha LC thats funny...I hear ya there's places here that the sun only gets to a couple days at the end of the week.

Yup D, I understand:)

I have a 3/8 10 tpi that I use only for limbs.  I put is on the saw when trimming a limb and take it back off for other work.  I have done 3 bows with it so far.  As for sanding, it uses up 1 belt to do a set of limbs.  That is $4-5, so there is an expensse there also.

For me I've found the the fewer number of teeth on the blade there is the better it holds up when put to glass. I have no idea how many 6 tooth blades I have messed up by simply touching glass, not talking about cutting through, just touching.

The best I've had so far was a three tooth skip.

Still, I normally grind off any excess limb material. I have a 4"x24" ossiclating sander and finally changed the belt on it yesterday after building 7 bows.

Troy

Troy

What Troy Troy said.

Roy

Roy

 

Smart alex!!

Troy

lol

lol

lol