Seems at some point there could be a cost savings buying a bulk roll, cut to length, and weld?
Certainly, if you're going through hundreds of blades a year it probably starts to make sense. But in order to do it properly, you have to buy blade stock (assume 50% of the cost is material), measure, shear, grind to length, clamp, weld, grind smooth, and anneal. That takes time and equipment, so even if I'm doing 50 blades a year at a cost of $20 instead of $40, I'm only saving $1000, and now I have many hours and many dollars invested in time and equipment. And that's for the high dollar bimetal blades. I run the $15-20 blades because most blades usually get killed by a rock or nail instead of flat out wear. So in that case, the savings would be even less. You have to anneal the blades properly because of the constant flex every rotation (they will break if too brittle), and you have to weld it straight and smooth to avoid uneven tension and poor cuts.
I assumed it wasn't that involved...
). IIRC, that was Morse(?) bi-metal stock and at the time (late '80s), a 100' of stock was 1/5th the cost of 50' worth of pre-made blades...
Its that simple just short of the annealing. All this talk I have been lightly researching a band welder. It seems after the i inch wide threshold they go up a good bit. The other thing is a lot of bulk vendor stock is in short supply. My great uncle made blades, at 14-15 years old I was too helping for cheap.I assumed it wasn't that involved...
Was thinking of the old (OK, ancient) metal cutting bandsaw we had in the plant that included provisions for making blades: square first end, measure, cut second end, insert into clamp, punch the "weld" button, remove from clamp, and clean-up to remove weld crown... less than 5 minutes (first time took me 20