Dropped $150 on a fancy band saw blade and it snapped on the third cut

Thought I was treating myself to a real upgrade at the supply house in Denver but that thing sheared clean through on a frozen pork shoulder, anyone else have bad luck with those titanium coated blades?

3 comments

3 Comments

troyc1717d ago

My buddy swore by those titanium blades for years and I always thought he was full of it... but after snapping three regular blades in a row on some frozen bone-in ribs I finally tried one and it held up way better than I expected. That said, I've heard the cheap ones from big box stores are just regular blades with a paint job. Yours might have been a dud from the supply house or maybe that frozen shoulder was just too dense. The coating can chip off at the weld point too if the blade wasn't made right. I've learned to buy blades from a local sharpening shop instead of the big distributors.

jackson.max17d ago

Yeah but hold up @troyc17, the whole titanium blade thing is mostly a marketing gimmick. Titanium itself is actually softer than steel, so what they're really doing is putting a titanium nitride coating on a regular steel blade to make it harder on the surface. You're right that cheap ones are just painted, but even the good ones can chip if you hit bone wrong since the coating is only a few microns thick. The real difference you felt was probably from the blade being thicker or having a different grind, not the titanium. I've tested a few from a reputable forge and the coating wore off at the weld point after maybe 20 pounds of meat, so I just stick with high carbon steel now and sharpen more often.

aaronroberts17d ago

Had the exact same experience with a supposed titanium blade from a supply house, coating flaked right off after one big batch.