by Paul Temple
A few years ago I came across a sale on a band saw blade butt welder that I couldn’t resist, which gave me the ability to roll my own blades. It works fine, except for one irritation: It is very difficult to align the blade ends well enough to avoid a misalignment of the welded blade because of the limited width between the welder clamps. This misalignment causes the welded blade to move fore and aft each time the joint passes the blade guides.
I thought about building alignment outriggers that could be screwed to the sides of the welder and be folded up when not in use. The limited use and bother of attaching these to the welder case kept me from ever doing anything about the problem.
The photo shows a much simpler, and equally effective, approach that finally solved the problem with only a few minutes of effort. I clamped two magnetic indicator bases to the sides of the steel welder case to use as outrigger guides. I used a section of saw blade to adjust the indicator posts so they were in-line with the backs of the welder clamps. When I put the two blade ends into the clamps, I use the outrigger posts to locate the blades and carefully close the clamps. I get perfect blades every time.
Thanks Paul! Your subscription has been extended by an issue!
