Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've used Milwaukee's band band saw blades and they are crap compared to these MK Morse blades. Milwaukee's blades are welded together into a band and have very poor alignment in the two ends where they are welded together. This makes the saw jump each time the welded joint comes through the cut. And jump violently. But these Morse blades have great alignment of the welded ends and when they come through the cut, you don't even know it. Further more, the Morse blades have much better steel and heat treatment. The sharp edges are harder metal and they stay sharp much longer. For each Morse blade I use, it would have taken 3-5 Milwaukee blades to have accomplished the same cutting. Milwaukee's metal and heat treatment being inferior, lets the teeth of the blade rip off easily. By the time the Milwaukee blade is quite dull and needing replacing, 25% of the teeth are missing. The Morse blade never looses teeth. Instead of the tooth being ripped off, metal is ripped out of the cut as it should be. In an effort to find portaband blades that cut and last longer than Milwaukee's, I've purchased a test set of every brand of blade that Amazon sells. I use a lot of blades running a professional welding shop for a living. I own and operate After Hours Welding and Trailer Repair in St Augustine Fl. Metal work is pretty much my main living. It was worth my time experimenting and testing every blade I could get my hands on considering between now and several years down the road, I expect to go through several hundred blades. All the other brand blades were poor just like Milwaukee's. They offered no improvement. The Morse brand blade was the only superior blade I could find that ran and cut smoothly, and lasted a long time when compared to the rest of the competition. Does it surprise you that Morse blades are made in America? And all the others come from china re-branded. And the best part is they cost the same as Milwaukee blade. Its nice that in this case much better quality does not cost more than the junk. Let me give you some advice from a professional. Blades come in different variations, different quantities of teeth per inch. Thin walled metal should be cut with a blade that has many teeth per inch so there is always 5-8 teeth riding in the cut at any one time. As the wall thickness increases, you can use less teeth per inch because you still have as many teeth riding in the cut. However having too many teeth in the cut at the same time, reduces the cut pressure, reduces the pound per square inch of blade tooth pressure scraping/cutting the metal. When too many teeth, when too little downward pressure, the teeth just slide doing very little cutting. So this is when you pick a blade with less teeth per inch so you can maintain adequate down pressure so the teeth you are using, are digging in and scraping out metal. On the other side of the coin, having too few teeth in the cut at one time makes the teeth bite too hard and the teeth rip off. So based on the thickness of the wall being cut, you should choose a blade that has enough but not too few teeth in contact at any given time. This means we should change blades so we stay in the optimal cutting range without damaging the teeth for the longest lasting blade operation. Sounds good in theory. In real life its not that simple. My last cut was thick walled so I'm using a blade with the fewest teeth per inch. But my next cut is thin walled and its not a lot of cuts, but just one. Do I change blades for just one cut? In my shop time is money. I've discovered if I don't let all the weight of the saw press down, If I hold the saw back some, I can cut thin wall with blades that have few teeth per inch and not rip off teeth because they are not grabbing too large of a chunk of metal at any one time. I've gotten so good at knowing when to hold the saw back some and not cut with full downward pressure, that these days I rarely change blades when switching to thin walled metal. I use 10-14 teeth per inch blades for everything. But when on thin walled metal, I just don't let the saw put much pressure pushing the teeth into the cut so I don't rip off teeth. And these Morse blades are very forgiving. Pressure that would rip off dozens of Milwaukee teeth, almost never rips off a MK Morse tooth. But if I have a lot of cuts in thin walled metal, then I will take the time and put on a blade with 18-24 teeth per inch. But when you have a lot of teeth per inch, it cuts very slowly in thick walled metal. But 95% of my cutting whether thick or thin wall is with 10-14 teeth per inch and just variable down pressure or hold back pressure depending on what wall thickness I'm cutting this time. If I'm cutting 3" thick solid stock I will push the saw down with 20 lbs of pressure while cutting (plus the saws own weight). If I'm cutting 1/8" wall, I will hold up 2/3 of the saw weight so its not pushing the teeth too hard into the metal. I'm posting this review because I came back here to make my 3rd purchase of these Morse blades. Now my opinion is based on testing and experience, and as long as I'm here again buying more, I thought I would share my hard earned knowledge with you. Good luck and happy cutting. If you think this review is helpful, let me know.