The manufacturers weld through the gullet or as you call it the valley. That was from the days when a saws butt-weld was done by hand with gas and so the thinking was to get the weld to move up the back of the tooth as the saw was ground down. Nowadays the welds are done by a machine using a mig welder so the welds nowadays are just as good as the rest of the saw.
On Apr 18, 2008, at 3:44 AM, gary wrote:
I work in the lumber industry as a saw filer. We run band saws that are highly susceptible to cracks. When ever I see a deep scratch running out through a gullet on a bandsaw I see a potential crack.
And I suppose you electric weld the seam. Do you match across a tooth or a valley?
That's correct and on a bandsaw the crack will 99.9 % of the time will always be at the very bottom of the gullet. In fact if we aren't careful and we grind the gullet with a notch on the bottom instead of being nice and round all the bending of the saw blade will happen there and we will definetaly get a crack.
Bandsaws and harmonica reeds face the similar stresses that lead to cracking.
Yes, both get their stress across the flat.
I think I did try to get a free replacement from Hohner Canada but they were typical Toronto mindset when it comes to dealing with west coasters, we're just small potatoes. So I don't buy hohners anymore.
I remember buying a Hohner MS harp and having a reed die in it almost right away. When I opened it up I saw a deep tunning scratch running out to the edge I was pretty p*****d. Workmanship like that is totally unacceptable and it should have been considered a manufacturers defect.
It is. I would want it replaced. If the dealer didn't make it right, I would contact the manufacturer. If they didn't make it right, I would boycott the brand. I always preferred buffing for tuning reeds. That way you get a gradual scooping of the metal instead of a sudden disruption of the molecules.
smo-joe