My band saw blade gave up mid-shift and I lost 40 minutes of prep time

So Tuesday morning I'm breaking down a couple of pork shoulders and the blade just snaps, no warning, right through the bone. I had maybe 12 more cuts to go and the nearest spare was in the back storeroom, took me 15 minutes just to find it. Ended up switching to my cleaver for the rest of the shoulders, which actually worked fine but my arm was dead by lunch. I've been running this saw for 3 years and never had that happen with the same blade brand, so I'm wondering if the tension was off. Anyone else had a blade fail randomly and did you adjust anything before swapping it out?

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the_lee1mo ago

Wait, three years on the same blade brand and it just snaps clean through bone with zero warning? That's wild. I've had blades die on me but it's always been that slow, sad whine right before they go, you know, like they're telling you they're done. Yours just went full silent mode and quit, that's almost impressive in a terrible way. Yeah, I'd bet money on the tension being off, especially if you've been running it hot for a while and never touched the adjustment knob. I've made that mistake before where I get lazy and trust the saw to just keep doing its thing, then one day it punishes me for it. At least your cleaver saved the shift though, sounds like you got a good arm workout out of it.