In article >,
"brooklyn1" > wrote:

> Are you sure? That doesn't seem right. Were that true a loaf of Wonder
> bread would cost like $500. I don't think they'd actually sharpen those
> band saw blades, band saw blades for wood and metal cutting are never
> sharpened, the labor cost would make it prohibitive. When they become dull
> they simply put in a new blade and toss the old blade in the trash. But a
> loaf of bread would need a separate blade for each slice and even though
> those blades are not worth the cost of sharpening they're still too costly
> to throw away like 24 blades every hour.... and Wonder must have hundreds of
> bread slicing machines.

I work in a machine shop, and we get many machinist oriented
publications. I recall an article from one of them many years back.
The Wonderbread slicing bands do have a serration, but nothing like a
bread knife serration. It is wider dimples with no hooks, if I recall.
These things travel very fast, and have something like a 5-7 degree
angle point, sharper than even a restaurant kitchen knife. At that
sharp an angle, even soft bread causes the point crest to wear quickly.
Add to that the rollers to take it through odd angles to get back to the
top and the guides to keep each band in line, and those guides actually
to more damage to the crests than the bread actually does. But the
depth of damage is shallow so that resharpening these goes very quickly,
and it thus quite cost effective. Of course, they have a automate
machine that does the process. Hand resharpening would take much more
time and cost a lot more.

jt