My workshop is small: a corner with a secondhand bandsaw, a belt sander and more jars of screws than I like to admit. It runs on evenings and weekends, and on whatever I can remember about each machine.
The first time the bandsaw blade snapped, I went to order a new one and realised I didn’t know its length. The manual was long gone. The label had a model number but no blade size. The internet offered three answers: one in inches, one in millimetres, and one for a “similar” model that turned out not to be similar at all. I measured the wheels, did the maths, doubted it, and ordered the wrong blade anyway.
The sander was the same story. A belt is a belt, until it is a few millimetres too long and wanders off the drum.
A notebook, then a spreadsheet.
So I started writing things down. First in a notebook, then in a spreadsheet: the machine, the exact model, the blade or belt size, and, most importantly, where that number came from. A manufacturer’s manual, a data sheet, a spare-parts page. If I couldn’t find a source, the cell stayed empty instead of holding a guess.
Friends started asking for the sheet, and then asking me to look up their machines too. Along the way I learned that the same model name can take a different blade in the US and in the UK, and that the model number on the label is far more useful than the name on the box.
The spreadsheet, grown up.
BenchRefill is that spreadsheet with a front door. It keeps the rules I set for myself:
- Every size has a source. Each documented size links to the manufacturer document it came from, with the date it was checked. Where nothing is documented, the site says so instead of guessing. How we source sizes explains the details.
- Units as printed. Sizes are shown the way the manufacturer printed them, in inches or millimetres, with an exact conversion next to them.
- Each market on its own. A US machine and its UK or Australian cousin don’t always share a blade, so every country keeps its own records.
- Your machines, on your device. My Workshop keeps your saved machines and shopping list in your browser. No account, and nothing is sent to us. The next time something snaps, the right size is one tap away.
How the site pays for itself.
The retailer buttons are Amazon searches for the exact size. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Sponsors may support the site too, in clearly labelled spaces below the answer. Neither ever changes which size is shown.
Help it get better.
New machines and corrected sizes are listed on What's new in the catalogue.
If a size looks wrong, tell me. If your machine is missing, ask for it. Every correction makes the reference a little more reliable for the next person standing in front of a machine with a broken blade.
Below each documented size there is room for workshop reports: how the blade or belt actually fitted. I read every report before it appears. I remove spam and personal details but publish negative reports too, and I cannot confirm that the writer owns the machine.
Ian Jamry
BenchRefill