Bandsaws

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jmellc

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Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I could sometimes use a bandsaw in my shed for various projects. I see used ones at good prices sometimes. Are metal cutting blades made for most of them or does the saw have to be rated for metal cutting? I've never used them enough to really know that much about them. I've mostly used porta bands.
 
jmellc said:
I could sometimes use a bandsaw in my shed for various projects. I see used ones at good prices sometimes. Are metal cutting blades made for most of them or does the saw have to be rated for metal cutting? I've never used them enough to really know that much about them. I've mostly used porta bands.
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a bandsaw is a bandsaw. the blade determines what you are going to cut, and of course, the horsepower.

the one exception to that is the doAll.
http://www.doallsaws.com/sawing-machines/vertical-contour
they do just about everything, including weld and finish their own blades
from bulk stock.

they hold their value, and aren't gonna show up on craigslist for a hundred bucks.

something i got instead of a bandsaw, was a festool jigsaw. the battery operated one
is pretty damn good. 1/2" steel, 3/4" aluminum, wood as thick as the blade....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLQgMWF_ts

i bought it a year ago, there isn't anything you can do with a bandsaw that i can't
do with this, and a ton of stuff i can do that no bandsaw can do.

what the hell, try one. if you don't like it, return it within 30 days for a refund.
nobody returns festools however.
 
What do you want to use it for? Strictly cutting metal or for various tasks? There are band saws specifically for cutting metal stock that you can set up for the cut, get it started and walk away, it will shut off once done cutting off your piece.

Can't really do that with a typical band saw you see in a woodworker shop.
 
I picked up a Laguna 16" Italian bandsaw off of CL. It is 15 yrs old and in great shape.
I replaced the guides and added a foot brake micro switch.

I have a few new wood and metal blades.
I have a carbide toothed resaw blade that's 1-1/4" wide.
It works great for resawing boards to get thinner ones up to 14" wide.

I cut a slice of walnut less than 1/8".
I am finishing a small walnut box with a curly maple top and bottom and maple miter splines. It's going to be a gift.

With the bandsaw you can do more than a table saw and I find it a lot safer.
 
Have 1939-40 14" Delta (Rockwell bought them in 1945 & sold them in 1984) that needs to be restored, 1976 20" Rockwell variable speed that nobody knows what is the correct lubricant for the gear box, thankfully there is a mid 1990's Delta 14" that is my go to machine, it's too bad that because Delta has changed owners so many times, from Rockwell to Pentair, Black & Decker, Stanley/Black & Decker, to a Taiwanese company now, that there is no one with the knowledge of the older machines anymore. There is nothing new from Delta worth owning, but the older machines are.


When that 20" saw was discontinued it sold for around $5K so it's a bloody shame it is not useable, sometime soon it will.
 
Bandsaws made for metal will be built to run blades at a higher tension and parts will be beefier. That said you can put a metal
cutting blade on any good bandsaw and it will work.

One thing a bandsaw will do that a jigsaw wont is re saw or cut anything deeper than the blade. But a nice jigsaw is good to have.
 
The problem with putting a metal cutting blade on a wood cutting band saw is speed, you need slower speeds then then the saw is made for.
 
And coolant. Metal cutting often involves the use of cutting fluids to keep the blade cool. So metal cutting band saw machines are designed to allow that to happen. Wood cutting band saws are not made to deal with the presence of fluids.
 
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