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Band Saw

S

Stockmanreef

Well Known Member
This one was a hard one to search because the search engine did not like "saw".

Anyway. I assume that I will need one to cut things apart.

Any recommendations on a band saw? I used a variable speed one at my building class, but apparently those are not available anymore.

Thanks
Ken
 
Pay me now or pay me later...

As with everything else, you get what you pay for. I bought the cheapest saw I could find at Lowes and I've pretty much given up using it. I can cut with a hacksaw faster and use my sanding station and deburring wheel to clean it up.

I have a friend that has a floor model band saw that I use on thick stuff and just use a hacksaw on the angle that I have to cut. I dont have the real estate for a nice one, so I just gave up on the idea of a bandsaw.
 
On the newer kits, there are so few things to cut, a bandsaw is pretty far down the tool list. Besides, you can do the same work with a hacksaw or cut-off wheel.

That said, any woodworking bandsaw, even one of the $100 tabletop models will be appropriate for aluminum. You do need to choose a blade with fine enough blade pitch for the thickness of what you plan to cut.
 
That is so funny, because that it is same saw that I have collecting dust in the corner. It was taking 4 minutes to cut through 1 x 1.5 .125 angle, I cut it with my hacksaw in under a minute. It constantly bogs down with the slightest pressure on the work piece. I dont want to hi-jack the thread, so if you have any suggestions for getting it setup correctly, I'd love the PM.
 
Lemmingman said:
That is so funny, because that it is same saw that I have collecting dust in the corner. It was taking 4 minutes to cut through 1 x 1.5 .125 angle, I cut it with my hacksaw in under a minute. It constantly bogs down with the slightest pressure on the work piece. I dont want to hi-jack the thread, so if you have any suggestions for getting it setup correctly, I'd love the PM.
Click to expand...

In bound.

Filler
 
cheap light duty blades (replace often)

Lemmingman said:
As with everything else, you get what you pay for. I bought the cheapest saw I could find at Lowes and I've pretty much given up using it. I can cut with a hacksaw faster and use my sanding station and deburring wheel to clean it up.
Click to expand...

The blades dull quickly. If you only cut 2024 and 6061 it is faster and more accurate than a hacksaw. Cutting steel is not really an option and just ruins the blade.
 
The Craftsman 10" model is actually really nice; I picked it up for the Sonex scratch-build I'm also working on (long story) after my dad's hand-me-down Black & Decker kicked the bucket. It makes short work of angle stock with a 14-18tpi blade.
 
I have a 14" jet bandsaw, from when my shop was a wood working shop, not an airplane factory. I punched a delta 1/4" aluminum blade at the start of my RV9A projuct. All is good. Wider is not good. I use the saw frequently, can't see how to do without it. A few fixtures, I fabricated, make most cuts a snap. :)
 
Cutting tools

I'm a contractor by trade. I have many tools
many in duplicate. A very handy tool for cutting
2x wood as well as aluminum angle is an inexpensive
Ryobi 10" mitre saw with a carbide blade. Works very
Well for cutting angle perfectly. A bench top Ryobi
Band saw with a metal blade for cutting sheet stock works
Great for the price. Keep the bearings adjusted properly to keep
The blade from twisting. Ryobi tools are inexpensive and in this case
Both work very well. Clean up the cuts with a belt sander and
A 3m polishing wheel.
 
I love mine

I found a Sears Craftsman 12" Bandsaw on Craigslist for $50, almost new, but with wood blades. I bought a Lenox BiMetal variable tooth blade for another $50. All I cut is aluminum, and that thing will cut .063 sheet, and .125 angle like butter. It will cut as fast as you want to push through, and with the fine blade, the cut marks buff out easily. I use it daily.

Take care of the blade, and it will hold up well. NO steel or fiberglass!!

Edit: On the longer angle pieces (over 12") I just use a hacksaw and a steel miter box.
 
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The cheap harbor freight saw has been doing just fine for me. I didn't even change the blade. Cuts like butter. Of course...it isn't for steel. Just wood and aluminum.
 
My first one was a machinist band saw from Harbor Freight. It cut one piece of metal, then would never hold on to a blade and defied all efforts to make it do so. When I moved, I just left it in the shop. I also had an HF drill press that wasn't much better (would drill a 1/4" hole with a 1/8" bit:rolleyes:). I've since vowed never to buy anything else from HF that has a cord.

I replaced the HF POS bandsaw with a 9" Craftsman bench type (actually measures out to 9-1/2) and have had good service from it for 15 years. The only problem was that it threw a "tire" off one of the wheels recently, but it was cheap and easy to replace. The original 6tpi blade is quite noisy on the thin stuff, and noisy AND slow on the thick stuff. I really need a finer blade, but the saw itself does just fine.
 
Ryobi and Harbor Freight Work Fine

I bought a $99 Ryobi bandsaw at Home Depot and put a metal cutting blade on it. Cuts all alum like butter. Finished my RV9A now and I still have the same blade. I also have the HF metal cutting bandsaw I bought for $149. The saw works fine but the original blade was junk and kept coming off. Changed to a quality Starrett bi-metal blade and the saw has given me a good 10 years of service cutting steel. Those 2 saws cut everything I need.
 
Ryobi from Home Depot

I've been using an inexpensive Ryobi band saw. It has worked okay, but this week I switched to an 18 tpi metal cutting blade. It took me a bit to figure out how to do the swap, but now is better than okay. It's quite good.
 
It's all about the blade....a good blade can make a cheap bandsaw act pretty well for what we use them for. In the big picture, building one airplane is very light duty for even a cheap bandsaw...unless you're putting the cheapest harbor freight junk blade in it.
 
The blade

I ordered my blade from http://www.magnate.net/
Looked back for the receipt, and it was $31 with $9 for shipping. I had a hard time finding a blade since the Craftsman uses an 80" blade. Could only find wood cutting ones in that size. Magnate welds them in any length out if Lenox blades in any tooth count, in bi-metal. They even sell carbide tipped if you want to spend the money. I even cut some solid aluminum block 2"X2".

Money well spent.

Works great for the nylon blocks too!
 
climberrn said:
I ordered my blade from http://www.magnate.net/
Looked back for the receipt, and it was $31 with $9 for shipping. I had a hard time finding a blade since the Craftsman uses an 80" blade. Could only find wood cutting ones in that size. Magnate welds them in any length out if Lenox blades in any tooth count, in bi-metal. They even sell carbide tipped if you want to spend the money. I even cut some solid aluminum block 2"X2".

Money well spent.

Works great for the nylon blocks too!
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Amazon carries them from that seller (or at least they did); the shipping was the same and took a long time, but the blades were only $8. Then again, my saw takes a 70" blade.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010QTZ5Y/
 
I use a Delta 3 wheel band saw. It has a deep "throat" allowing me to make quick work on some of the larger pieces. I use a wood cutting blade, and it goes through aluminum easily. If I am cutting extruded angle, I use my power mitre box with a 80 tooth carbide blade.
 
Portaband an alternative (Milwaukee)

Another option for small dimensional stuff is a Portaband saw with a table like this.

http://www.swagoffroad.com/SWAG-V40-Portaband-Table_p_63.html

Pro's - variable speed, more power than you will ever need, blades are relatively cheap and last a long time (available at Home Depot or Lowes), blades change fast, will cut steel/aluminum/SS, you can use it to cut a lot of different stuff (pipes, structural steel, I-beams, etc.), it is portable.
Con's - expensive (but table and saw is heavy duty) , not for making long cuts

I have the Milwaukee and I really like it although I have not used it a lot yet. This would be a multi-purpose tool and not for everyone I realize. It is not for cutting big sheets but for small stuff it is great. Also the fact you can cut THICK steel or stock is a plus to me. Just a FYI.
 
Lemmingman said:
As with everything else, you get what you pay for. I bought the cheapest saw I could find at Lowes and I've pretty much given up using it. I can cut with a hacksaw faster and use my sanding station and deburring wheel to clean it up.

I have a friend that has a floor model band saw that I use on thick stuff and just use a hacksaw on the angle that I have to cut. I dont have the real estate for a nice one, so I just gave up on the idea of a bandsaw.
Click to expand...

I wanted to close the loop on this comment I made. After posting this I got several PM's with lots of good info and observations that people had made on their saws to make them useful. Thanks again for the wonderful advice. I bought different blades, cleaned all the moving parts, re-adjusted everything I could find to adjust and still this saw didn't have the "umpf" to cut through anything but the thinnest sheet. Even 1/4" pine made it labor. At this point I assumed that I had gotten a bad motor with mine or there was some other defect. I resolved to sell it in the next garage sale we had. The saw, BTW, is a Skil 3385.

One day a friend was over at my house checking out the progress on the plane. I lured him over for beer, but little did he know he was going to get a riveting lesson so that I could possibly use him in the future for help <insert evil laugh>.

He's very good with tools, so I mentioned the problems I had with the band saw. So we plugged it in and tested it. He agreed that the saw wasn't working correctly. He tinkered with it for a few minutes, adjusting this and tightening that. He then asked me, "What about this lower pulley?" I said it was static and didn't need any adjusting. I had cleaned it with alcohol and gotten off any oil or metal shavings that I could find. He said there is an adjustment here. You can put the drive belt on a larger diameter hub on the pulley. He showed me where he was talking about and I couldn't believe it. I had never once noticed that there. We took tension off of the motor mount and put the drive belt on the newly discovered pulley. We reassembled everything and powered it up. It sounded more determined, less dainty than it had before. I fed a scrap piece of oak flooring into it and the saw never missed a beat. It cut it perfectly. I tested it on some scrap angle and it mowed through that like it was nothing. I think it would cut marble if I tried it.

So, if you've got an under powered band-saw, I hope this will help you just like it helped me.
 
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