Thread: Band saw Help!!

I use one of those low end small Jet band saws it works well for me. I do however not skimp on the blade I buy top quality brand name bi-metal blades. Some of my friends have the a very similar saw that they bought at Harbor Freight or the farm supply store. I believe a lot of the 4 1/2 inch band saws come form the same factory in China. There does not seem to be a lot of difference in them.

The saw I used in the video is a horizontal saw, the horizontal saw will tilt up and lock in the vertical postilion. I added a small square of plate to make the table out of.

I have also visited my freinds shop and used one of these saws Portable Band Saw | Milwaukee Tool that was mounted in a stand. The portable band saw mounted in a stand works pretty darn good. not a real deep cut but plenty for most of my needs. I have used the portable band saw in a stand quite a bit, I am impressed with it.

The 14 inch Craftsman is most likely is moving way to fast to work with steel.

I added a pic, of my two band saws, notice the primo folded towel seat on the metal cutting band saw you wont find perks like that on the fancier power fed saws



Charlie

Thank you all for the input! I greatly appreciate it. I feel that I have a researched this enough to make a purchase that should suite my needs. The problem with the craftsman was indeed speed. The slowest blade speed I could get it down to was 1620 when I need to be around 200.

I have used a "JET"/Grizzly?( like the vertical in Spaz's photo.) etc. 14 inch saw for years. But... it had the low speed pulley system in the base. Then the speed of the blade was reduced to a proper one for steel. Also, a Bimetal blade with at least three teeth on the thickness of the metal was used with success.
A bit of cutting wax was needed. A beeswax or paraffin/beeswax combination works well. Do-All stick wax is best but no longer readily available. there are other wax sticks on the market, Castrol is one. Fastenal and McMaster caryy a few bands of stick wax.
~Richard
The HF hand held is a great little cutter. in a home made holder, it will work well. Not for tight radii.

the only other question I would raise is:
was the steel annealed before cutting . if not you could be cutting a hardened steel with a hardened steel blade
properly annealed the steel should be like normal mild steel and no problem to cut with a decent Bi metal blade as mentioned already also