2nd hand bandsaws?

[hooblah]

I'm after a vertical bandsaw for my workshop. It will mainly be used for automotive stuff like pipework and sheet steel, cutting curves and angles. Maybe the occasional bit of bar or plate. I don't need anything serious.
I was considering a rage saw but I figured a bandsaw can do the same and is more versatile. Would anyone advise otherwise?

I've seen half decent vertical bandsaws going for around £100 on ebay. What should I be looking out for when buying one?

 

[Richard.]

There are story's of people that have got the best of both worlds by purchasing a horizontal band saw and making a nice removable plate to use as a vertical as well. I believe Wallace has done this to his horizontal and gets nices cuts with it in the vertical too. I've highly modded my horizontal but don't use it as a vertical even though it was designed for it. I believe the plates(base) that is supplied with these saws to use is pretty bad which is why most people make there own.

 

[eSCHEn]

If you do go down the horz way there's a canny one on the FS section ATM.

 

[Richardjjj]

The 2 things to be aware of

• most vertical bandsaws are designed fo use on wood and blade speeds are too high for metal. The Startrite Bandit recommended 190 feet per minute (around 1 metre per second) for cutting 1/4" (6mm) mild steel. A current model variable speed Makita of similar size is around 6.5m per second at its slowest.
• with a vertical saw the material being cut is fed, on a horizontal saw its normally clamped, so vibration can be a problem.

I'm not saying you cant cut at higher speeds but your blades wont last long if you do (been there, done that) and with bi-metal blades around £20 a time _ _ _.
Keep your eye out for a 10 speed Startrite, they do come round occasionally, but I would probably recommend a horizontal if you are only cutting metal.

 

[addjunkie]

I use a wood band saw with wood blade for cutting up chunks of billet ali, have gut bits the size of a breeze block both ways no issue.
Tried it with metal blade, blade lasted 20 minutes, never again.

I also have to obligitoray clake band saw, have used it both vertical and horizontal, id not bother again on sheet. Plasma or grinder everytime.

 

[Tom Orrow L]

I've got a clarke 4 1/2" dropdown bandsaw for sale if interested, £95. Just needs a new blade and the adjustable speed knob soldering back on

 

[hooblah]

Thanks guys. I'm not going to be cutting big chunks of steel. Mainly thin sheet and tubes for bodywork, exhausts, boost pipes etc. with the very occasional 5mm plate. For this reason horizontal is out of the window as I will only be able to make square cuts and not be able to do the thin stuff.

However I don't like the sound of changing blades every 5 mins...
If a vertical bandsaw isn't the answer then there must be something similar that's within budget that can do the same job? I don't fancy splurging a few hundred quid on something that will get occasional use.
Is a modified horizontal going to be the best bet?

I'll keep my eye out for a 10 speed startrite.
Tom PM me more info please

 

[addjunkie]

Blade selection, ie no of tpi is critical as is patience as you push metsl through

 

[MrFluffy]

Its all about the right blade, and the right speed as above.
I've used a ryobi wood saw on aluminium for years, I've modified it with better guides with bearings in, a small oil pump etc and it gets by even in 40-50mm thickness aluminium plate, provided your patient. Its useless on steel even with a steel blade because its too fast rpm wise, the frame flexes under the load and its vastly underpowered , and the throat space is tiny and gets in the way.
I weighed up the amount of work to add another stage of drive to drop the speed of the blade to metal cutting ranges, fit a bigger motor and brace up the frame a bit because its a bit flimsy, and it turned out to look like so much work and even then wouldn't be as good as the real thing that I would be better off just buying a proper metal cutting vertical saw. So I'm waiting not so patiently for a big old do-all with the variable gearbox selector and blade welder etc to finish its journey here on a pallet. I'll probably have to sort out wear in the sheeve as they all wear there but at least its a good solid base to work on.
I wouldn't be without a vertical bandsaw, I worked somewhere that had a big starrite years ago and was completely spoilt by having it to hand. if I want unattended cutting I put the parts in my old faithful donkey hacksaw and leave them to cut, but you can steer and do other more precision sawing with a vertical saw you cannot do on a horizontal, just trim or shave less than a kerf width off something for fit up etc.
I would say for a proper secondhand metal cutting vertical bandsaw, you'd want to be having about 500 pound available. You might find one for less, and you will find a lot for a lot more but for me thats a reasonable (read tight) budget.

 

[hooblah]

Thanks a lot guys. I'm still weighing my options up as I'm not in any rush.

Fluffy that was extremely helpful!

When I get one I will be changing the blade to at least 18tpi. But regarding the speed, is it going to cause a massive issue if the majority of what I'm cutting is less than 3mm?

 

[MrFluffy]

As you'd expect, you need a higher tpi blade with small gullets for thinner stuff, the aim is to get at least 3 teeth in the material at once if you can but with thinner sheet I find it easier to clamp it between some sacraficial ply and saw the shape out or the saw tends to distort the sheet a little and as I'm usually trying to make a gasket or something I want flat. A shallow in front to back depth blade will wander more and be less robust than a deep blade too but be more manoeverable of course. For steel I didn't have any sucess, it always overheated because of the too fast speed of the blade and ruined it before I had got a few mm into the workpiece. Maybe there's some fancy metal blade that can cope with being abused like this but its outside of my experience.

Some light reading
http://www.lenoxtools.com/Guides/LENOX Guide to Band Sawing.pdf

 

[graffian]

I use a cheap old[july 1955 so not that old] bandsaw for cutting ali, it cuts 1" tooling plate with the wood blades that came with it. I have had it 9 years and am still using the blades that came with it[on my last one]. I bought a roll of Eclipse blade, they sent me 24tpi instead of the ebay descrip of 14tpi, I made a blade and tried it on some sheet steel[I had worked out 2800ft min^-1 was a tad fast]it sparked and instantly blunted, I guess slow speed is needed;-)

 

[MrFluffy]

Thought I'd update my response in this thread now I've got my big bandsaw in place after some mini disasters. It was too tall to pass through the workshop doorway and hit the celing beams, so I had to flip it horizontal and the plan was to lift it into the workshop with the backhoe and deposit it on a trolly then right it in the final location.
But the strop I used to strap it to the back bucket of the jcb snapped when it was in mid air tilted to the correct angle and it fell into the ground with a sickening crump. Fortunately I had decided to take the table off before moving it just in case as it surely would have smashed the table mounts so the worst of the damage turned out to be the main and on/off switchgear wrecked. By a minor miracle I had exactly the same make of DOL starter box in the junk pile but only rated 1amp instead of 2-4, but the only difference is the diameter and stiffness of the fingers which throw the contactor out in a overheat situation & I rebuilt the spare with the heater wires/fingers out the original which had survived somehow, and rewired it a bit because some of the wiring looked a bit manky when I was in there replacing the switches. I know enough about how they work to wire in a auxillary e-stop button somewhere more reachable in a accident too now, so that's what I'm going to do.
So yes, if you buy a really decent saw, they're quite heavy and awkward to move. I'd estimate this at 400kg or so, so not the heaviest machine but not a tiddler you can wheel round with a sack barrow either. As a indication I paid 300 pound for this and it came from London docklands but I have 3 phase so I didn't need to chase a single phase saw which attract higher prices.

Some test pieces, contour sawing in steel, this is about 3mm thick black iron, with a square slot cut into it. I can't think of another process with which you could cut this shape easily with square corners without further ops to sort the corners out unless you have access to a wire edm. This is with a 1/2 blade, a smaller depth blade would be able to cope with curved shapes and you can also buy band-files, which turn the saw into a precision filing machine when mounted.

Chrome vandium (a old 1/2 drive socket that had snapped and was in the scrap bin), much less blade speed (50fpm on the speed selector) but no problems. I also sawn some 10mm thick iconel which I dont have a photo of, but it went fine and most people know what a sod that stuff is to work with.

Happy, going back to spending a sunday sawing up weird metals from the scrap bin now and make up the missing parts for the autofeed. That in itself is interesting, its got a big weight that you adjust the position on to change the leverage, and you attach a chain to the rear of the workpiece and it pulls it through on a auto feed for unattended cutting larger stuff. Thus, the argument for not having a vertical saw because it can't cut unattended is moot.