Bandsaw power and blade width and suitability

[TimW]

I have a little project on which involves making some quantity of wooden components. The material is cedar from the sawmill (eg not dried) sawn at 18mm thickness. I am cutting out from the edge of the workpiece semi-circular, half-moon cut-outs 60-70mm long so radius 30-35mm.

Prototyping I have found my jig saw to be awkward and untidy. I am thinking I might get a band saw, benchtop, nice and cheap from screwfix or somewhere and imagine I will be pencilling the semi circle and making the cuts, one at a time without cursing or fuss. Is that likely?

I might need a 1/4" blade for the curve, and my long ago experience tells me they can be awkward and jump out of the guides. More serious the screwfix bandsaw only has a 350w motor. Can this possibly be enough?

TW

[Andrew]

If you had a router, you could make up a jig out of some thin ply and clamp this in place and make as many 'chomps' as needed.

Alternatively, clamp two boards together and use a hole saw of the required diameter to cut a half moon in both boards.

[TimW]

Thanks Andrew.

[John Rumm]

Decent blade guides should keep it in place. The biggest risk is if you have to pull it back past the blade. 350W will be ample for 18mm material.

However, my attack would be to make a decent template of what you need out of 1/4" - 1/2" MDF or similar, use that to mark out your shape, then rough cut round it with the jigsaw - stay 1/4" away from the line. Then stick the template to the cutout[1], and route the edge using a bearing guided flush trim bit the the router to make a perfect copy of the template. Quick, easy and repeatable.

[1] masking tape on the template and the workpiece then a small spray of CA glue on one side, and a squirt of activator on the other. Bring them together and it sets solid in seconds. Has enough grip to fix the template in place for routing. Then you can prise them apart with a scraper etc, and the masking tape will pull away from the template and the workpiece.