Bandsaw purchase

They come up on eBay fairly often. The specific recommendations will depend on what you want to do with it, what capacities you need, and how much you're prepared to spend. I previously had a Startrite 352 and an Inca 260 and now have a Record Sabre 350 - all were/are excellent but I prefer the Sabre. Don't bother with a 3-wheel bandsaw.

Primarily for wood or metal (and if metal, ferrous or non ferrous) cutting?

What kind of cutting capacity do you require (both max depth of cut, and also max distance of cut from the edge of the material).

I currently have an Eletra Beckup BAS 315 which I got fairly cheap second hand. It is a fairly solid medium sized saw (about 60kg total weight). It can cut a max thickness of just over 6", with a max throat of just over 1'. I find it generally "ok", although I did upgrade the guide blocks to bearing guided ones.

As a general woodworking saw, the fence could be a bit more substantial, and there are times I wish I had a bit more capacity to resaw boards - say 9" depth of cut, more power, and the ability to stick a 1" (or wider) resaw blade in it.

I?m curious, why not a 3 wheel one?

I don?t claim to know about bandsaws but had looked at getting one previously and thought the two wheel ones were the inferior ones.

I?m quite prepared to accept I am mistaken etc.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, williamwright snipped-for-privacy@f2s.com writes

I have a Wadkin Bursgreen 20" BZB for woodwork. Spares are still available. Likely to be 3 phase if large ex industrial unit. Should have DC injection braking if you plan to employ the user:-)

I had a little old 3 wheel burgess, 70s thing. They were known for blades breaking quickly. People think it's due to the small wheel diameter, but it's not. The lack of rubber tyres meant that blade tension went up out of control quickly as sawdust settled on the wheels. And the plastic wheels wore as the blades went over them, losing their crown & becoming unserviceable. All easily solved by adding tyres, but without that you've got a dud. Oh, even once fixed their cutting capacity is pathetic, thin stuff only.

Your detailed experience suggestions the problem wasn?t so much having 3 wheels but poor quality.

With decent rubber tyres at least some of the issues would, it seems, be cured.

As for cutting capacity, I assume that is due to power.

Again, I don?t claim to be an expert when it comes to band saws.

I think even of decent quality and with tyres etc, they do push the blade though sharper angles, and hence tend to fatigue them a bit quicker.

I know you haven't specifically said you need a cheapy, Peter Millard has mostly reviewed lidaldifix bandsaws, plus an axminster ...

From my (admittedly limited) experience they seem to break blades more frequently and to be under-powered. Because of the compromises to increase the throat depth they are inherently less rigid than an equivalent 2-wheel saw so the tension range must be less.

So the geometry fundamentally leads to issues with tensioning and rigidity of the blade? ( I assume they could increase motor power, at least in theory.)

That seems a reasonably explanation, thank you.

While looking at various comments on the ?cheap? ones which seen to have three wheels previously, blade issues was certainly a common complaint but I don?t recall anyone suggesting why.

A band saw is one of the tools I?d like but would probably rarely use.

Rather like a MIG welder, I?d love one but?

I used to think that since I hardly ever used my old buzz box arc welder, because it was so freeking useless and a PITA to use.

I got a decent MIG set, and find I use that quite often simply because it is so much nicer and easier to use, and does a much better job - hence you find uses for it and it becomes more of a mainstream tool for DIY rather than a rarely used tool.

(in fact, I use it more than my bandsaw :-)

Which MIG welder do you have, please? I?ve been looking at the cheap inverter ones, around 100A. As much as anything, I wanted to relearn how to weld. I was shown the basics at school and borrowed a small arc welder years ago ( in the 80s), used one circa 1990, but not touched one otherwise.

I went for:

I was pleasantly surprised just how much better it was using it to stick weld as well - much easier to strike an arc, and much more stable as well.

It didn't lack power, the sizes just made cutting much depth impossible. The depth you can cut depend on blade dimensions, and there just wasn't room for a deep enough blade. IIRC it took half & quarter inch only, and these don't give enough rigidity to make cutting an inch workable.

Tooth spacing & geometry limit the thinnest material cuttable, the end result was that only a fairly narrow range of sheet thickness could be sawn. In summary they'd cut costs to the point where it was of very limited use.

There are many factors that influence what cut capacity you can get IME. I have successfully cut a shape out of a section of 4" fence post with a

The quality of the blade guides have a big impact, also being able to get enough blade tension. Much depends also on the type of cut you are making.

Deeper blades with few teeth are much better suited to resawing - especially if you are taking thin cuts off dense hardwoods. For example, I used a 3/4" blade with about 4 - 6 tpi to cut through the wide axis of a 5x2" oak board to make lots of 1/4" panels when making this:

You normally want a couple of teeth in the material - so with a finish blade 1/4" is usually fine - you can go a bit thinner. Below that you probably want a scroll saw rather than a bandsaw when going thinner than that.

The Burgess just couldn't hold the blade straight with an inch of wood, with blade under max tension & top support as low as it could be. The situation was maximised by using a blade with few teeth, but that also made thin sheet not cuttable. Ya couldn't win.