Band saw

[OrangeFive]

Hi all. Starting to look at bandsaws (big ish ones). I want something to cut curves in max 3inch (75mm) oak. Needs to be 240v. Anyone got any recommendations?

 

[Sideways]

If you are cutting curves rather than ripping / resawing, you'll want a narrower blade proportionate to how tight a radius you need to cut.
Narrower blade won't need as much tension as say a 25mm M42 ripping blade.
If you look at deema's recent thread on the Minimax S45 bandsaw, you see that we decided its tension spring is a bit underspecced for a wide blade, but the bandsaw is otherwise good and strong. If you only want to run 8, 12, possibly 15mm blades, the tension could be fine.
Take a look at the thread, decide what blade you need to run and you should find the info there that will tell you what blade tension your saw needs to achieve.
Once you know, at least if buying new you can ask the seller or manufacturer to guarantee that their saw can develop that tension and do so without over compressing and damaging the tension spring.

 

[Fitzroy]

New or used preferred?

 

[Ttrees]

That' CO600 is under a grand buy it now in Cheshire,or better offer if ya look, appears to be dual voltage for your 240 requirements, and appears cleaner than the one in Manchester for 695

As usual the 20" models go for a bit more

One thing I'd be watching for is wear of the bore, this appears to have damage to me.
see picture below of bearing retaining washer off centre on this one which was attached to a PTO

Multico's are there along with some others worth looking up

Few Wadkin's there also, but not sure if those have suitable dual voltage ? motors to run on 240v on a VFD/inverter for a hundred quid or so,
or alternatively other fancier substantially more costly digital phase converter.

I don't know anything bout Wadkin machines, but with some research it's likely there is someone posting about them.

 

[RobinBHM]

If it was me, I’d be hunting for a Wadkin and get a phase converter.

bandsaws only have small motors

and Wadkin bandsaws can sometimes go quite cheap - a bzb24 under £1k if you are patient

 

[OrangeFive]

Thanks all for the comments, advice and examples. My radius cuts won’t be tight. I’ll do some reading and looking later but any further comments etc are always appreciated

 

[deema]

This is the thread that Sideways is referring to, he’s guilty of actually starting it.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/scm-minimax-s45-bandsaw-teardown-overhaul.135069/
We learnt a lot from restoring that saw, which started out as a ‘quick’ clean up job! Anyway the main takeaways are that the ability of the saw to tension up a blade is paramount, an awful lot of saws are probably not capable of tensioning up the max size of blade they can allegedly take. Blade tension is the most critical factor in getting a saw to work well, too little and the blade wanders and you can’t cut straight and true. The SCM45 tension spring on the saw we played with was destroyed, and if you read through you will see that in our opinion not capable of tensioning up the larger blades adequately. We redesigned the tension system so it now does. I suspect over tightening the tension spring will be a common theme on under rated saws as the owners try to get them working properly. I’ve looked since at a few schematic for saws and haven’t seen any limit stops to prevent this happening. Today if I were to buy a saw secondhand or new I’d buy the largest blade it could theoretically take from Tuffsaws (not very expensive at all) and with a tension meter see if it can tension it up properly. You can make a tension meter fairly simply with an accurate vernier……the numbers to work out what’s happening are in the thread.

The SCM45 has a new owner and he makes all sorts, he was kind enough to share a photo of I think it’s 4” thick elm he cut with it. He said it cut perfectly true and straight. It only needed a light sand afterwards. This was using a Tuffsaws blade. I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing it with you.

I wouldn’t get drawn into blade guide marketing, they really with the correct blade tension are safety devices and shouldn’t be active when cutting. Here’s a thread I wrote on them.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/bandsaw-blade-guide-theory.135481/

 

[Shan]

Thanks all for the comments, advice and examples. My radius cuts won’t be tight. I’ll do some reading and looking later but any further comments etc are always appreciated

I've also been looking to buy a bandsaw and going to try out an Electra Beckum 450 today as it happens. The height of the cut is 300mm and falls into the biggish range if I'm not mistaken. It is however 3 phase and will admit that I'm not familiar with bandsaw's so could be a good learning curve. I'm wanting to mainly cut up blanks for turning but if it resaw's well it'll be a bonus as don't have a table saw. Can let you know later how it goes. Living in Portugal so not much help of where to look in the UK. However I know that a lot of people have a great deal of knowledge here. Cheers Shan

 

[OrangeFive]

So I’ve been looking at Startrite 352 bandsaws. What are peoples thoughts on these? Like I say it will be used for cutting curves on 3” (75mm) oak. Not a tight radius. Please feel free to recommend other bandsaws but it needs to be 240v. Thanks.

 

[Ttrees]

Here's an example of a bargain for a single phase machine,
cast iron wheels and compact for someone in Norfolk

Not sure if this would be twice as good, likely better though,
and has a single phase motor also in Durlsey,
might be worth shooting an offer after it's sat for a while, which it likely will at this price.

Not checked gumtree, but these seem much more capable machines compared to the little Startrite.

 

[Blister]

Hammer bandsaws , but a decent power unit 3 HP will require a 16 amp supply.

 

[OrangeFive]

I used a Meber one a few years ago actually and it was decent. I also like the look of the Hammer’s. Never used an Axminster. Called in the Axminster shop yesterday but they only had smallish ones

 

[Ttrees]

Possibly the best bargain yet on gumtree, dual voltage motor to suit VFD (that's an extra hundred quid all in)
particularly suited for one who wants to run a larger machine from a household 13a plug, or who wants a large dust system but worried about the amp draw from starting up the motor
(Hence how a VFD's really smooth soft start capabilities will power this machine up no bother on a 13a circut, but a single phase equivalent motor will trip the breaker)

Not quite as nice as some other Italian manufacturers, tensioning screw, trunnion and cork rubber for starters, and no GL "Euro guides" on the bottom either
but no doubt a good machine for the money, seems rare not to find dual voltage motors on the rest of the stallions.
Table cabinet and column is pretty big on this particular saw compared to many 20ish incher machines, looks comparable to a 24" all in all,
and another odd thing is the wheels are differing sizes, which is fairly common.
That seems a bit wacky in my view, but plenty of machines out there like that, so it must work.
Presuming these have the same hidden features of adjustment for the top wheel, which you might not find on other cheaper options.

 

[OrangeFive]

Hammer bandsaws , but a decent power unit 3 HP will require a 16 amp supply.

I have 16amp supply

 

[OrangeFive]

View attachment 136409Possibly the best bargain yet on gumtree, dual voltage motor to suit VFD (that's an extra hundred quid all in)
particularly suited for one who wants to run a larger machine from a household 13a plug, or who wants a large dust system but worried about the amp draw from starting up the motor
(Hence how a VFD's really smooth soft start capabilities will power this machine up no bother on a 13a circut, but a single phase equivalent motor will trip the breaker)

Not quite as nice as some other Italian manufacturers, tensioning screw, trunnion and cork rubber for starters, and no GL "Euro guides" on the bottom either
but no doubt a good machine for the money, seems rare not to find dual voltage motors on the rest of the stallions.
Table cabinet and column is pretty big on this particular saw compared to many 20ish incher machines, looks comparable to a 24" all in all,
and another odd thing is the wheels are differing sizes, which is fairly common.
That seems a bit wacky in my view, but plenty of machines out there like that, so it must work.
Presuming these have the same hidden features of adjustment for the top wheel, which you might not find on other cheaper options.

Thanks. I’ve had a look at these. The second one looks a good machine. The only downside is costs to collect or have it collected at the moment. Couriers prices have gone through the roof haven’t they.

 

[cerro]

I have a charnwood W750 with spare metal cutting blade and manual Imaculate condition for sale

 

[TRITON]

View attachment 136409Possibly the best bargain yet on gumtree, dual voltage motor to suit VFD (that's an extra hundred quid all in)
particularly suited for one who wants to run a larger machine from a household 13a plug, or who wants a large dust system but worried about the amp draw from starting up the motor
(Hence how a VFD's really smooth soft start capabilities will power this machine up no bother on a 13a circut, but a single phase equivalent motor will trip the breaker)

Not quite as nice as some other Italian manufacturers, tensioning screw, trunnion and cork rubber for starters, and no GL "Euro guides" on the bottom either
but no doubt a good machine for the money, seems rare not to find dual voltage motors on the rest of the stallions.
Table cabinet and column is pretty big on this particular saw compared to many 20ish incher machines, looks comparable to a 24" all in all,
and another odd thing is the wheels are differing sizes, which is fairly common.
That seems a bit wacky in my view, but plenty of machines out there like that, so it must work.
Presuming these have the same hidden features of adjustment for the top wheel, which you might not find on other cheaper options.

Between this and the axminster it leaves me rather depressed I'm looking to buy a record power sabre 350, which is £1250. I could get both of those and still have a pile of cash left over.

 

[Ttrees]

Guessing the distance is the problem, which is a good reason to consider the three phase dual voltage options out there, as you can find smaller machines out there, and maybe not a 24" machine like this 3hp one, which can easily be run from a 13a plug, with the addition of a hundred quid VFD/inverter.
I like the big table and large cabinet for its passive dust extraction abilities
but do understand the size of it compared to a machine like the Axi with much smaller footprint.
Think MikeG has that 4300 over on the other place, worth seeing a side by side comparison with his smaller one beside for those who still thinks that machine might be huge.

I was looking for another 20" or 540mm wheeled machine after buying a new lemon, but that proved a lot harder to find compared to the ubiquitous 600/24" machines out there.

Lets hope that my cobbled together exit sign and mulcher isn't putting folks off, who have loads of space, I'm a bit of a scrimper in that regards.
That ain't complicated to do and for folks on the fence, you won't get conflicting advice regarding the installation of these, compared to say a sharpening thread.

Bob's induction motors document has it all, and you can make sense of nearly everything he mentions with a bit of back and fourth with machine conversion WIP's on here for that.
The only thing to argue about might be...
Differing mounting options, or to use better quality cable for the job,
and likely to choose a more reliable VFD in the first place, ala Hitachi thinking going over spec.
Just to note these don't like being bogged down, much like any induction motor, which is why the large cast iron wheels are preferable.

Some may turn their nose up at VFD's, but I have yet to see a reason for that.
There is not the same losses of power compared to the old static phase converters which took something like a third of the juice for themselves

Maybe the weight maybe putting some folk off?

I've lifted this machine quite a few times now, and for someone being not so tall, I can attest this is the easiest way to do that.
Table off, thick chok under the guidepost makes it much easier to lower down from the opposite column end after.

And for folks who are wondering how to do this the wrong way,
I have experience with that recently whilst doing some experimentation with the base, as it was a bit wonky, so I had a go at some rudimentary filing.

Here's what NOT to do, i.e tipping from the other side,
seeing as there are things like trunnion and door knobs to foul off the ground,
one might consider getting a chok to have it off the ground.

Well if doing this for whatever reason,
DONT place a chok at the very end, i.e close to the base,
as it will act as a fulcrum when lowered fully, and roll machine motor side down,
since there is noting to stop that, and no way of stopping it.

Much differing to lowering it down column side where the base itself provides stability,
rather than what could only be an inch of surface area with the sheet metal frame which
might not be as flat as one thinks. i.e slightly convex to sea saw about a bit when horizontal on choks.

Some more detail about my tippy saw on the bandsaw forum for those interested about that.

 

[OrangeFive]

I have a charnwood W750 with spare metal cutting blade and manual Imaculate condition for sale

I served my time (yeah it was a bit ago now!) using wadkins etc. I’ve never used a Charnwood. I’m not ruling it out but if need to try it out and you’re a good way from me but thanks for the post.

 

[cerro]

Hi all. Starting to look at bandsaws (big ish ones). I want something to cut curves in max 3inch (75mm) oak. Needs to be 240v. Anyone got any recommendations?

£475