Good evening: First post. My college-age son and I are building a shop bit by bit, and it is time for a band saw. Problem is I know squat about bandsaws, and the boy's off to college and cannot help me shop. So what do I need by way of specs or a specific machine? We are strictly newbie hobby knifemakers. I appreciate the help.
We have a Grizzly bandsaw in the shop, and a Jet bandsaw (we had an old US made bandsaw for years that was super heavy duty, but it died some time ago). The Grizzly is meant for wood, it’s a vertical style saw with a work table and fence, etc. It can cut metal, but it’s not designed for it. I don’t actually know what the difference would be, but my guess is that a metal saw would have a more powerful motor, and a more rigid system for holding the blade above and under the work, and perhaps a slightly different pulley system. But in the end I don’t know.
(Note that I don’t know the real names of these bandsaw types)
The jet is a horizontal jaw-like bandsaw meant for metal. It has no work rest (our old one was like that, but you could stand the saw up and it had a table), you lift the saw and it cuts with its own weight, through material clamped onto a rest area.
Basically the Jet is more powerful. You can cut stainless steel with it. It’s slow, but it gets through. The issue is that you can only clamp something down that fits (shaft like objects, flat stock, key stock, etc... anything short, less than 4” or so is either hard or impossible to cut). It’s a non-messy way of cutting through stock, but it isn’t very versatile.
The table bandsaw is much more versatile, but it’s going to cost you a lot if you want one that can cut metal easily (as mentioned some people buy the portable ones and make stands, which is cheaper than a huge industrial saw). If you want to be able to profile a piece of stock with it so you don’t have to grind it out, which is great to be able to do, then you’ll need one meant for metal cutting. If you can afford it, they are great. But if you want one for shaping handles and stuff, something cheaper like mine for wood cutting will work very well. If you just want a chopper, the horizontal one will cut pretty much any material, and they leave a significantly smaller mess (no dust to inhale either really) than an abrasive chop saw/grinder.
You also could get a horizontal chop bandsaw that can have a table attached when vertical, like my old one. That can safely chop large pieces, and also be used for profiling. That is probably the best option imo, but I have no idea how common they are or the price range.
That’s all my experience with them. Personally I think having a saw that can profile a blade, on top of using it for handles and softer metal, is a good investment.
