Band saw ideas.

A

akey

Well-Known Member
I am new to knifemaking and one of the things on my wish list is a band saw. My "shop" area(really just my back porch) is small and a baby on the way has my budget limited. One thing I do have, though is time for online research. I am in the tech support field and my job requires me to spend alot of my day waiting on someone elses computer to do something. I occupy myself with the internet. :biggrin: I have access to a portable band saw and was looking at trying to create a stand for it. I ran across the following website:

http://www.swagoffroad.com/SWAG-V40-Portaband-Table_p_63.html

Any thoughts on whether this would work for rough cutting blanks?
 
it will work fine. there are a lot of guys here that have that system or a variation of it. I have had a porta-band for a while now and it has work for most every thing. I do mostly smaller folders so the depth limitation hasn't been an issue. if your looking at doing larger bowie type knives you may have to out think the cutting steps.

I figure I'll save up for my next band saw which will be a larger Doall. I'm just trying to figure out how to get it in the shop without the misses seeing it. :)

Erik
 
That's probably one of the better looking options for a porta-band that I've seen commercially offered, although I still see one serious drawback to it......it's gona need to be "clamped" down, and it doesn't look like there's anyplace a person could drill and use to screw/bolt it to the bench.

I built my own.....took about an hour, and just some pieces out of my scrap pile......

DewaltBandsaw4.jpg


DewaltBandsaw3.jpg


DewaltBandsaw2.jpg


DewaltBandsaw1.jpg


The problems with Porta-bands is the "throat" isn't very deep, and trying to make a single cut more then 4" is pretty tough. Mine is used for jobs that only require shorter cuts. For bigger jobs I have a 7x12" bandsaw in the Blacksmith shop.
 
Hello and welcome,
I am all for BUY AMERICAN made when ever possible!
I have had good luck with a Chinese machine I bought when I was broke and starting out! I'm still broke all the time somehow?:biggrin:

I got this about 13 years ago and with a American made Bimetal blade it works fine. You can also do some book match work on wood etc on one of these if you can clean up the cuts on a 6 x 48 sander. I bought the 6 x 4 Bandsaw
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=band+saw

It runs a 64 1/2" blade. I sit on the saw horse and face the blade doing my cuts.

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com
 
The miter slot on the swag is great end will ensure tht you are cutting square when you need to.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys! Lot's of good pics and it has got me wanting to build my own. Eric how do you have the saw secured? Do you have any more pics?
 
The saw is secured by bolts through the portaband base. I can take some pictures today and post them up here later.
 
If you mean how do I secure it to the bench? I have angles at the bottom with bolts through them to the work bench.
 
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