Thread: Bandsaw or Table saw???

Does your budget include dust extraction? This could be important if you are sharing space with someone else, or just want to look after yourself. Dust extraction will reduce but not totally eliminate air borne dust from wood cutting.

Table saws do straight cuts well.
Band saws with correct blade will let you do curved cuts.

Also consider the size of material you will be cutting as both saws will be only able to handle a maximum size.

If you choose carefully, a bandsaw will handle very delicate jobs.

Most have crowned wheels nowadays, so - in theory - will handle blades down to around 1/4" provided you have the appropriate guide. (I swap between cool-blocks for my 1/4" blades and rollerguides for the larger ones.)

A band-saw will cut curves, a table saw will not.

A correctly set up table-saw can give you a near perfect finish on a cut, so you can, for example, edge join two pieces without needing to run them over a jointer (or testing your hand-plane skills) first. A bandsaw will not.

Each has their strengths, but for my money a bandsaw is more versatile - it can cut straight lines if you're willing to clean them up afterwards - and would be my first purchase if I, by some grievous misfortune, I had to rebuild my workshop from scratch.

That's just my personal preference, of course, based on the sort of work I do and I know that some friends of mine would say the same about their tablesaws.

I would heartily recommend a good bandsaw it's far more versatile and with a good fence it will (with practice) do all a table saw will (a bit slower maybe?) but it will also do many things a table saw won't/can't e.g Wide re-saw, Curves etc, plus the advantage of less wastage with the kerf cut.

Get the best your budget will allow you won't regret it.


Cheers


Steve

So far....
Thanks for your comments. They have been quite helpful.

In regard to some questions within the comments.
Yes, I do have a 1hp dust extractor - although would upgrade to a more powerful one if needed.

Do others agree that with a good bandsaw + fence is it possible to produce similar cuts as with a good table saw? If so, what kind of bandsaw would be best? ie, power, size, make, etc...
After market fences - what is best the job?

Thanks again.

I agree with the bandsaw as a first choice for most users. I wish I had bought one before my table saw.

A decent Bandsaw will have 2 dust extractor ports (and ideally a third should be placed just above the timber being cut) and a 1HP DC doesn't handle any more than one port. 1 or 2HP DCs are really just chip and visible dust collectors. In healthwise terms a 3HP is a minimum that can collect dust at source. BTW the DC has to be outside as the really fine dust just goes straight through almost all DC bags.

The size of a "good" bandsaw is one of those things that can be argued over for a long time.

In reality, there are several different measurements that should be taken into account before deciding "this saw will do what I want."

So, here's a few things to take into consideration.


1. Like a table saw, a large table is a very nice thing to have. It's a right PITA when you have to try and balance long items on a tiny little table. DAMHIKT. (It's the one complaint I have about my BS.)

Also as with a TS, making or buying after-market in- & out-feed tables and/or rollers can be a big help if you'll be ripping a lot of long boards.

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2 Depth of cut. The larger the throat of a bandsaw, the thicker the pieces of timber you can fit through it. Mind you, the thicker the piece the harder it is to get an "accurate" cut, as the blade tends to bend/wander more.

At a guess the average Bandsaw with 14" wheels has around a 6" throat. Taking into account the space taken up by the guides, this means they can cut around 4" thick pieces of timber. That's about as much as most table-saws can handle in one pass.

It is possible to by "risers" which are inserts to go into the spine of many bandsaws, increasing the size of the throats by up to 6" or so.

personally I don't recommend these as they tend to make the bandsaw body flex when the blade is tensioned up.

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3. Width of the throat. ie. the distance between the blade and the inside of the "spine" of the bandsaw. Obviously, the wider this is the wider the piece of timber you can pass through on that side of the blade.

eg. if it's 9" (figure pulled out of thin air ) then you can rip a 16" wide board down the middle into two 8" boards. (Leaving an inch of room for "manouvering space." If it's only 6" wide, well...

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4. The diameter of the wheels. The larger the wheels, the less fatigue on the blades as they don't need to bend in as tight an arc when passing over them. In theory, this means the blades will last longer. In practise, I can't say it seems to me to make any difference once the wheels are 14" dia or larger.

However I've seen ones with 8" and smaller wheels (some even having 3!) and they all seem to break blades at a glance. I believe fatigue is a major factor on these machines.

PS. I wouldn't bother with after-market fences. At least, not the kind that are modelled on table saw fences anyway.

Seriously!

I tossed my fence and mainly just use a V of scrapwood clamped to the table. The point of the vee is level with the cutting teeth and offset to one side of the blade by whatever thickness I want to make the cut.

This set up allows you to "steer" the timber so that if/when the blade starts to wander off your pencil line (it's advisable to pre-mark your cuts, the same as if you were using a jigsaw) you can angle the wood slightly to bring it back to cutting on line. The V piece is really just a guide so you can maintain a constant thickness.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

4. The diameter of the wheels. The larger the wheels, the less fatigue on the blades as they don't need to bend in as tight an arc when passing over them. In theory, this means the blades will last longer. In practise, I can't say it seems to me to make any difference once the wheels are 14" dia or larger.

However I've seen ones with 8" and smaller wheels (some even having 3!) and they all seem to break blades at a glance. I believe fatigue is a major factor on these machines.

I thought this too and it was one of the things that put me off getting horizontal metal cutting bandsaw for many years. Recently I needed to cut up a lot of steel and decided to get one over a metal chop saw (they make a horrible noise) - mine has 180 mm diameter wheels, only had it 4 weeks and it has cut a lot of steel since then, no broken blades yet, mind you they run slower than wood cutting Bandsaws.

Well I will put in my 2c worth.
If you have nither a bandsaw or table saw yet then either one is an advancement to your workshop. What one to get first will depend on what work is most important now. I think that a complete woodworking shop needs both. A bandsaw can do deep rip cuts that are almost strait. It can do curves and shapes also. It also takes some time to gain the experience to get the best out of a bandsaw. I think a bandsaw is a safer machine to operate than a tablesaw.
A table saw (when set up right) is very accurate at ripping,crosscutting or cutting miter angles. It will only cut up to about 4'' deep for a 12'' blade machine. A table saw can do rebates, box joints, trenches, tennons and some other stuff.
Decide what fits the need right now but down the track you will want both.
If space is an issue (and it is for most of us)then put the machines on wheeled bases.
Regards
John

Had a b/saw and jointer prior to my cabinet saw which did everything I needed to at the time.

I roughed the stock to size and ran through the jointer to dress it up. If I had to start again from scratch it would be the same way.

A good bandsaw, something like the Woodfast 350 with a 230mm cutting height listed at $1360, would be very adequate. Then you could buy a fairly light-weight tablesaw, something like the Hafco SB-12, listed at $847 and put it on castors..

So with a bit of shopping around I reckon you could get both for around your $2000 budget, and they wouldn't take too much room.

Wow!

Thank you ALL for all of the great input.
It is starting to make sense now. Bandsaw first

Some have suggested buy both at just over $2000, but perhaps it is better to get the best bandsaw possible for the money.
I am working on a descent size router table. I have bought all of the parts for the table: router (Triton TRB001), Woodpeckers Cast Aluminium Plate, ProRouter Table Top C and building a custom fence to suit (Most parts from Woodpecker.com). So i think that i am ok for "joinery". Also got a small Bosch GKF600 (Bought with all of the accessories and shipped from the UK - saved about $100 doing that)

From what I getting from all of you guys, I guess if I buy a Bandsaw my next purchase should be a jointer to dress stock???

I like this thread. I had the same question. Not that I could afford either a good table saw or a good, big band saw. OK, I bought both. Hindsight tells me that a really good and BIG band saw has a versatility unmatched by a table saw. You have a chop/miter saw, so do I. Just plan on a bunch of different blades for the band saw for different jobs, like any fool would buy for a table/chop saw.
If I could afford a band saw with a 14" throat and a 4.5" thick feed, I don't think I'd be looking for new shop tools for a very long time.

For mine a table saw first up wins hands down. It takes a bit of practice to use a Bandsaw accurate enough to make good dimensioned straight stock to make furniture, where as the table saw will do it with ease straight up. I know you can cut curves on a BS but you need to ask yourself how much curved work will go into what you making to start with? Generally a small percentage and then you can get around it with a jigsaw for the time being. Like the majority I have both, and the table saw would get 85% of use compared to 15% with the BS. I love my BS but the table saw is the heart of the workshop.

And if your tight for space, add about $150 for a mobile wheel base. Worth its weight in gold