Thread: bandsaws

Huon,

What type of boat restoration are you talking about? What size timber do you expect to be dealing with? Re-sawing planks?

In the mid range I would suggest a quality machine like the Jet 18" or 20". Some are happy with the Hammer machines but I have no experience with them. If you want to go bigger, Agazzani are great, powerful and reliable and reasonably priced. I run a 14" Jet deluxe, generally with a 1/4" or 3/8" blade on for smaller work and a 24" Agazzani with a variety of blades for the bigger stuff. If I had to chose one saw, I would be getting something around the 20-21" mark as it is very versatile but I do like the precision and stability of the larger Italian saw.

Blades are the other half of the equation wqith bandsaws. If re-sawing softwood planking, you cant go past a woodslicer blade from highland hardware - only 0.6mm kerf and very smooth cut. Lennox make a 1.2mm kerf carbide tipped 1" blade which is good also.

regards,

AD

I bought a Taiwanese GMC or something like that ,for $250 second hand about 5 years ago ,14 " and it does most of what I want to do pretty nicely. As above the setting up ,tuning and blade choice are an area you should spend time learning . Read up on the web but I would suggest going real cheap first, till you learn then buy something more costly knowing a bit about it.

Damn fine advice Tytower! I agree completely. Most will probably find that a cheap, but carefully selected machine will be all that they need.

Michael Storer

Andrew, it's Brendan here,you put me onto Jase regarding his Huon Pine stock. 20 planks ,19-20ft,7"x1.5" are arriving on Thursday.By the way did you receive my web address(albeit incomplete),if not I'll repeat it,www.siteskins.net/werona
I'll start checking the cheaper varieties,cheers folks.

Andrew ,when I brought up your reply it only had the first paragraph,the second time more information came up.Can you give me some rough prices on your choices of bandsaw and motor capacity, many thanks,especially for the the Huon Pine contact.

Exception might be if you are resawing stock to make planks ... Might be VERY hard work for one of the cheap machines!

Thanks Michael, yes ,I'll be taking approximately half an inch of thickness off the planks.

Hi Brendan,

If you are re-sawing the boards, you would get away with a good quality 18" saw like the Jet 18" here
http://gpwoodturning.yahoostore.com...._id=1107432889

I have found Gary to be cheaper thanthe woodman group and great service. I have a jet 14" deluxe 1.25 hp with riser kit and whilst I could resaw planks on it if I was stuck, it would be a slow process. The larger machines also have a lower table height which is easier to get big planks up to.

Coupled with a 3/4" woodslicer blade from here http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/i...OD&ProdID=6075

You would cut that planking like it was butter. I recently cut 650 super of that timber (from the same bloke) for the local wooden boat guild here recently for the restoration of the Terra Linna. The planks were split down the middle for book matched planking either side of the boat. The woodslicer blade was fantastic and the stock recovery when using them is amazing. I also just cut some dinghy planking the other day (for a Gartside 10' clinker I have just started) from rough sawn 1 1/8" boards and got two 3/8" planks plus a 3/16" veneer dressed from each board.

Given you want to remove 1/2" of thickness, you would easily end up with some lovely dinghy planking for a new tender or two which you could probably sell to cover the cost of the saw.!!!


Some of the carbatec saws seem to be OK and their products have definitely improved over the years but I would prefer to buy a quality machine with a bit of grunt and when you are finished with it you can sell it for a good price.

regards,

AD

Howdy,

The depth of cut then becomes quite important. Good blades always make a big difference ... always get two!

Just like buying battery powered tools ... always get two batteries.

Maybe if you work out the depth of cut you will need and the type of wood and that you are resawing planks, there may be some bods that can give some good advice.

Maybe armed with that info the bandsawing guys might get excited in the other subforum!

Michael

Thanks gents, I wasn't sure whether my power system would happily run a 3hp machine so I gave my Sunreal friend a call, his response was that it shouldn't be a problem.I'll try your suggestion Michael,the ignorant can't get too much information.

Originally Posted by HUON

Thanks Michael, yes ,I'll be taking approximately half an inch of thickness off the planks.

Sounds like you are going to spend a lot of money $2000 for that band saw

I don't understand this resawing bit. You say you are going to trim the boards so doing this on a bench saw I would have thought to be the best.Even to re-sawing stock I use a small 1 HP motor driven circular saw ,with about a 10" cut and it seems safer to me . Band saws tend to wander on the cut unless you have wide blades in them and even then if you dont get the setup just right (the offsett) they will go off line.

Funnily enough I went to a garage sale today and there was a Crofton 14" (I think its Crofton) old but good for $300. I might try it for a lot less and go up as needs be.

Brendan,

here's a bit of a cross thread reference to a post I put on the bandsaw forum on re-sawing planking


https://www.woodworkforums.com/f27/re-blade-78138

regards,

AD

Wow -not for me . I have slabs of 4" red cedar I have done that way . Only about 4 foot long but I send them out.

Nice work.

Got to go p/up that bandsaw today,got it for $200.

Half inch depth of cut is not much. Just about any saw will do it including a jigsaw.

(might be misunderstanding though!)

I saw the word "restoring" in the original post. So if you need to cut duplicate pieces it can be nice to have something with enough grunt for a good depth of cut.

But if what you are restoring is only 3 or 4 inches thick you probably don't need anything particularly fancy (unless it is thick, old jarrah or somesuch .. good argument for doing it on someone elses saw then!!! hehe)

MIK.