Are all bandsaws this finicky?

S

Sprayman

Member
Greetings:

I got a new bandsaw a few weeks ago and have had nothing but problems with it. I have a lot of experience with a lot of power tools, but this is my first bandsaw. I figured I'd try it for a while to see if the problems are with me, or with the saw. I still am not sure.

I cannot get it to cut in a straight line, no matter what I do. I've tightened the blade as much as I can, but whenever I try to cut with it, the blade immediately twists to the right, and ruins the cut. This happens with soft wood and hard wood.

I cannot get it to cut metal, even with a metal-cutting blade. I was hoping to use it to cut out my blanks. I held a piece of 1095 to it, and it hardly made a scratch.

Do you all have any ideas? It's gotten to the point where I can only use it as is a scroll saw. Otherwise, it's useless to me.

Thanks
 
I assume it is a metal cutting bandsaw? If not you will do nothing but ruin blades trying to cut metal at wood bandsaw speeds. Make sure the blade is fully engaged between and against the rollers otherwise it can wander a bit.

I have a small (14") Jet vertical metal/wood bandsaw that has a secondary gearbox to gear it up or down. Free hand it can be a bit hard to control but I usually cut outside the lines and grind to the line. It is pretty accurate when cutting with the sliding miter gauge.

Also I have a horizontal metal cutting band saw which is great for cutting straight line stuff.

Good luck with it!
 
In my experience two things make or break a bandasw, whether its a wood or metal cutting saw. 1. The blade.... years ago I purchased a craftsman 10 bandsaw, because it was on "SALE" and it did the very same things you mentioned (wood saw, so all the cutting was on wood). I purchased extra blades from Sears....and they were all junk. I found a local outfit that makes blade to order (generally smaller bandsaws are made to take odd sized blades so you have to buy the blades from the same place as the saw). I had a blade made for the saw, and it's worked great....as long as I use a custom made/high quality blade.

2. The guides. Some saws have the rigid/square metal guides....these are the bottom of the barrel, and no matter how much adjusting you do, they simply don't work worth a darn. I insist on ANY saw I purchase/own to have roller/bearing blades guides. They simply work far better then rigid guides. I personally won't even consider any bandsaw for my shop unless it has roller/bearing type blade guides, both above and below the cutting table.

If the saw doesn't have roller/bearing guides, either buy another saw, or replace the guides with roller/bearing guides (you can usually find retrofit roller/bearing guides on the net or Ebay...BUT they are not cheap!). And just as important is a QUALITY blade.

If the performance of a saw doesn't improve dramatically with those two fixes, then the saw simply isn't worth owning.
 
What type of bandsaw is it? If it's a "wood" bandsaw you'll likely have a hard time cutting anything but wood and possibly aluminum. Some saws have a step pulley for slowing it down enough for metal, but then you need to make sure you have a quality metal blade with the right tooth count for what you're cutting. Blade width will make a huge difference in how straight you can cut, especially if it's thicker material, but like Ed said, having your guides properly set up can make or break things as well.

There's not necessarily a ton of things that need to be set up on a bandsaw to make it work, but the few things that do can really make a big difference.

Proper speed
Proper blade
Proper tension
Proper guide set up (incuding height off of work piece)

Also, as a general rule, when cutting metal, you need at least 3 to 4 teeth in the work at any time. Any less than that and you run the risk of breaking teeth off and hanging the blade in the work piece.
 
Thanks for the responses, guys. I haven't had time to adjust the guides yet today, but upon further inspection, it looks like it's just a single speed saw, designed for wood only. I guess it's back to the angle grinder for cutting my blanks. The guides look like they're a bit too far away from the blade, which may be contributing to the twisting of the blade. I'll tweak them tomorrow.

It's a Ryobi band saw. it's not the greatest brand, but usually "good enough." I think I just need to play with it some more. The owner's manual is not very helpful.

What other methods have you used to cut blanks, by the way? Are there jigsaw blades that work? I'd love to find something that makes less of a mess than the angle grinder.
 
I have yet to try my jigsaw for cutting blanks, but I'd be a little hesitant personally. In my experience, jigsaws are at their best when there's a relatively large piece of work for it to rest on. Also, some I've used have a tendency for chips to build up under the baseplate, and sometimes leave scratches that would have to be dealt with on a knife, depending on where they are.
 
I don't know if you have a Porta-Band or not, but they actually make very decent vertical bandsaws when equipped with a SWAG Off-Road table kit. If you don't have a Porta-Band then you can actually purchase a great little 4x6 Horizontal / Vertical metal cutting bandsaw from Harbor Freight for less money than buying a new Porta-Band and SWAG table. And of course your metal cutting bandsaw cuts wood just fine.
 
John Wilson said:
I don't know if you have a Porta-Band or not, but they actually make very decent vertical bandsaws when equipped with a SWAG Off-Road table kit. If you don't have a Porta-Band then you can actually purchase a great little 4x6 Horizontal / Vertical metal cutting bandsaw from Harbor Freight for less money than buying a new Porta-Band and SWAG table. And of course your metal cutting bandsaw cuts wood just fine.
Click to expand...

What John Said! ^^^^^ A metal saw will cut wood slowly but a Wood won't cut metal.
Woods fast and metal you want a SLOW machine with a USA made Bi-metal Lennox, Norse or Starrett blade.

I have a Portaband with a Swag table. Norse Bi-metal. works fine for profiling steel.
 
OK, I get the KnifeDogs Moron of the Month award.

There were some adjustments I hadn't made on the saw before using it, mostly to the guides. It's cutting much better now. I know better than that, so I don't know why I skipped that step in setting up the saw. Oh well....live and learn.

Meanwhile, I appreciate all the feedback and advice. I think I'll go to Harbor Freight and take a look at that metal cutting band saw that John mentioned.

Thanks, guys.
 
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