"spaco" wrote in message
.. .
I have a 10" Delta vertical bandsaw that I have been using to cut steel
for over 20 years. It's a light duty home version.
The big issue is that you have to slow it down a LOT for steel. To do
that, I simply mounted a second, slow speed motor in the stand, right
above the "wood speed" motor. To change from wood to metal, I just
install a shorter belt to the slow motor, instead of the longer belt to
the "wood" motor. The slow motor I used is a gearmotor that runs about
105 rpm and used to run a copy machine. It has a 1 1/2" diameter pulley,
so I get about 125 sfm on the blade. I have other metal cutting tools
now, so I don't use it for heavy metal cutting anymore, but I used to cut
stock as thick as 1". Slow, but got the job done. I even had blades made
that were as wide as 1/2" and as narrow as 1/8". You'd be surprised at
how long the 1/8" blades lasted!

I've got 1/8 wood blades for detail work. They take forever to wear out,
but only a few seconds of ham handedness to break.