"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
I recently picked up a small HF metal cutting bandsaw. Its not
great, but it does what I wanted it to do. Sever pieces of flat
aluminum bar stock. Recently I was making some small molds for a
customer and it worked out great. I cut pieces with the bandsaw,
squared them up on the big mill, and then threw them on the smaller
high speed mill. It was quite nice having all three pieces of
equipment working for me at the same time while I was doing other
work on the manual machines in between loading parts. For a few
minutes I felt like a "real" shop owner. LOL.

I know I have not been kind to HF in recent years, and this piece of
equipment has its HF problems, but as long as I don't expect high
precision work out of it it's a useful piece of equipment for me.
I'll keep and eye out for a bigger and better one I can afford now
that I have realized how useful it is. I've used it for freehand
carving curves and angles to fit sheet for enclosures, I've used it
for severing steel tube, and of course its severed a lot of flat
aluminum bar stock.

I haven't had it long, so there is not telling how it will hold up,
but I am sure I'll do something stupid and snap the blade at some
point. I am thinking I want to pick up a spare blade for it before
that happens. I am sure I can just shop around for a generic blade
the right length, but I was wondering if there was a "better" blade
I could get for it. One that will tolerate more stupid mistakes,
last longer under normal usage, or something I can't even think of
at the moment. The saw is mostly used for severing aluminum bar
with the still quite slow highest pulley speed, but I can see it
having to sever a piece of 1018 or a piece of O-1 from time to time.

This is the cheap little 4x6.

I can easily see my abrasive saw falling into disuse, and my table
saw getting a good wood blade back on it.

I've been satisfied with mine, a Delta. I use mostly 10-14 Diemaster
II blades for steel, also 6-10 TPI for 6" wide steel and landscaping
timbers and 24 TPI Bosch blades for sheetmetal.
http://www.amazon.com/Bosch-BS6412-2.../dp/B0062IBH6A

O-1 doesn't seem to dull it, at the lowest speed. I remove the case on
the lathe before sawing hydraulic cylinder rod.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...Bandsaw-Blade/

To unfold it you open it until it wants to continue and then throw it
hard toward a safe place. It's an impressive outdoor-only
demonstration with the 1.25" x 16' blades for my sawmill, a
do-it-yourself sharknado.

-jsw