On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 21:26:46 -0500, Martin Eastburn
wrote:

If you can, add a flood coolant system that cools the teeth, lubs,
and watches the teeth from gripping bits. These bits hammer on the
teeth as it saws and will wear the blade out faster.

Martin

and Gentlemen..remember..at least (3) teeth in the work at all time.
AT LEAST (3)



On 7/30/2015 3:29 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
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.