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Bob La Londe[_7_] Bob La Londe[_7_] is offline
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Default New Bandsaw - (NEW new)

On 8/14/2019 3:09 PM, Bob La Londe wrote: I got suckered in by some
SPAM from Grizzly and ordered a G0621X
variable speed vertical wood/metal bandsaw. Of course it seems to only
come with a wood blade, and I will probably only ever use it for metal
cutting. (I already have a decent Rigid mid/small woodcutting upright
bandsaw.)

I think I know why they had them on sale. The title of the listing says
its 3 phase. You have to read down into the description to see they
sell it with a VFD control for speed control and its wires to plug into
a single phase outlet. I think most small shop and home shop people saw
"3 phase" and just skipped onto the next listing.

I'm getting ready to order a metal cutting blade for it. I like the way
the M42 blades hold up on my 7x10 bandsaw so I figured I'd just get
those for the upright. The saw spec says blade width from 1/8 to 1
inch, but I doubt I'll be doing any scroll cutting with it. I'm kinda
looking for the most useful pitch and width so to speak. Is there a big
difference between a 3/4 inch wide blade and a 1 inch wide blade. I
suspect I'll be doing 99.9% straight cutting stuff that isn't practical
to fit in the horizontal. Cost difference is only about $10-15 dollars
depending on the source, but still $10 is a premium six pack of beer or
a couple shots of top grade Canadian rye for after work.

Then there is pitch. The blade on my 7x10 horizontal seems to do just
fine for most things. I use it on aluminum most of the time, but it
will severe 1-5/8 4140QT round without much thought, and of course it
severs easy machining stress proof almost as fast as it chops aluminum.
Looks like about 12 pitch. I can't recall, but it might be variable
pitch 12/14 or something like that. I don't want to have a bunch of
different blades hanging on the wall. Just one spare that will allow me
to keep going if I break one while I order another spare. It will get
used most of the time to cut 6061 or 7075 aluminum from 1/2" thick to 2
inch thick. It will occasionally need to cut some 4140HT or some A36
from 1/4 inch to 1-1/2 inch. Rarely I may need to cut some pieces of
aluminum sheet in either 5052 or 3003. Now I usually cut those with a
circular saw on the wood deck of my equipment trailer.

I'm leaning towards a 12-14TPI or 10-12TPI 3/4 inch blade since that's
what I am running on the horizontal, but I'm open to changing my mind.



Well, I had hoped to reach a compromise blade to leave on "most" of the
time, but I broke down and bought two blades for the new saw. A 5/8 and
a 10/14. I looked at buying some coil stock, but I just don't want
carbon steel blades. I cut just enough medium hard steel to make them
pretty useless for me. The coils of decent quality bimetal were just a
little more than I wanted to spend right now after spending all my
pocket money on the saw.