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.Â* Of course it seems to only
come with a wood blade, and I will probably only ever use it for metal
cutting.Â* (I already have a decent Rigid mid/small woodcutting upright
bandsaw.)

I think I know why they had them on sale.Â* The title of the listing says
its 3 phase.Â* 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.Â* 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.Â* I like the way
the M42 blades hold up on my 7x10 bandsaw so I figured I'd just get
those for the upright.Â* The saw spec says blade width from 1/8 to 1
inch, but I doubt I'll be doing any scroll cutting with it.Â* I'm kinda
looking for the most useful pitch and width so to speak.Â* Is there a big
difference between a 3/4 inch wide blade and a 1 inch wide blade.Â* I
suspect I'll be doing 99.9% straight cutting stuff that isn't practical
to fit in the horizontal.Â* 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.Â* The blade on my 7x10 horizontal seems to do just
fine for most things.Â* 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.Â* I can't recall, but it might be variable
pitch 12/14 or something like that.Â* I don't want to have a bunch of
different blades hanging on the wall.Â* Just one spare that will allow me
to keep going if I break one while I order another spare.Â* It will get
used most of the time to cut 6061 or 7075 aluminum from 1/2" thick to 2
inch thick.Â* It will occasionally need to cut some 4140HT or some A36
from 1/4 inch to 1-1/2 inch.Â* Rarely I may need to cut some pieces of
aluminum sheet in either 5052 or 3003.Â* 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 it finally arrived a day late while the blades arrived several days
early.

First impressions are good. All the sheet metal is heavier than I
expected and much heavier than my wood only vertical saw. The saw itself
is a lot heavier. I will not be dead lifting it onto the stand. One
thing in the version of the manual I found online that concerned me is
that it appeared to have friction block type blade guides. My wood
cutting bandsaw has friction block and they work fine. Particularly
since I changed them out for "Cool Blocks" (tm), but both of my
horizontal metal cutting saws have bearing roller guides. One of the
first things I noticed when I pried the saw out of the Styrofoam packing
(more on that in a minute) is that top and bottom had decent size
bearing roller blade guides. Making sure it wasn't a very recent upgrade
I opened the manual that actually came with the saw and it shows the
bearing roller guides. It could be another reason the saw was on sale.
Another item that represented the saw as less than it actually was.

About that Styrofoam packing. Its a very thick excellent sandwich foam
custom molded for the saw. Did I say thick. The box itself looked like
it had been burst partly open and retaped in transit. The box was
damaged on two sides and the whole box was "bent" a foot from the end
and the end dipped more than an inch hanging off the pallet. I have
fully unpacked and unwrapped the saw, and the stand. I went out of my
way looking for any signs of damaged from bent sheet metal to a door
that might not open or close perfectly. There are still parts (table,
fence, trunnion, wheel, etc) embedded in the packing foam, but I could
find zero hints of damage despite the obvious abuse the packaging
received in transit.

I have a lot of work to do so the saw might just sit where it is for a
couple days, but I'll let you know how it does ripping aluminum and
steel soon enough.

The motor is a little lighter than I would have liked at 1.25 HP
according to the data plate, but it is a 4 pole motor so it should still
have decent torque at modest RPM.