How would you go about cutting angles on bandsaw?

[LoneGunman]

My horizontal bandsaw does not have markings to set the vise for angles so everytime I want to cut an angle I have to break out the protractor, loosen the rear vice jaw, set the angle, cut and then go crazy trying to square the rear vice jaw to the bed. So I was thinking there are two ways to get around this.

I was going to drill two holes in the rear jaw, set angles of 45 and 22.5, mark the two holes on the bed at each of these angles, drill holes in the bed, use pins to set my angles and return to being square.

The other way I can think of doing it is just to buy angle gauge blocks, set my angle gauge block against the rear jaw and then tighten, the foward jaw pivots to whatever angle the material is at. Problem with this is that I cannot find angle blocks in 22.5, I'd have to use a 20, 2 and a .5 to gte the right angle. I guess it would still be okay or I could always make some blocks.

Am I missing a real easy way to do this?

 

[Uncle Buck]

No I do not think so. I plan on doing something similar to the drilled holes and pins idea at some point myself.

 

[toadjammer]

Or maybe buy an Ellis band saw. If I don't spend my money on everything else maybe I'll buy one someday.

 

[nissan_crawler]

I just make wood blocks on the table saw and mark them with a sharpie. Cheap, quick, whatever angle you want.

 

[rsanter]

next time you set the anle to 45 or 30 or whatever, take a carbide scribe and scribe a line on the base using the fence as the guide. a carbide scribe will mark into the base material enough to stay there for years.
next time you need to set the fence you can just move it to the line

bob

 

[lametec]

I scribed a line as mentioned above. Didn't have a carbide scribe, though, so I used what I had on hand. I might have used the awl, courtesy of Craftsman. I can't really remember.

 

[nissan_crawler]

I find the lines aren't completely accurate, personally. You might get close, but cut a piece of 4 or 6" steel, and now you have up to a 1/16" gap in it when put together. A wood block means the same perfect angle, every time.

 

[LoneGunman]

I just make wood blocks on the table saw and mark them with a sharpie. Cheap, quick, whatever angle you want.

For some reason I always over complicate things, I have trouble seeing the easy way. I had the same idea but with the angle gauge blocks, didn't think of wood. I could even go pick up a nice piece of hardwood, still will be a lot cheaper than gauge blocks and A LOT less work than the pin idea. The blocks (wood or steel) are nice because it should 99% of the time give you the same cut, the cuts should fit together without any grinding.

 

[riley.m]

Or maybe buy an Ellis band saw. If I don't spend my money on everything else maybe I'll buy one someday.

i use an ellis bandsaw at work,man are they nice.i love all the adjustments you can make.