WTB - Vertical Bandsaw (Metal)

[64duece]

I'm in Southern NJ, looking for a good used unit in the $500 range. I've searched the local CL and found tons of vertical wood, horizontal or 3ph industral units.

Anyone have luck pulley/slowing a wood unit down???

 

[A_Pmech]

This is something I posted a while back in a thread on a Heston-Anderson band saw:

For a small dual-purpose machine I would look at a Walker-Turner. They're about the smallest metal/wood saws I'm aware of and came in sizes of 14" or 16". Several versions have a built-in reduction gearbox to reduce the band speed for cutting metal. Keep in mind that some versions did not have the gearbox and would not be suitable for metal work.

Here's an example:

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb...361805129.html

A Powermatic 143 is also a possibility. It is a dual-purpose version of the Powermatic 141.

There are several threads on Practical Machinist about them, which may serve as a guide. Obviously, I would look for a machine that was complete, without damage outside your capability to repair. It's much easier to rebuild something when you have all the parts from the beginning!

Those are the only saws I'm aware of that are single-phase and relatively small.

A Do-All or Grob 16" saw is about double the size of either one of those saws, but offers quite a bit more capability. The three-phase issue is easy to handle with a VFD, or a rotary phase converter if you plan to buy more machines in the future.

Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to slow down a wood saw. It can be done, with varying levels of success. However, you'll probably have to fight most of the way as wood saws tend to be very flexible and suffer blade tracking issues cutting metals as a consequence.