Hello from Bromsgrove

Just joined and am looking forward to learning new skills ,tips and ideas from the helpful people on this forum

Hi Stuart,

Welcome to the forum - I'd guess from your 'caliper' post that have some experience and equipment? ..is there a particular field in which your interest lies?

Hi Stuart welcome to the forum. What are you interested in, models, steam power or other interests. Just ask on here and someone will be able to help or suggest something that may help.

David

Welcome to the forum from WS

H

Hi all I'm a retired toolmaker I've worked in the screw trade ,spring trade ,tube bending tooling,and press tooling.

I got myself a mini mill just to keep my hand in and am thinking of building a band saw so advice would be welcome thanks

Brian when you need a blade go to stuff saws for blades, made to measure, and quality.

https://www.tuffsaws.co.uk/

David

Welcome Stuart. I'm just down the road from you near Stourbridge. As an ex-toolmaker you must be pretty skilled for starters as I know how demanding that sort of work can be (my late father-in-law was one).

Building a band saw? Is this purely an initial idea or a specific project. The reason I ask is that if it's for just general cutting metal for other projects have you considered it may be better to look at buying one of the quite modestly priced ones currently availabe. If you do a search on articles on this site you'll come across many recent postings on the topic - including often quite reasonably priced versions purchased through Aldi & Lidl!

I obviously don't know your personal circumstances re finances, but it may be worth looking into the real cost comparisons of all the raw materials you will need versus the sort of thing I mention above.

In the past, I've learned that in many cases, when I have made workshop equipment they rarely come up to scratch compared to good commercial items (perhaps its just me? ) OK if its something unique, or beyond the normal depth of my pockets - fine, I'll have a go. but generally I prefer to use tools and machinery to make things of more direct interest to myself. Not many people will consider making a lathe or mill from scratch would they?

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, enjoy! You will always find a wealth of useful information and helpful folks herein.

All the best. Mike

Years ago, I had a woodworking bandsaw made by a pattern maker. Apart from the plumber blocks and shafts, it was nearly all made from plywood - even the 4 wheels that it could be moved about on. It was excellent, would cut straight etc etc. depth of cut about 7" and 18" throat. Unfortunately it was too big when I moved house!

Bob

Welcome Stuart, nice to see another local here! I'm just down the road near Pershore...

Thanks for the welcome lads .the problem with cheap and small bandsaws is that they tend to run to fast to cut steel and I don't have the room for a full-size job so making one gives me a project .l have a old Wick's one but it's not worth trying to convert it ,it may take some time but I am retired ?

Welcome Stuart, exiled Brummie now living in Somerset, also lived in Bromsgrove for a while.

I have a Clarke (machine mart) bandsaw I bought a few years ago, now you could argue that it is inferior in quality to more expensive ones but I have to say it has proved more than adequate for me on many occasions, mine is a vertical/horizontal type and I have probably used it mainly in the vertical position, saved me hours carving out pieces of plate, not had that many rounds that large that required a bandsaw but certainly useful cutting pipe or angle iron compared to handsawing.

Bill D.

Welcome to the Forum.

If you were to buy one the generic 4 1/2" bandsaws, it would benefit from some fine tuning, which would be well within your capabilities. By the time that you had finished, it would be far better than new. (On mine the weakness was the tin bearing spacer which wrecked the bottom bearing and oil seal on the worm wheel shaft )

That prompted a general tune up as well as repairs, to improve it a little.

Jaques Maurel designed and made a useful blade tensioning device, which makes my blades cut straighter, and last until they wear out, rather than break like the originals.

Howard

Thanks for the feedback ,the clarkes saw looks like a good option ,a bit pricey but takes up floor space i don't have ,if i could find solid well made old bandsaw to rebuild i would go for that ,if not its back to the drawing board

This one from Screwfix also appears in Lidl under the Parkside name for less. Either way the vice needs looking at.

You might find some inspiration from this thread Stuart: Link

If you trawl through it someone made the unit into a vertical saw, I have the Aldi version and have had very good use out of it. An issue could be that it may not be big enough for your needs...

..don't know whether this will be useful or not, but there's a 'build' series by none other than Tony Foale (yes indeed, that Tony Foale) on Youtube..

.he's using a Segway gearbox to provide the speed reduction, but of course 'other reduction boxes' are available, I guess, it'd just be a case of building to fit what you can find...

..it's a bit bizarre to see one of your motorcycling heroes building a bandsaw from moped wheels..

Looking at the small type bandsaws Dave ,I think would not work for me long term I'll will need something bigger.

They look good value but building my own appeals to me.Tony foale video gives me some ideas but what I end up with God knows . well I know where to come when I get stuck

Edited By stuart jones 2 on 13/12/2021 21:45:26

Building your own kit is ok if you have the time, when I first started in ME about 10 years ago I had all sort of plans to build tooling but soon realised if I did that I wouldn't have time to actually build any models.

But of course we all have different interests and time availability.

Bill D.

I don't have any plans to build models at the moment , it's to cold in the garage to work but it gives me time to decide on a design for the bandsaw which I will need to build models or what ever. having not long retired Bill I don't know how much time I will have,the wife has plans to ?

Having retired 5 years ago, I can tell you now that any grandiose ideas of ' all that time on your hands ' is total fallacy in my experience!. All the thoughts of ' when I retire, I can spend hours doing all those things I meant to do - models of this, engineering projects etc etc ' never seems to come about. Other 'jobs' seem to be always getting in the way.

Mind you, there is an element of time stretching a bit - I think when you were at work and only had perhaps evenings and weekends free you used to have to use the time effectively or things didn't get done, wheras now without that pressure the pace tends to be much slower - which to be fair is how it should be after 40-odd years of putting in graft!

Just keep your fingers crossed that you keep healthy and can enjoy your retirement.

All the best, Mike

Edited By Mike Hurley on 14/12/2021 09:41:33