I have a question. If I buy a HomeDepot bandsaw which I believe is intended for wood cutting can I put a metal blade on it and go to town or will it not hold up.

 

The speeds on woodcutting bandsaw is to high so it wont work very well

 

with a proper blade you could probably get by cutting aluminum but steel or something hard like that wouldnt be that good of an idea.

 

Yeah, it'll actually work pretty good for aluminum.

 

id imagine you could change the speed with a simple pully swap ? we are looking at the 14inch "stand up" models. although a lay down model would be good for cutting pipe/tubing.....hmmmm

 

Yeah what he said. Why can't we just change the speed .Then whats the prob

 

you need something that cuts slow also watercooled for steel

 

rand, clark or jet both make a 200 dollar unit they work great. the good blades (bimetal variable pitch 14/18tooth) are about 20 each and last us a month without coolent. awh looks the Jet is 350 http://www.amazon.com/Jet-Equi...&s=hi and here is a clark or i guess its also made by Rand http://cgi.ebay.com/4-1-2-RAND...sting these work fine, when we first started i had four of these 200$ ones running all the time. the only problem i ever ran into was getting a blade caught while its on, then it fries the motor if you dont know... if you hook to a surge protector it will see the high amps and trip and save your motor. the other problem is after about 1-1.5years the thrust bearing in left wheel will lock up but i used some Lucky skateboard bearings and fixed it on both my bandsaw we still use. So for about 200 you cant go wrong with these easy fixes.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vaporboy12 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you need something that cuts slow also watercooled for steel</TD></TR></TABLE>

Watercooled makes a big ****** mess though only bad part haha I hate cleaning ****

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yeah, it'll actually work pretty good for aluminum.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sure does - that what I use.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dturbocivic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">id imagine you could change the speed with a simple pully swap ? we are looking at the 14inch "stand up" models. although a lay down model would be good for cutting pipe/tubing.....hmmmm</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes you can.. I have done it already and it will work just fine.

I believe jet makes a pulley kit too.