Curious why people need a small bandsaw for DIY?

I always wonder why more people didn't use chop saws more , that's all I had until a few months ago , getting a HF portable band saw and mounting it vertically . Now I know !!! I used that so many times , not worrying about sparks flying or dragging everything outside . Making better cuts and to be able to cut into corners are just some of the reasons I'm hooked
 
30 odd years ago I bought a 7 x 12,(made in Taiwan), to help on a job to finance a TIG. It is one of the single best investments I ever made. Gets used almost every day but I surely would love one of those portable bandsaws. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology I see you can now get cordless ones. Due to reduced income I can't afford one.
 
I bought my small bandsaw it's a 5x5 not 4x6 but pretty much the same, any way I bought it shortly after getting my lathe as I very soon realised that I needed one.

As many have said above, us hobbyists chose small because they are usually cheaper and many of us don't have large workshops.

It's the absolute convenience of cutting the piece at home. If I had to take it to a shop to be cut it would need a 5km drive to the nearest shop and they would charge me about $5 for one cut of a piece of 1 inch bar. it soon ads up.
 
Every time I've had something cut at a welding shop it's been $5 a cut when I was needing new stock. The two local welding shops that supply metal are both 45 minutes away.
 
Some places won't cut unknown metal, all it takes is one piece of hardened tool steel to screw up a $20-$30 (or more) blade. Same reason many commercial wood shops won't plane your lumber for fear of hitting nails. That's one reason why people buy their own small saws and wood planers.

I bet 95% of the work we do starts by being cut off in a bandsaw. The only stuff that doesn't is usually pre-cut, i.e. cutouts of plate stock for example.
 
NICOLAS LIN said:
As the title says, I am a bit curious why people need a small bandsaw to cutting something by themselves? As i know most of our bandsaw sold to US market and lots of DIY brands machine also do as well, can anyone share why people need this kind of machine? like 4x6 small bandsaw or hacksaw...? In Taiwan, people doesn't do this very often, is it because high labor charge or any other reason cause people in US like to do it by themselves?
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I bought an Atlas lathe back in around 1985. Was sliding it down a board to my basement shop and one of the quadrant gears fell off. There was a retaining bolt/axle with a head of something like 1.25" and a shaft of 0.5" (dimensions from memory and not critical - part of the story). There was a threaded portion that went through the quadrant with a jam nut to hold it in place. The thread was trashed, so the first lathe project was to remake the part. Turned the shoulder for the axle, turned and threaded the end for the jam nut. I didn't have a proper parting tool so went to the bench vise and a hacksaw. I spent 45 minutes hacking through the round (either 1.25" or 1.5"). Went to the store and bought a 4" x 6" band saw and retired my hacksaw.

I upgraded a few years ago to a 7" x 12" saw with coolant (Harbor Freight $700 model). I can't imagine NOT having a horizontal saw for cutting stock. Makes life so much easier.

Bruce
 
We had a customer who had a Ford 350 4x4 diesel that pulled a 35' RV a couple of times a month to Utah from California. Out in the desert he said the truck just stopped moving. The engine was running and it was in gear but all he got was this horrible rattling noise. He put it in 4wd and was able to limp into the nearest town. Turned out the axle had broken right at the base of the end cap. Turned out an old Bronco axle was the same pattern and splines but way shorter. Just enough to engage about 1/2" into the 3rd member splines. He limped it home. The broken axle had beaten around in the housing so much it had bell mouthed the threaded end of the housing so much I had to split the bearing adjuster nut to get it off. The housing was $3500 bare, not even the spring mounts and shock mounts were included and would be special order. The whole unit was full of filings and the bearings in the in the 3rd member were shot as were all the wheel bearings. There were no used units available anywhere at any price.

So one thread beyond where the wheel bearing nut was I was able to put my 4x5 into the wheel well and cleanly slice off the bell mouthed end of the axle and with a thread file get the new wheel bearing nut to fit nicely. Clean and flushed the housing and replaced all the bearings along with new brake shoes and axle and off he went. I was his hero, especially after he got an estimate from the dealer. Last I'd heard he'd put another 50k mi. on it.

The 4x5 just barely fit in the wheel well. And doing by hand I'd still be trying to get that thing sawed through.
 
Before retiring, I was in the machine shop trade. As an apprentice, I became quite familiar with an old Dayton 4x6, along with larger and much more expensive saws. When I decided to get back into metalworking after retiring, my very first acquisitions were a Lincoln AC stick welder, a bench-top drill press and an HF 4x6 saw. I now have a Kalamazoo 8CW (8x16). The 4x6 gets used all the time, the Kalamazoo maybe 2-3 times per year. A 4x6 saw is one of the basic, must-have tools for metalworking. I use mine to cut wood too.
 
because: place a 2" round piece of steel on the saw, turn it on, lower blade. drink a beer while occasionally lubricating the blade. :)
 
You have to look at your cost per cut and what you are cutting. If it is small diameter stock, any kind of saw will do, even a hand saw. Cut it a little long and then machine to the correct dimension. As stock gets larger, it gets much harder to cut and you have to purchase material as close to the right size as possible if you can not easily cut it.

I spent a month in Taiwan a few years ago, it is a beautiful country.
 
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