If You Use A Portaband To Cut Blanks...I Have A Question

I have two of the old stye HF, they came available here by special order at princess auto, not on a continuing basis.

$75 each at the time, vs $400 ish for the Milwaukee (that are now $600 with tax )
Good getting two because the one has poor guides that let the blade slip and crack it into a thousand pieces.
I eyeballed the good one to fix the bad one.

The Braun HF looks like a good copy of the Milwaukee - never held one.

Deep cutting relates to the throat depth,
Go deep.

You can make up for a shallow throat if you mark profiles on both sides of your steel so you can go around and cut in either direction, but who does that? Not handy.
(It can be done if the templates locate on the handle dowel pins and you drill those pin holes first.)

It's hard to buy one in person now unless you go to a dedicated super tool store.
My local Home Depots stock MW, but now only 3x models and they are all Cordless.

If I were a plumber or sparkie working out of a truck on a jobsite where you have to fistfight 5x trades to plug into a one breaker service, it would be battery for sure
- but in shop knife making no
Get the corded model, order it for delivery if you have to.

I like the pretty yellow dewalt colours, but Milwalkee claims the deepest throat.
 
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I'll give a suggestion for folks who want a metal bandsaw and lots of cutting depth and width: This works great for production shops.

Shop around for an old Craftsman wood cutting bandsaw or similar type. The old ones were rock solid, and the motor hung down below it on a hinged arm with a V-belt drive pulley. These can be converted into metal saws by ordering a suitable size metal cutting blade and changing the speed. One simple way to change the speed is to put on a smaller pulley. The best way is to swap the motor for a 3-phase motor and run it with a VFD. This gives you the ability to vary cutting speed to match the material and thickness.

You can often find an ugly old Craftsman model 103, 113, or other 12" size unit for $100. These run a 3/8" blade for metal quite well and have a 12" throat. You can cut out a sword from a sheet of 12" wide steel if you want.

BTW, you can take an old solidly built drill press and swap out the motor for 3-phase/VFD setup and have a nice variable speed drill press.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I'll give a suggestion for folks who want a metal bandsaw and lots of cutting depth and width: This works great for production shops.

Shop around for an old Craftsman wood cutting bandsaw or similar type. The old ones were rock solid, and the motor hung down below it on a hinged arm with a V-belt drive pulley. These can be converted into metal saws by ordering a suitable size metal cutting blade and changing the speed. One simple way to change the speed is to put on a smaller pulley. The best way is to swap the motor for a 3-phase motor and run it with a VFD. This gives you the ability to vary cutting speed to match the material and thickness.

You can often find an ugly old Craftsman model 103, 113, or other 12" size unit for $100. These run a 3/8" blade for metal quite well and have a 12" throat. You can cut out a sword from a sheet of 12" wide steel if you want.

BTW, you can take an old solidly built drill press and swap out the motor for 3-phase/VFD setup and have a nice variable speed drill press.
Click to expand...
Sigh … and i literally just gave one of these away 😒. Can you really find metal cutting blades that fit the 12” craftsman?
 
Sure. If you can't get a 60" metal blade (or whatever your size is) from Crafrstsman you can have any size and type made up by the bandsaw blade folks. I use Tool Center Dot Com (aka Cyber Woodworking Depot). They will make any blade you want in any length.
 
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