Modding a Rigid Bandsaw to cut steel

**JohnUlaszek** · 01-15-2005

Thought you guys might like this.
Paul Ruggles modded a Home Depot Bandsaw to cut at 80-120 and 170-250 surface feet per minute, perfect for cutting sheet metal and plate.
Hacked Band Saw

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**parsonsj** · 01-15-2005

Damn. That thing just went to the top of my "gotta have" list!

I've been using a poor man's bandsaw recently: I clamp my jigsaw in a vise upside down. That works (sort of ... I still have ten fingers), but I'm always wanting a real vertical bandsaw. The $1000+ price tag has always put me off.

Is Paul up for making more?

jp

**JohnUlaszek** · 01-16-2005

John,
I talked to Paul about building more but he wants to do some durability testing before he takes that on. Send me your address so we can get one down to you to test.

John

**astroracer** · 01-16-2005

Hey John!
Perfect timing on this one bud! I just bought a 12" wood band saw off eBay for less then 100 bucks including shipping. This saw has a variable speed but it is still too fast. This was my plan to convert it over to cut steel... Any chance on getting specifics for us other D.I.Y. guys? Pulley sizes would be excellant.
Mark

**JohnUlaszek** · 01-16-2005

Mark,
Paul came up with a design and mechanism that works for the Rigid and maybe the Habor Freight but your drive mechanism, motor speed, and room for packaging will drive your design.
The pulley diameters we used probably won't help you as we are starting with a different motor and pulleys and the wheels on the saw itself are different diameter.
I believe the machinists handbook has some pulley calculations in it. Your first task will be to see how many SFPM you machine is right now.
Sorry I can't be more specific, but its a bit of an engineering problem with unknown variables. Initially we had hoped to just swap pulleys, but that would have actually sped the thing up. It's not trivial to slow woodcutting saws down to the usable speed.

**KWIKND** · 01-16-2005

What about a freq drive(variable frequency drive)? Slow the motor down while maintaining full torque. We use them on overhead cranes 0 to 150% speed

- 250 ton hoists.
Dan

**parsonsj** · 01-17-2005

Yeah ... somehow I talked Paul into sending me his prototype. I'll give it a solid go, and report back here in a week or two. I have some sheetmetal and tube work (both steel and aluminum) to do, so I will exercise the saw a bit.

jp

**astroracer** · 01-18-2005

Sounds good John, and thanks for the info. I was scoping out parts in both McMaster-Carr's and Grainger's catalogs yesterday. I also went out and dinked around with the 12" variable speed saw I bought and decided it's not worth messing with. I will leave it alone and use it for cutting wood only. It's got a small motor on it and the variable speed leaves it with no torque at metal cutting speeds... No great loss for 70 bucks. I will be picking up one of the bigger 14" saws shortly. Do you have any suggestions or things I should be looking for different then the Rigid saw? I will be checking out Harbor Freights offerings and Sears has one that is similar so I should be able to come up something that will work.
Mark

**JohnUlaszek** · 01-18-2005

Mark,
The harbor freight model can be caught on sale for $229.00 and is worth considering on price, but of the higher quality models the Rigid seemed the best bang for the buck.

John

**parsonsj** · 01-23-2005

Well, after convincing the concerned sales staff at my local Home Depot that they actually do have such a saw and that their job is to find it and sell it to me, I drug one of the 200 lb beasts home today.

Paul's conversion kits will be here this week, so I'll have some reaction about this inexpensive metal bandsaw experiment next weekend.

jp

**Jim Nilsen** · 01-23-2005

Hey John, I did the same thing to my Jet wood bandsaw and it works great.Jet actually had a kit to adapt over .

If you can ,you need to make it so you have a speed right in the middle or a little faster for cutting aluminum. I use a larger pulley on the drive wheel to do it.

Wood blades work great for cutting aluminum when set at the right speed. A wire clean off wheel helps a lot too for blade life. My saw right now will cut through half inch aluminum 6061 t6 like butter. The variable tooth blades under 12T work the best.

I had just seen a 2 in 1 Delta in a local Farm & Fleet and in there catalog that had the lowered motor and jackshaft setup for being able to go slower. It was only $300 and the wood bandsaw only was $ 400 go figure ? If I didn't already have one I would have taken it home with me !

Goodluck , Jim Nilsen

**parsonsj** · 01-23-2005

Hi Jim,

Been a while since we've heard from you. Welcome back!

I checked out the Jet speed conversion kit and it seems a bit fast for steel: only 725 sfpm as the slowest. That's too fast for steel, but may be ok for aluminum. The Delta 2n1 is EXPENSIVE: $1600! At least new it is, anyway.

This Rigid deal is $350 for the saw, and $200 or so for the kit. Paul is verifying the actual speeds with a tachometer (must be something different than what I was thinking of

), but thinks he got somewhere around 40 sfpm up to about 120 or so (it's adjustable).

Anyway, I'll post when I have some actual run time on the saw.

jp

**astroracer** · 01-25-2005

I just bought an older, taiwanese style 14" saw on eBay for $132.50. It is supposed to be a dual type saw. Wood and metal. Used very little and kept in storage, out of the weather. I will be picking it up Saturday.
Obviously I can't give you any info until I get it in my shop and check it out but this was a hellofa deal and I'll be able to throw some time and money at it too get it up to speed.
I will post some pics next week.
Mark

**JohnUlaszek** · 01-25-2005

The thing to keep in mind is that you need to be down around 80 SFPM minute to cut sheet metal properly. Most of the dual purpose machines have a low speed that is way too fast. They claim they are good for metal but are typically around 700 SFPM on the low speed which will cut aluminum sheet but not well.

Let us know how your machine works and if you can mod it to run slower.
There is a real need for a hobbiests band saw for cutting steel and as of yet Pauls solution is the only one I would consider affordable if he decides to start making them.

John

**parsonsj** · 01-30-2005

I picked up a new Ridgid bandsaw this past week (from Home Depot) and received Paul Ruggles' adaptation kit for it Thursday. I put it together in a couple of hours, and I've been cutting steel and aluminum all weekend with it.

I have two words: IT ROCKS!

I've retired my jigsaw (aka the metal terror) from metal cutting. The bandsaw cuts everything I've tried: 22 g steel all the the way to 3/16 steel. Plus some .060 and .090 aluminum. I get nice accurate cuts, and low noise and vibration. When I want to cut something, I just flip on the saw and cut.

Here's a couple pics. I gotta go cut some more stuff.

Highly recommended.

jp

**baz67** · 01-30-2005

I was able to use this saw with JP this weekend. The only problem I have found is that it is not in my garage.

Brian

**astroracer** · 01-31-2005

I picked up my new (used) band saw Saturday but haven't had time to put it back together and fire it up. It has a gearbox on the side and the motor and gearbox have step pulleys. I did get some measurments of the pulleys so I'll plug those into the SFPM calculations tonight. I just ran out of time this weekend to get anything done.
Mark

**BADVELLE** · 01-31-2005

I picked up my new JET horizontal/vertical bandsaw on Friday, works great. I have been cutting steel all weekend on it. The workmanship and quality of parts is unbelievable for $260.

**astroracer** · 02-01-2005

I worked on the new/old band saw last night, roughly calculating the blade speed SFPM. This saw is an older (1985) model but it has a speed reducer gearbox that actually gets the blade speed down to a slow enough speed that will efficiently cut steel. The speed reducer has a 17.5:1 reduction so I can play around with pulley diameters to slow it down even more if I have to. I’ll be pulling the gearbox apart to clean it and change the oil but the saw was well taken care of from what I can see and it did not see a lot of use. It was a killer deal for $132 dollars.
Working through the calculations I get a blade speed of 157.54 sfpm on the outer step pulleys and that jumps up to 231 sfpm on the next set. I will probably play with pulley sizes to get the cutting speed to around 170 or 180 sfpm. This will be a whole lot easier to do then I was expecting. I will not have to build a jack shaft system like John did for his saw. The gearbox was a pleasant surprise...

**JohnUlaszek** · 02-01-2005

Astro,
Sou nds like you got yourself a deal there. You might want to see if you can change a pulley to further slow your speed down as 150 is still a bit fast for sheet metal. If you can get around 80sfpm I think you will be happier with the results on the thin stuff.

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