Re: Speaking of Bang For Your Buck

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:vg5olf$3t2d5$1@dont-email.me...
On 10/31/2024 8:01 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:vg0t6n$2rop8$1@dont-email.me...
...
I thought I "needed" a vertical metal cutting saw in the shop so I
bought it.  I admit I have cut metal with it.  With the right blade it
is okay for aluminum, and marginally capable of mild steel cutting.  I
have managed to make some cuts in alloy with it, but the torque at lower
surface speeds is so low you work harden it pretty quickly with the
light cuts you are forced to make and not stall the saw.
...

I used to run a lot of communication cable in schools, net, phone,
video, tv, telemetry, etc.  Often we would have the master keys working
at night or on the weekend.  Except for a few dedicated teachers we
would have the place to ourselves.  I recall in one maintenance shop
they had a gigantic old Rockwell (just said Rockwell I looked) vertical
band saw.  I couldn't help but turn it on and make a couple cuts.  Oh,
that was a serious machine.  Nothing stopped it.  I told the head IT guy
if he ever saw it at auction let me know.  It sounded like it might have
had a bearing going, but for a machine like that I wouldn't care about
fixing it.
--
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff
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I take it he never called.
Segway had a good bandsaw that I used to cut up chassis castings to make mutants.
I disposed of older equipment from Mitre that I would have loved to own but couldn't, a 14" South Bend long bed lathe and HP spectrum and vector network analyzers. It was USAF property and schools got first pick.  Now small cheap SDR digital radio tuners can do the spectrum and vector analyzer functions and I found a 10" SB that fits better in my small house.
My first bandsaw was a used 10" Sears whose lower bronze bearing had never been oiled, so it wore egg-shaped and scored the drive shaft. A new shaft was my first lathe project in night school, a simple job of threading one end and cutting a keyway in the other. Then it worked well enough that I converted it into a sawmill, which cut oak logs into clear lumber at the numbing rate of half an hour for a 10" x 8' board.
When the neighbor parted out a damaged Kawasaki I grabbed the wheels for the current sawmill, a rolling horizontal bandsaw with 24" wheels, a 16' long by 1-1/4" blade and the capacity to cut a beam 21" square and 20' long. The hard part was lifting and moving that much wet wood, the round log weighed 4500 Lbs.