I am considering buying a small benchtop bandsaw for home, so I can do woodwork away from my shopmaster's garage. The trouble is that my parents will not allow me to bolt a tabletop bandsaw down to the garage workbench, and we do not have enough floorspace in the garage for a rolling cart or floor bandsaw. My question is how secure does a bandsaw need to be? If I hold the base with several sturdy C-clamps, will that be sufficient? Does it even need that much? I would like to store the bandsaw in a cabinet, then take it to the back yard to work so I don't get sawdust over my parents' racing bicycles. I will be cutting baltic birch plywood, mostly 1/4" or 1/8" thick, and possibly some balsa.
While I maintain that a benchtop bandsaw will leave you wanting, I don't think that bandsaws vibrate enough to worry about it if you've got 3 C-Clamps (mouniting saw on the corner of a bench) holding it down.
Just some tips for your bandsaw: My small saw has rubber feet, I removed the screw that holds them on, fitted longer screws that pass through them and a 18" square of 3/4 ply. The ply has a rubber backing glued to it to stop it sliding. This now forms a stable base, I simply sit the whole thing on my bench when needed. If you are pushing hard enough to move the saw, you're pushing WAY too hard. Let the saw work at it's own pace. Make sure replacement blades are available, and check the price of them before you select the saw. Some are harder to get than others, and prices vary wildly. Be VERY careful if you want to cut plastic, especially polycarb. Plastic can melt, stick to the blade and freeze again, causing the blade to jam, and snap. Oh, and read the instructions......really.
Cool idea on the base, Darren! To add to what he said about how hard to push the material through... At our last build session, the prevailing opinion was that my bandsaw cut so easily thru 1/4" ply that you spent more energy pushing the wood across the saw's smooth metal work surface than you spent actually pushing the material past the saw blade... It doesn't take a lot of effort. The bandsaw let me cut the ribs and keel of Minerva in less than half the time it took on my really nice scrollsaw. There are still some tasks that the scrollsaw is better for, but for general use, the bandsaw does more work in a given period of time.
Also, don't forget to check your new blades... Mine liked to cut diagonally really badly... finally realized that one side of the blades teeth were all dull.
A couple of c-clamps is plenty to hold down just about anything, let alone a little bandsaw. In my shop I use a pair of quick grip clamps for that purpose all the time. Bandsaw blades all tend to be slightly sharper on one side than the other due to how they are manufactured, in cheaper blades it can be very noticeable. Most bandsaws come with blades so bad that they should be thrown out.
I am well aware of the difficulties with poor-quality saw blades. Hopefully I will be able to borrow another skipper's currently-unused band saw for the few months it will take to finish the Mikasa. If not, I can perform any necessary tune-ups myself.
