(By Loren Krussow) – A cool thing when beginning to work with metal is discovering that you can cut the stuff with other pieces of metal.  Most of us learn the fact when Dad or Grandpa first hands us a hand-powered hack saw.  It defies intuition but sure enough, pushing that blade into whatever it is you want to split in the middle and then running it back and forth long enough will get you two parts where once there was one, and if you listened to the admonishment to not “go cuttin’ off any fingers”, that will be the only harm done. 

A powered band saw is similar to a hack saw in that a flexible toothed blade is strung between two points, but the blade is in the form of a long continuous loop run by a motor over large pulleys in a single direction and having guide devices on either end of an open section where cutting is done.  These can be huge machines as installed to cut boards in lumber mills, smaller versions may be seen in butcher shops, metal-cutting versions may take up 20 square feet of floor space and operate in a horizontal position but our favorite is a fraction of that size and the blade runs vertically. 

The blade itself is a marvel. It may be made of two types of material to be flexible in the body but hard enough to cut steel at the teeth. Blade stock is available in a multitude of widths and tooth types, in 100′ coils which must be cut to size for the particular machine and welded together either by a special device or by careful GTAW (tig) welding then annealing with a gas torch.

While hack saws may be safe for kids partly due to what I’d call a high effort/damage ratio (i.e. by the time you’ve cut far enough into a body part to seriously risk losing it you’ve had to work hard enough to have known to stop), band saws are a different story.  One easy slip can cost you a finger forever.  It’s the nature of the work performed on such tools that the hands are in close proximity to the danger area and blade guarding is difficult to do without affecting the usefulness of the machine, so training and care are vital.  In most cases the item being cut can be held with metal or wood blocks fashioned to fit the need, and hands can be kept well away from hazard.

Projects that can be made on a band saw are almost limitless.  Cutting-to-size of raw stock can be done with half-inch to one-inch blades, or intricate scroll work can be performed with blades down to 1/8” width.  An inexpensive ¼” woodworking machine from the Craftsman catalog can be fit with a metal-cutting blade to work aluminum, or even steel if the blade speed is substantially slowed, and you may spend an evening making yourself an alternator bracket or engine mount, cutting a sheet metal panel, or even making a “factory” emblem for a car that never existed. 

Anyone remember what a “BangShift.com” was?  A super-rare multi-colored two-door I think, built only by a guy in Massachusetts…