Anything welding

Band saw all day. Perfectly straight cuts. Can start it and walk away while doing other tasks. Quite. Minimal mess. Never used a portable one but the harbor freight ones on wheels have lasted us several years and we go through roughly 3 blades a year (we replace them when the cuts start to angle or wonder) and are easily found at our local mcfadendales. And way safer than any other method of cutting and makes it easier to do multiple cuts with an extender arm to mark the exact distance for a cut.

 

Nothing makes you appreciate ANY cutter till you've had to do cuts with a roller cutter on CRES 300 thats approx 3/4" wall.

 

My problem with a bandsaw is that they’re so slow! I have a lot of sliders that I have to build for people and I don’t have the time to wait for the band saw. I have a love/hate relationship with my dewalt drycut saw. Its very fast and cuts pretty damn straight but it’s loud and makes a mess. If I could close to the same speed with a bandsaw I’d make the switch but I’ve just never seen a bandsaw cut that fast

 

I was originally looking at the Makita LC1230 chop saw, but I’m just not sure I can justify that price when I could have the HF bandsaw for a little over 200. Speed would be nice however I’m more interested in the precision and repeatability a band saw has to offer. That and I can use it in the upright position for other applications as well.

But please feel free to convince me otherwise. I haven’t bought anything yet and that Makita looks mighty tempting, and smaller I might add.

 

Use hearing muffs and a face shield. Make a sheet metal collector and put a bucket under it. Make one out of cardboard first. Problems solved! Oh, and use hearing muffs and a face shield.

 

I have a chip collector on mine that hooks to a shop vac with a metal housing. Keeps the mess down. Hearing protection is a must in metal working.

 

WHAT??

 

My decades old HF horizontal bandsaw is slow but accurate. I added an out feed table so I can set a stop block for repeatable cuts. Once I have a piece cut, I set the next piece to cut and prep the first one for welding. Then repeat.
I obviously do not do production work, but I do like to work as efficiently as I can even with my hobby

 

Definitely use the face shield and hearing protection and just recently started using a cardboard shield around the saw to prevent the chips from flying everywhere. Still loud and messy haha but I still like it and it works well.

Pictures? Is the chip collector a factory part of your saw or an accessory, I like this idea.

 

@Shmellmopwho what all tools do you use on a regular basis for your fab work? Been looking through some of your threads and like the work you do. It’s similar to what I’d like the capabilities to do.

 

Thanks man, I appreciate that. I’m a hobby fabricator that has turned hobby into a side business. Definitely don’t consider myself on the level of a lot of other dudes in this thread but I feel like I do pretty well and it’s fun and I make some pretty decent money on the side.


Hobart 210 MIG welder
JD2 model 3 bender with 1.75” tube die (6.5” radius 180 degrees) (converted to hydraulic)
Eastwood tube notcher
Dewalt 14” multicutter dry cut saw
Dewalt grinder with lots of cutoff wheels and flap discs

Those are the main tools I use for fabbing sliders

Other useful tools that I don’t necessarily need but come in handy a lot are

Husky 30 gal air compressor (to run air over hydro on the tube bender)
Harbor freight 20 ton press with swag Offroad DIY press brake kit (for bending plate)

Definitely should have yourself a decent metal top bench for welding on. I recently got a welding table from weldtables.com and I really like it because it has all the 5/8” holes on it for using fixture clamps on to clamp down your projects.


That’s pretty much what I can think of right now haha. Hope that helps

 

That’s all good stuff... I say that because I own about half of it already. Haha. My first welder I bought recently was actually that Hobart 210. It’s been an awesome machine to learn on.

Going to be fabricating some skid plates probably this weekend. Really looking forward to making some legitimate truck parts. Depending on how that goes, I’ll try my hand at building a rear bumper.

 

Awesome dude!! Be sure to post up some pictures of your stuff. Looking forward to seeing how things turn out!!

 

Welded a 1/4" thick lunch box to my rear end today.

 

I still dont get why scrap metal is something like .04cts a pound, but go buy a cold rolled steel and its like $134 for 2 10foot sticks..

 

You and me, brother.

I'm happy I can get a case of cheap beer out of my scraps.

 

Three words...Electric arch furnace.

Electric power prices are better than half the cost of steel production. Takes a hell of a lot of electricity to run a smelter.

 

Supply and demand Scrap is low now because lots is being produced

 

also was having some feed problems with my wire feed welder and thought it was a tip problem. put a new one on and same problem...turns out the welder doesnt like to run on an extension cord

 

It might not even be the cord just the added connections can be enough to cause enough line loss to drop it enough