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After finishing all of the aluminum forming and cutting work on the Patrol's wings, I've been doing more steel work of late. While I am blessed with a another builder close by that is a genius with 4.5" grinder and carbide burrs, I really did not want to do all that weldment, hinge flatwork, and the aileron pulley brackets without a band saw to speed things up. Took a quick look at my Craigslist bargain basement Reliant 4-speed, and determined that $80 worth of jack shaft, belts, and sheaves would do the job to run speed down to 142/270/396/632 FPM, but that would involve building up a new stand and a weekend of work. Pending a good deal on a Craigslist horizontal band saw, I started looking for a portable solution that would be suitable for a range of other stuff involving 'take tool to the work' tasks.
Looking through Swag Offroad's (SOR) site (my HF 20 ton press is wearing a SOR finger brake that rocks for bending steel up to 1/4"), I noticed a portable bandsaw table that would take pretty much anyone's Portaband clone... for about $150. Further research led me to a few other options, including HF's new Hercules (the wannabee competition for DeWalt/Milwaukee- level prosumer portable electric corded and battery-powered tools) portable bandsaw stand, which not only comes with a table mount kit, but also does the horizontal bandsaw job for the sort of stuff we airplane people need done (cuts in up to 1/4" 4130N). I'm an Inside Track member member at HF ($29.95/yr), so that got the price down from ~$120 to ~$90, and the Hercules corded Portaband clone ran ~$180.
Early user experience: Stand is pretty much assembled as sold, and other than a blade, the portable bandsaw is ready to go. Mounting the saw is 15 minutes to find the right baggies of parts (all labeled for the machine to be mounted... Hercules, etc.), then started ripping out aileron pulley brackets in .125 4130N... walked right thru that, then on to trimming .050 and .063 4130N aileron and flap hinges... no issue trimming a 1/16" off the mounting edges to ease up to the line. Saw is comparable to the Milwaukee and DeWalt deep-cut portables... easy to change blades and an added LED light that works for normal use or in a table. Five year walk-in replacement warranty, and like most other portables, I consider it to be tooling that has paid for itself after that length of time. With saw in stand, you can either drape the base over the edge of the bench (there are rubber feet in both the base and the saw carrier/table stand) or remove it as I did... no need to bolt or clamp for anything I've been using it for on the wing flatwork or weldments.
On the trigger switch, there is a locking bar that works perfectly with the Hercules saw, so either a magnetic-mount inline switch in a conduit box or foot switch ($15 for a cheapie) works and keeps both hands free. BTW, at the speed the blade is running, the work barely gets warm, so close trimming to the scribed line is pain-free if you can avoid doing anything dumb.
Given fuselage is likely next Spring, and there is little need for the horizontal saw function right now, I pulled the base of the Hercules stand off (two bolts), leaving a handy handled bandsaw stand that I can haul up to Carlo's hanger or use in the back yard when I want to avoid the cleanup that goes with a metalworking and woodworking shop being colocated.
Couple of pics of the stand with saw and table mounted. Last shot is freehand trim of 1" bar stock to 3/4"... very clean, with amount of grinding/file work dependent on how well I do my part.
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IMG_0174.jpg
IMG_0175.jpg
Looking through Swag Offroad's (SOR) site (my HF 20 ton press is wearing a SOR finger brake that rocks for bending steel up to 1/4"), I noticed a portable bandsaw table that would take pretty much anyone's Portaband clone... for about $150. Further research led me to a few other options, including HF's new Hercules (the wannabee competition for DeWalt/Milwaukee- level prosumer portable electric corded and battery-powered tools) portable bandsaw stand, which not only comes with a table mount kit, but also does the horizontal bandsaw job for the sort of stuff we airplane people need done (cuts in up to 1/4" 4130N). I'm an Inside Track member member at HF ($29.95/yr), so that got the price down from ~$120 to ~$90, and the Hercules corded Portaband clone ran ~$180.
Early user experience: Stand is pretty much assembled as sold, and other than a blade, the portable bandsaw is ready to go. Mounting the saw is 15 minutes to find the right baggies of parts (all labeled for the machine to be mounted... Hercules, etc.), then started ripping out aileron pulley brackets in .125 4130N... walked right thru that, then on to trimming .050 and .063 4130N aileron and flap hinges... no issue trimming a 1/16" off the mounting edges to ease up to the line. Saw is comparable to the Milwaukee and DeWalt deep-cut portables... easy to change blades and an added LED light that works for normal use or in a table. Five year walk-in replacement warranty, and like most other portables, I consider it to be tooling that has paid for itself after that length of time. With saw in stand, you can either drape the base over the edge of the bench (there are rubber feet in both the base and the saw carrier/table stand) or remove it as I did... no need to bolt or clamp for anything I've been using it for on the wing flatwork or weldments.
On the trigger switch, there is a locking bar that works perfectly with the Hercules saw, so either a magnetic-mount inline switch in a conduit box or foot switch ($15 for a cheapie) works and keeps both hands free. BTW, at the speed the blade is running, the work barely gets warm, so close trimming to the scribed line is pain-free if you can avoid doing anything dumb.
Given fuselage is likely next Spring, and there is little need for the horizontal saw function right now, I pulled the base of the Hercules stand off (two bolts), leaving a handy handled bandsaw stand that I can haul up to Carlo's hanger or use in the back yard when I want to avoid the cleanup that goes with a metalworking and woodworking shop being colocated.
Couple of pics of the stand with saw and table mounted. Last shot is freehand trim of 1" bar stock to 3/4"... very clean, with amount of grinding/file work dependent on how well I do my part.
IMG_0172.jpg
IMG_0173.jpg
IMG_0174.jpg
IMG_0175.jpg
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