The Most Important Question When Buying a Bandsaw

One of the questions we commonly get asked at Excision by customers who are considering buying a bandsaw blade machine is: why are some machines cheaper than blades, and why do some have more gadgets than an airplane? If you’ve ever considered purchasing a bandsaw machine, you’ll know that many options in the market serve different purposes. This often makes it confusing, especially if you don’t know exactly what you need, or the key things to look for.

In this blog I’ll explain how answering 3 key questions will help you make sure that you don’t end up with something that a) will need to be replaced in 12 months or b) has more features than you need.

In short, we want to make sure that you get the right bandsaw machine for your business and have no regrets down the track.

What do you need to do with your Bandsaw?

At first glance, this seems like an obvious question – you need to cut metal! However, don’t underestimate the power of this question to help you determine the exact specifications you need for your bandsaw. Surprisingly, it’s a question that’s often overlooked, but when you do start asking yourself these questions, you’ll help both yourself and the manufacturer start to nut out the right bandsaw machine.

So, with that in mind, here are the 3 questions that will guide you in the right direction:

• What material are you cutting?
• What size is it?
• What quantities are you cutting?

For example, if you’re a steel merchant cutting packs of steel that are over 600mm square 100 times over, you’re going to need a radically different bandsaw to a fabricator cutting ‘all sorts.’

This means that your answer to each of those questions greatly affects the bandsaw range you need. It is critical that you answer these questions first before talking to any machinery dealer.

It’s important to remember that typically the more information you can provide to the dealer or manufacturer, the better they’ll be able to match you up with the perfect bandsaw.

What material are you cutting?

The type of material you’re cutting determines what blade speeds your bandsaw machine needs. For example, a cheaper two-speed machine with a range of 60-90m/min won’t be suitable for cutting aluminium, which needs to be cut at 30m/min. If you’re cutting a large range of materials you’ll likely need to opt for a variable-speed machine.

How big is it?

The dimensions of the material you’re cutting will determine how large the capacity of your bandsaw needs to be. Keep in mind that the maximum capacity should be slightly larger than the biggest cuts you currently do.

How much are you cutting?

How many cuts you’re doing per day is also an important consideration. While you might currently be doing a large number of cuts on a manual machine, upgrading to a semi-automatic bandsaw could save you a significant amount of man-hours and reduce your running costs.

An example

Here’s an example of the level of detail you should go into when answering these questions.

Matt Sheffield works at Shed Company XYZ. Matt’s bandsaw is getting old, and beginning to give less than optimum performance, so he decides he needs a new bandsaw machine.

But before he goes to a bandsaw blade manufacturer, he compiles this information to send to his machinery dealer:

On any given day, he does the following cutting:

Cutting the following sections

• 30 pieces of 120x120 RHS 8m lengths to 45* either end

• 100 pieces of 90x90 RHS 900mm lengths 30* either end

• 6 pieces of 300x200 I-Beam lengths up to 10m

• 6 pieces of 400x20 plate lengths up to 500mm

Largest ever cut

• 400x300 RHS pack

Smallest ever cut

• 45x45 RHS

Matt's Requirements

So, knowing this information, what can it tell us about Matt’s requirements for his bandsaw machine?

• Matt is cutting 100 pieces of the same size on an average day – with a semi-automatic machine Shed Company XYZ could save up to 2 man-hours per day.
• Matt is cutting large I-beams a lot – this means the bandsaw machine must have the capacity for this.

Other things for consideration

In addition to this, there are some other things we need to consider:

• Matt has stated the largest piece they ever need to cut is 400x300mm. However, the bandsaw machine should have additional capacity. Whilst they don’t need the largest bandsaw machine in the country, they don’t want to get a few months down the track and realise they should have purchased a bigger machine. At the same time, they need to be able to cut the 45x45 RHS, which could mean they need to buy a small bandsaw to cut the odd small pieces.
• What is the company budget over the next 5-7 years? This is an obvious but frequently overlooked question. Matt could buy cheap bandsaws to do all of the above, but they’d cause trouble within 12 months, and they’d need to be replaced within 2 years. On the other hand, Shed Company XYZ could buy a bandsaw that would last them 20 years with little to no trouble, with minimal ongoing costs.

Selecting your bandsaw

If you go through this process yourself by answering the questions yourself, you’ll find that selecting the right bandsaw will be a lot easier. Because of the variety of bandsaw machines available, all with varying qualities and features, you need to understand exactly what your requirements are so you can make an informed decision, and don’t end up with the wrong machine.

You can use our checklist to make the process easy. Make sure to give this to your machinery dealer so that you get the right bandsaw machine for your needs.