Saw for a tiny shop?

trochoidalpath · Apr 24, 2020

I used to just order stock pre-cut to size. But the Speedio is so fast :eek:

that it has become glaringly obvious I need to bring in lengths of bar stock and cut them to length as needed.

My overriding limitation is space. The closer I stick to 2 ft square the better off I am. As much as I'd love a 36" throat vertical band saw, that isn't gonna work. And because I only have enough room for one saw, I need to be able to cut everything from aluminum to stainless on the same saw. I never use tubing and only work with solid stock; the largest stock I regularly need is around 3.5" round or 3x6" flat. This is much more in the prototyping end than the production end. (If I have to run 500 parts I'm going to get it cut to size by someone with a good autosaw.)

I think I have two reasonable options. One is a very small vertical contour saw -- something like a Dake V16. I don't think I have enough room for something like a DoALL 2013, unfortunately.

Or I can go down the route of a 350mm cold saw. A little smaller, nicer cut quality might save me a cleanup op, but it's hard to find one that has enough range of blade speed. Looks like most of the decent ones nowadays are made in Italy by either MACC or imet? Are columnar saws worth the price premium over a pivot-style saw? The big problem I've seen with so far is getting a wide enough RPM range to be able to go through both stainless and aluminum.

Am I going to hate life with one or the other?

Red James · Apr 24, 2020

Sounds like a Roll-In saw to me. Small footprint, wide capability, and you don't have to push material thru it.

greggv · Apr 24, 2020

we got a cold saw for one particular job, never having felt we needed one in the past, and now find it to be the most used saw in the shop. I vote for the cold saw. We got ours from World Saw in LA, great people, easy to deal with, and cheap blade resharpening, too!

Booze Daily · Apr 24, 2020

If you have room to handle 12’ bars, you have room for a proper horizontal band saw.
Verticals aren’t really great for cutting blanks in qty.

Ray Behner · Apr 24, 2020

Booze Daily said:
If you have room to handle 12’ bars, you have room for a proper horizontal band saw.
Verticals aren’t really great for cutting blanks in qty.

Amen to that!

Ries · Apr 24, 2020

I vote for the 350 mm cold saw. I have had one since about 1991. Love it. Mine is a 45/90 rpm model. It will cut steel, as well as copper and bronze and aluminum just fine- but 45 rpm is too fast for Stainless. You kind of have to choose if you want Stainless cutting ability, in which case you go for one with around a 25rpm low speed, or better cosmetic quality cuts on non-ferrous, in which case you go for one like mine. Either way, if most of what you cut is steel, its a great saw. Mine is a Haberle, its german. But there are good Italian ones, pretty good US made euro copies (scotchman and doringer) and decent, but not great, Taiwanese machines. You get what you pay for.

thermite · Apr 24, 2020

trochoidalpath said:
My overriding limitation is space.

WHY?

Three of my saws live indoors, but are NEVER "operated" there. Two others are "garaged" under cover of the carport, but operated outside of that, weather permitting. Child's play to weather-cover most any basic saw. Kasto doesn't stay outdoors long enough when in-use that the coolant is going to freeze. Only OTHER one with fluids involved is a silly-small unit for cuttin' porcelain tiles!

Your description as to plan of use, the only "saw" as rates permanent space INSIDE a shop rather than wheels and stabilizers would be one with integral stops and a feed control system hellacious bigger than the sawing parts. Those can be revenoo-earners in their own right - for those who have the biz model that fits, but "that ain't YOU".

Get what best suits yer most-frequent needs. Put wheels on it.

Then all yah need IN the shop is parking space so it don't go walkabout some dark night.

Not "operating" space.

Saws are messy by nature. Who wants to share premium-cost workspace with 'em?

trochoidalpath · Apr 24, 2020

Booze Daily said:
If you have room to handle 12’ bars, you have room for a proper horizontal band saw.
Verticals aren’t really great for cutting blanks in qty.

I was unclear, sorry.

I'd probably bring in 4-6' bars. The entire space is 16 feet on a side so a full 12' bar isn't going to fly!

thermite · Apr 24, 2020

trochoidalpath said:
I was unclear, sorry. I'd probably bring in 4-6' bars. The entire space is 16 feet on a side so a full 12' bar isn't going to fly!

Got a dock? Or an apron to a driveway?

"Batch process" a term you are familiar with?

I figure you'd have this stuff dropped by the distributor's truck, break, set-up, cut it up, put-away saw and stock, clean-up - go back to USING it up incrementally on whatever tasking it was ordered for. Waste of time to cut one bar at a time as you go. Waste of money as well as space to carry more inventory than yah might have orders for.

Yah DID say you had been living-off incremental purchases, pre-cut, anyway?

Chris Attebery · Apr 24, 2020

Have you looked at the Evolution multipurpose chop saws? I've had the Rage 2 for a few years and it does everything I need(home shop/light production). My only complaint is that it throws chips everywhere.

I added a secondary fence so that I can set a stop and cut a bunch of stock to size.

wesg · Apr 24, 2020

I've used a couple Roll-in saws. HATED THEM! I'd do without if that's all I could get. Although the table was handy for smacking copper bar on to straighten it.

Nothing wrong with going slow in aluminum, just have to moderate the feed.

guest · Apr 24, 2020

3.5" round and 3x6" flat bars is asking a lot from a cold saw. That's band saw territory as far as I'm concerned.

I have a Doringer D350 that I use for solids up to about 2-1/2". It's 54/108 rpm, and I use it on steel, SS, and aluminum. I've got a high speed Kalamazoo cold saw that I use for aluminum extrusions, and a Johnson J for bigger solids.

If it were smaller sizes, I'd say cold saw. But if it's one saw only, and 3.5" rounds are part of the requirement. I would say a good quality horizontal band saw. Put it on wheels to get it out of the way if you have to.

thermite · Apr 24, 2020

guest said:
3.5" round and 3x6" flat bars is asking a lot from a cold saw. That's band saw territory as far as I'm concerned.

Depends on how often yah NEED it. Got 50 or 60 blades stashed "many types and pitches" for one of these hummers and can swap a blade in a New York Minute:

KASTOhbs 2 - Saws. Storage. And More.

Two hundred bucks. And some grotty PITA as to repairs, but not COMPLICATED.
I mean? Given it had been rolled off a loading dock and sheared the motor and casting arm for it in half!

Unassigned DC motor and KB-Penta controller I had in my stash already, so I count that part a freebie. A $25 HVAC condensate pump juices it.

Fast? Not so much.

"Irresistable" OTOH? Oh, HELL YES!

Ever find ANYTHING, 10" X 12" and under.... from styrofoam, to Balsa wood, though shiney-wood, the Bronzes, and steels clear out to Nitralloy it WON'T cut?

Rigid blades, folks.

No twist. No wheels to have to flex around, pass after pass, until fail.

Carbide grit, CBN, or even Diamond are options if one MUST.

DDoug · Apr 24, 2020

trochoidalpath said:
I was unclear, sorry. I'd probably bring in 4-6' bars. The entire space is 16 feet on a side so a full 12' bar isn't going to fly!

Sounds like a real "hole in the wall" place....

guest · Apr 24, 2020

thermite said:
...Depends on how often yah NEED it. Got 50 or 60 blades stashed "many types and pitches" for one of these hummers and can swap a blade in a New York Minute:

Well OP did say he wants to keep up with a speedio.

I have 2 band saws and almost never use them, the cold saws are just faster and better on most of what I do.

Small diameters, parts under 4" long? The bars get cut to 3 feet and onto the bar loader. The lathe will part them off and drop them into a bucket all day long.

thermite · Apr 24, 2020

guest said:
Well OP did say he wants to keep up with a speedio.

..and that he HAD BEEN buying pre-prepped. Which usually makes sense, given a full-service distributor can readily invest in a Helluva lot more saw than you'll squeeze into a mere two foor square - or even a high multiple of that space! Stainless supplier nearest to me cuts to order. ISTR the rig they use is nearly 30 feet long?

The Kasto PHS design needs about FOUR foot, plus wotever yah use for feed table, if any. Given if yah don't floor-bolt it or add yer own splayed casters and/or leveling screws on outriggers the overly-narrow bugger will flip over on its side OR arse in a heartbeat and a half.

Many tip-up bandsaws are easily as top-heavy, potentially unstable 'til yah make provisions.

I'd have to guess, but a PO losing sight of that whilst moving is prolly how it came to the grievously unsuited gymnastics that led to my better economic fortune.

NEW price for anything "Kasto", as they still MAKE them new, can make yer teeth itch! We do understand the difference between Germany and China? Or the USA?

See also DoAll, their PHS, still in production, last time I bothered to look, but "if wishes were fishes" it'd be a bandsaw of DoAll calibre I'd be chasing.

garyhlucas · Apr 24, 2020

I think a Kaltenbach KKS450E up cut cold saw would be just the ticket, smallest footprint and big enough for the 3"x6" material. The E means mitering but you can get them without that. I have had two of the saws mentioned above from World Saws, they are SOCO out of Taiwan and very well built, and as mentioned service was excellent with every part available.

winger · Apr 24, 2020

wesg said:
I've used a couple Roll-in saws. HATED THEM! I'd do without if that's all I could get. Although the table was handy for smacking copper bar on to straighten it.

Nothing wrong with going slow in aluminum, just have to moderate the feed.

So what is so bad about the Rollin you used? Last year I worked in a shop that had 2 Marvel verticals. One with coolant and the other dry. I liked them compared to the Wells I use at my normal job. For one thing, a small cut off didn't go flying into the pan.

Dave

wesg · Apr 24, 2020

Roll-in vs Marvel. Coors vs Dark Horse.

Biggest 'beeatch' is the tracks that collect chips and make the carriage rock and roll on it's way to the 'fence/miter gauge' to square the stock. Too damned old to get on my knees and scrape the garbage off those I guess.

Or maybe they fixed that?

trochoidalpath · Apr 25, 2020

thermite said:
Got a dock? Or an apron to a driveway?

"Batch process" a term you are familiar with?

I figure you'd have this stuff dropped by the distributor's truck, break, set-up, cut it up, put-away saw and stock, clean-up - go back to USING it up incrementally on whatever tasking it was ordered for. Waste of time to cut one bar at a time as you go. Waste of money as well as space to carry more inventory than yah might have orders for.

Yah DID say you had been living-off incremental purchases, pre-cut, anyway?

Yes, I understand batch processing.

No dock, but yes, apron to a driveway. I could bring in 12' bars and cut down them in the driveway, but I could also pay the distributor the (comparatively tiny) cut fee and just store 4' bars.

For production it is absolutely a waste of time to cut down 1 bar as you go... but I am not really doing production. I am trying to minimize the design-prototype-test loop. I am absolutely willing to pay the cost of having unused stock on hand in exchange for not having to wait three days for someone to get around to delivering a cut-to-size piece of stock. This isn't really about ordering for a particular task, it's keeping enough on hand that I can cycle prototypes fast.

Does that make sense? I admit, maybe I'm missing something in my thinking.

Saw for a tiny shop?

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