Height of 4x6 bandsaw

Best advice I could give you is make the height the easiest for YOU to work with. Take a bar or pipe in both hands with your arms extended straight down. Now measure from the bar to the floor. Call this your working height and build your stands for your saw so the bed is at working height. Also knock together a couple work supports at the same height for long stock.

By tailoring the stand to your arm extension you can save your back when loading on a bar of 2 X 2 steel stock thats 5,10 or 20 feet long.

Regards

Jim Vrzal Holiday,FL

Aar> I just bought an HF 4x6 bandsaw and was going to make a stand

Well, that is how I came up with 30" (I actually, wanted to make it 34" which matches my palm hight when standing -- but figured I'd err on the side of too low). But I figured that there must be a reason why every other bandsaw is at 24" or lower. Maybe it is just cheaper making a shorter stand...

You just about summed it up. CG stability & drops.

I'd say it's a matter of choice. If you're going to be using it in the vertical position then by all means put the table at a comfortable level. HOWEVER, If you're going to be using it horizontally consider that:

1: You're not going to stand there with your back arched and your hand on the tool or material all the time. You're going to start the cut and walk off to do something else. You don't want a fast feed rate to jerk all the teeth out of the blade.

2: Since you are going to walk off you may not always get back before the item is cut. Do you really want a three foot section of 3" cold roll to come crashing to the floor from 30" up? ... Not too good for the floor or the material.

3: SOMEONE is going to have to LIFT the items to be cut. You don't want to lift heavy pieces of stock a bit further than necessary.

4: The higher your conveyor / table that holds the remainder of the piece of stock (? 17' to ? 19') after the above referenced 3' cut (not sure standard lengths of stock!) the more bracing it will require and / or the more flimsy it will be.

Visit a couple of machine or welding shops and see what they use. Ask THEM, "Why didn't you put the table way up here instead of down so low?" (Of course that is what you are doing here.)

Seriously, I don't know the REAL reasons, but I expect the ones listed will come into play with some shops.

Al

Aar> I just bought an HF 4x6 bandsaw and was going to make a stand

Mine has no stand, it sits on top of a 2' x 4' steel shop cart with the base of the casting at 36" above floor. The vise bottom is about 3" above that leaving the top of the cart as a feed table and a handy stock rack for shorts. Even in vertical mode the work support is not too high.

For a time the saw was on a furniture dolly, handy for heavy long stock and I will probably do that again next month to cut down some 21' sticks of

3-1/2" sched 40 steel pipe.

The shop cart is a heavy old thing from Boeing Surplus, gross weight with the saw, shorts and other stuff is 500+ lbs, no stability problem.

Bob

Can't speak for anyone else, but when I'm using my H/V in the vertical, I close the vice and sit on the end of the machine. As far as raising it, when you're trying to load a six foot piece of 3" round into it, those extra ten inches might not be what you want. If you have the stand that came with it, running cross braces between the legs makes a world of difference. Makes the shakies go away.

Mine is about 20" to the bed my friends is about 36" or more. Its all more or less what suits you better. I often used to put mine in the vertical position and set on the bed while cutting. The vertical position leaves a lot to be desired but it is mainly due to size limitations.

I kept mine lower so I would not have to lift heavier steel pieces higher, and it also allows me top push it under the bridgeports table end when not in use as I have an extremely small shop. Visit my website:

expressed are those of my wifes, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

When I gave my previous post on this I didn't take into consideration your height. If you're very tall you may need it higher, but if you have others helping you in the shop who are not so tall you might also consider a compromise height.

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Aar> Mawdeeb wrote:

If you'll build yourself an angle iron dolly with swivel wheels and fasten the legs of the saw into it, you can roll the saw sideways towards heavy materials easier than you can the other way round. This also allows lining material up with the vise easier. Use adjustable stock stands to trim out alignment vertically, and to allow you to roll the saw under heavy stock. When the saw is not in use, it can be shoved to the side out of the way. I put a metal 5 gallon bucket under mine on the dolly to catch chips and such as it cuts. Cutoffs can be kept underneath also. This self-containment on the dolly makes a world of difference in the use of the saw.

RJ

The vertical table is quite a bit higher than the vise used for horizontal cutoffs. The saw is a little low, but works well as is. I seldom use the vertical mode and never attach the table.

Ron Thompson Was On the Beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast, Now On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

--Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

Hmmm ... your knuckles don't drag the earth like other metalworking enthusiasts?

Not yet. But maybe that is something I can aspire to.

Are there exercise a neophyte metal worker should do? Like hold the 6' x 3" rod (as mentioned in a previous post in this thread) from each hand? I guess that would be around 144lb per hand... but the real challenge would be gripping something 3" in diameter. Yeah, when I do that, I'll be part of the knuckle draggers.

Actually, the real challenge I'm finding is keeping the sawdust out of my metalworking equipment and the oil off of my woodworking equipment ;-) Seems doing both in a small shop is not optimal.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's comments in this thread. I cut the metal this weekend and am going to weld up the cart next weekend. I went with 32" as the height. And I have four nice swivel casters with locks. Just need to get some of the $9 rollers from HF for the infeed and outfeed.

Regards, Aaron

I used my bandsaw at the stock height for a week before giving up and making it quite a bit higher. If I remember correctly, I ended up at about 35". I've had it for about a year now and have never had any stability problems. It is a little high in vertical mode but I actually like it at that height.

Some pictures here:

See the webpage to send me email - this account forwarded to dev/null.

--C.S.