Bench Top Machines

[John Gutmann]

I have a delta 8" bandsaw at home I think. I haven't been home in 4+ weeks but When I have the "metal blade" on it which has a higher pitch (more teeth) it had ALOT of trouble cutting aluminum becuase of how slow it turns. To cut through one piece of 1/4" x 3" aluminum it took me like 20 minutes. But I took that blade off and put the "wood" balde on and it works fine now. There is no unusual wear on the teeth or anything like that. I have cut 1/2" aluminum what that blade and it works fine.

-John

[whytheheckme]

Most of this has been said already but:

We have both a band saw and drill press, but both are full sized. We thought about going bench top, but realized that our build room may not be permanent, and that we may not get to keep the tables that we are currently using. Both of these devices are powered on a regular commercial room circuit; No special power is needed. We have no problem cutting 1/4" aluminum.

Now for the interesting bit. We went to Lowes when they were changing their display items. We got the band saw and drill press that were on display for a great % off (don't want to post number because I don't want to hold Lowes to this.) This made the full sized machines cheaper than the bench top machines. We love our drill press and band saw!

I can get specific model #s when I go back to the shop on Monday.

Just some info.
Jacob

[John Gutmann]

I have a drill press I got from harbor freight too that I fogot to mention, I am pretty sure it is 8" and it was 40$ and works fine.

@ Jacob
You can say the price all you want, because you are not advertising for them and you are not a legal represenative of Lowe's. Just a little FYI.

-John

[sanddrag]

I have an older HF $40 drill press (green and all metal) and it is fine except the chuck is a real piece o' junk and I broke the power switch after a long while. But I've had this thing 6+ years probably. I've run some big bits and hole saws in that sucker though, and plenty of power. Works fine. I looked at the newer HF $40 drill press and it looks fine too. Only real problem with both of them is I noticed the quill has slop in the head casting. I mean, it'll drill fine. But, its not for real real precise drilling.

[Bob Steele]

We found a great portable bandsaw that was a big hit at the Pacific NorthWest and the Las Vegas regionals...and at CMP too...

Here is the reference: http://www.mytoolstore.com/stout/stondex.html

We have the saw and cutting station and it is extremely nice and works well cutting nearly anything. We made keys in seconds for several teams at LV and because of the angle of the blade it can cut a fairly wide swath.

It really is an amazing piece of equipment and the batteries last quite a long time. We cut everything from aluminum plate to steel rods for axles with it..
Its not real cheap but it is easily transportable and provides a nice platform to cut things on.

Take a look ... a word of warning though... if you get one and take it to a regional EVERYONE will want to use it...
We liked that feature....

I have purchased Grizzly bench top equipment for my robotics lab.
A mini-lathe... http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2007/Main/519
a bench top drill press. http://www.grizzly.com/products/G7943..
and a bench top bandsaw... http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2007/Main/80


All of these pieces are very nice and take a lot of abuse...They have their limitations but do quite well in the classroom and for smaller parts for the robot...

I hope this helps a little bit

[rachal]

Of course, you can also find band saw blades on McMaster

[ChuckDickerson]

For anyone that is interested in the Lowes Delta benchtop power tools you might want to check out your local Lowes ASAP. I was in Lowes tonight and they seem to be dumping their stock of Delta stationary tools (drill presses, bandsaws, belt sanders, etc.) and replacing them with another tool brand. Lowes seems to do this every year or two. I bought a Delta 4" Belt/6" disk sander for $79 that was regular $99. The Lowes guy said to check back tomorrow (Saturday the 19th) and they were going to drag all of their Delta tools out into the parking lot and put them on sale even cheaper to clear the shelves for the new brand. I don't know what they are going to have but it might be worth a stop by your local Lowes to see if they have anything you might want. The store I was in tonight had 9" bandsaws, 10" drill presses, and the 4" belt/6" disk sanders all for $79 each. The 9" bandsaw and 10" drill press looked pretty ideal for a small pit setup. They had other stuff too like table saws, planners, etc. but I wasn't really looking at them at the time. Just a heads up. YMMV.

[sanddrag]

My local Lowes seems to be doing away with the Delta stuff as well.

[Qbranch]

If you need a small (foot square type stuff) leightweight, light duty cnc vertical mill or lathe, DeskCNC/IMService has some nice ones (check them out here, price list bout 1/2 down the page)

The average price is about $2500 bucks, but their lathes run from $775 to about $1500, and the mills run from $880 to about $4500.

I have a large CNC gantry machine (15' x 5' x 1' travel) i've been working on completing that i'll be installing a desk CNC controller in this summer, so, more on that story later...

-q

[Protronie]

Originally Posted by Qbranch

I have a large CNC gantry machine (15' x 5' x 1' travel) i've been working on completing that i'll be installing a desk CNC controller in this summer, so, more on that story later...

-q

15 feet by 5 feet by 1 foot ! that ain't large... that's HUGE!
What you making that needs that much travel for?
Be cool seeing some pics of it!
I'm sure others would be interested in seeing that beast too.

Keep us posted

-Protronie