Using a Band Saw

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Tim Gipson and I'm going to talk to you about how to use a band saw. Now the band saw is a great tool to have around when you've got material you want to cut particularly where you want to cut curves such as this. Now band saws can also be used if you have a large material and you want to cut that material down to size. This particular band saw has a cut that will cut all the way up to six inch material. We can also buy extenders and larger bands that I can actually twelve inch material on this. But for this demonstration we'll look at how to use a band saw where we can cut a curve such as this. And the first thing we want to do when we set this up is you have your foot and you want to set the foot on the band saw so that it is just above the material. So what I'll do is I'll actually bring it down touching the material and then I'll lift it up where there is just some clearance. And the reason for that is say you have your guide blocks here, that steady the band and keep that band from vibrating and moving back and forth. So you can get a really good accurate cut. Another good tip is to have a light mounted on your band saw such as this, this is just a clamp on light. This allows you to see. And then also whenever we're using our band saw we want to make sure that we have our safety glasses in place. So once we're ready to go, turn the band saw on, and start our cut. Okay, so you can see with a band saw we can get a really good accurate cut, make corner cuts very easily and when you're cutting you'll see that I left just the profile of the line there and it's usually a good idea that 'cause when we're cutting with the band saw, you know it's hard to get a real smooth cut, so if we cut just outside the line we can come back and use this - sand that down to the profile either using a boss sander or using a sanding block to finish that off. So I'm Tim Gipson and that's how to use a band saw."