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Curious you consider your bandsaw more dangerous. There's a lot less momentum, only one vector for injury and you generally have a lot more control over your st

Curious you consider your bandsaw more dangerous. There's a lot less momentum, only one vector for injury and you generally have a lot more control over your stock. My table saw can fire a 2×4 across a room. So I don't agree with your assessment but your kit is obviously different to mine. I don't disagree with your wider point about respect, but even seasoned pros make genuine mistakes. A lapse in concentration or material behaving abnormally. That's all it takes and you've lost a finger. It would be great to see similar things implemented in other tools but for the moment, what's wrong with making sure new models are safer by default? I mentioned airbags in another comment and I think it's a good comparison. Why would you NOT want this? And yes, why isn't somebody doing the exact same thing in bandsaws and routers? The same premise would work with little adaptation.

luckydude 9y ago
I sometimes freehand stuff through my minimax bandsaw. Sometimes that's the only way to get the curve I want. I'm not very good at it, the master of that stuff is Sam Maloof, he's light years ahead of me. The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there. The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab. All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes. The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.

luckydude 9y ago

I sometimes freehand stuff through my minimax bandsaw. Sometimes that's the only way to get the curve I want. I'm not very good at it, the master of that stuff is Sam Maloof, he's light years ahead of me. The thing that made freehanding remotely possible was getting a carbide tipped blade. The normal blades have set to each tooth, the carbide tipped blade has no set, the tips are slightly wider than the blade. What that does is make the blade way less "grabby". I tried freehanding with the old blades and it grabbed stuff out of my hands like crazy, just (short) matter of time before something would go wrong there. The carbide tip blade has almost zero unpredictable grab. All this probably makes me sound better than I am. I'm an ok woodworker. Some examples (from ~20 years ago) are here: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/wood/ - the bench is a pretty decent chunk of work. Other than the section over by the vice the top is flat and square to about 1/1000th of an inch. Hand flattened with planes. The "sounds better" point that I'm trying to make is about the whole freehand thing. I'm not Sam Maloof good, not remotely close. I just need to freehand once in a while and the minimax plus the carbide tipped blade made that possible.