A Homemade Porta-Band Stand

for what ever reason, i had never seen a porta-band saw on a homemade or purchased stand. so it would be like an upright band saw, you just don't have the larger throat & adjustable roller guides.
until I seen the one Papee posted on one of his threads when he was showing how he cuts & fits conduit.
and I remember how much fun i had trying to cut somewhat accurate angles on conduit and small material , while holding it steady with one hand on the table or in a vise, and the other hand trying to keep the angle and cut at the same time. (some times it seemed almost like a circus. someone just need to be standing by, watching, with a bag of popcorn. and they would have got their moneys worth. more often than not.)

so i looked at all the different designs that are sold and what others have made.
the funnest part for this one was, drilling & tapping the hardened portaband shoe or foot. three of the holes were okay, but the forth one was just a little harder, it may have hardened just a little when i smoked 2 drill bits, and broke 4 taps on that one.
i ended up making that blade cut about 1/2" too long.
when i get the cross bracing fitted up, then i will drill and bolt the top plate to the side walls.
i may have went a little longer on the plate size 16" wide, and 12" deep. but that was what was laying around.
now with it mounted, i can draw some lines that are parallel with the blade. then mill a couple of grooves so i can use a miter fence, if needed. (just a thought)

on many of the homemade stands, i seen where some a lot of bracing on the handles and back of the saw, and other just had 1 or 2 bolts that held the shoe to the plate.
the slide on this one, had just a little play, but after attaching it to the table top. it feels pretty solid.

it is just another small improvement, that i think this will save me some time when i start cutting an fitting things up.
a real band saw would be nice, but this should keep me happy for a good while.

That's a serious table for the saw...At least you'll know it won't be moving when you run a part through it !! ;thumb;

put in a couple of braces to keep the sides somewhat stable. now i am thinking of putting a plate on the bottom, and having a chip tray, to catch the metal from the saw cuts. that would be just too simple, to have a tray catching the waste. and not having small metal fillings all over the place. kind of surprised that i haven't seen this incorporated on any of the designs that i have looked at. At least if I was to purchase one. it would be sweet if a chip tray was include to catch the fillings.
as for the larger table. i looked at so many, different homemade styles, some had a 12" x 12" table, many of them didn't have anything hardly bigger than the shoe on the portaband. I have my first job for it. and it will be cutting out the corner of the plate for my redrive, were the starter motor will fit. so at the moment I am thinking that i shouldn't have any problem making a square cut, at least, I may hold it inside the line an 1/8" to a 1/4" and finish it with the mill. It all depends on how smooth the finish surface is, after i cut it.

Nice work. I'm still using my wooden test table. I haven't had time to change it. I got a metal blade for my big bandsaw but now the plastic like liner over the big idler pulley came loose and I can't use it at all. I guess the blade got hot and can't use it. I've yet to figure out a,way to fix it. It didn't break it stretched.

there is one thing on this that i need to modify, i need to make a deflector for the air coming off the internal cooling fan on the motor, at the moment it is directing a lot of the metal shavings at my face.:-o just something to think about, any metal shavings in the eyes just wouldn't be good. The fan seems to direct the air flow towards the table, and the light aluminum shavings like to go where ever the wind takes them.