Best Band Saws for Your Project

Before purchasing the best band saw for your projects, you need to figure out which type best suits your needs.

Floorstanding saws are best when you have a shop or the space for storing it. These saws have legs or a stand and provide plenty of flexibility for maneuvering longer pieces of wood around the saw.

Benchtop saws are great for small garages or workshops with limited space. They sit on the top of an existing work surface, such as a bench or assembly table when in use, and conveniently store away when not in use.

Portable saws are perfect for jobs on the go. They run on batteries or plug directly into a power supply. Most weigh less than 12 pounds and can typically cut pipes and beams up to five inches wide.

Components:

• The blade guide system is a key component of a band saw. The upper and lower guides minimize sideways movement of the blade and also prevent the blade from deflecting backward when you feed wood for a cut.
• The most common way to measure a band saw is to mark the distance from the sawblade to the column. That means a 10-inch band saw measures 10 inches from blade to column.
• Resawing refers to the process of slicing a board through its width. Take a 2 x 4-inch piece of lumber, for example, which really measures about 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. Resawing involves standing the board on its 1 1/2-inch edge and sawing through the 3 1/2-inch dimension.
• At the end of a resaw cut, you can open the board like a book. Placing the two freshly sawn surfaces side by side gives a nearly perfectly matched mirror image of the grain pattern on both sides of the seam. Veneers or solid lumber panels with this symmetry are called bookmatched.
• Once you see how bookmatching works, you'll probably want to try it on wider boards. Some saws let you increase a saw's resaw capacity by adding an accessory riser block. The cast-iron block bolts into the middle of the saw's column. Depending on your saw, you may be able to add 4 to 6 inches of capacity.

Although they can both produce curved cuts, a band saw and a scroll saw are distinctly different. While a band saw's endless blade produces a continuous cutting motion, a scroll saw oscillates up and down, so it's cutting only half of the time.
Using the right one is important for your band saw projects.

A band saw is ideal for heavy-duty tasks that scroll saws can't handle, while scroll saws are more suited to detailed work. Scroll saws have a more limited range of thickness of material that they can handle, while band saws have more overhead clearance.
One way to think of them: band saws for wood projects, like cutting lumber, and scroll saws for detailing those wood projects.

A scroll saw can produce glassy-smooth cuts right from the blade, but a band saw leaves a relatively rough surface. When you need a curve that will stand up to close scrutiny, the usual procedure is to band saw just to the waste side of the line, then sand to the line.

With a fine blade, a scroll saw can virtually turn on a point. By comparison, a band saw takes very wide turns. Remember that your blade's width limits how quickly it can turn. Scroll saws excel at internal cutouts, making them ideal for ornate work.

Depending on your band saw projects, the right accessories, such as dust collection systems, safety features, stands and tilt tables help make your work with band saws easy and clean.

Dust collection: Some band saw models incorporate a plastic turbine blade to its lower wheel to create a suction that pulls dust into a bag. Other saws build in a port that you can connect with a hose to a shop vac or a dust-collection system.

Stands: Stands are an absolute must for big saws, and helpful even for small models. When shopping for a stand, also consider the advantages of adding a mobile base beneath it.

Tilt table: A tilted table helps you make angled cuts easily.

Floorstanding and benchtop models may also benefit from sliding bevel and tension gauges, as they’ll sit securely in a groove and allow for accurate cuts while keeping hands clear from the blade. Removable keys for power switches keep children from activating a saw by accident.