{"id":2551,"date":"2009-01-15T16:25:57","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T21:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/?p=2551"},"modified":"2009-02-05T10:42:23","modified_gmt":"2009-02-05T15:42:23","slug":"get-your-variable-frequency-freak-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/?p=2551","title":{"rendered":"Get Your Variable Frequency Freak On"},"content":{"rendered":"

Versatility is Now Relatively Cheap<\/em><\/p>\n

I am just starting to understand how wonderful a variable frequency drive (VFD) is.<\/p>\n

While I was reading up on band saws, I noticed that Grizzly made a fairly inexpensive saw that cut both wood and metal. Naturally, I had to check into it. It turns out they take plain old wood band saws and add 3-phase motors and VFDs to them. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.<\/p>\n

This is interesting, because while I was shopping around, it occurred to me that I might be underbuying by getting a saw that wouldn’t cut metal. I have plenty of metal-cutting technology, but it seems to me that there are some things a bandsaw could do that other types of tools can’t. Imagine cutting a lap joint into a bar of metal. I have no idea why you would want to do this, but you might. You’d need a bandsaw or a milling machine.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that a metal-cutting bandsaw could function as a crude mill for some operations. That would be a nice capability to have.<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that if I get a big ol’ wood band saw, the worst-case scenario for metal is that I might have to find a used motor and VFD later. That would sure beat forking out for a new saw and selling the old one.<\/p>\n

Isn’t technology interesting? And I wonder if VFDs will drive the price of used metal-cutting saws down, too.<\/p>\n

As for my earlier idea, about buying a bench drill press and adding a column, the wisdom of the approach seems to depend on the model. For a Delta, it’s cheap. For a Powermatic, a new column can cost something like a thousand dollars. Why? Search me. Maybe they’re made of gold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Versatility is Now Relatively Cheap I am just starting to understand how wonderful a variable frequency drive (VFD) is. While I was reading up on band saws, I noticed that Grizzly made a fairly inexpensive saw that cut both wood and metal. Naturally, I had to check into it. It turns out they take plain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toolsofrenewal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}