Anyone heard of a Linclon Wood and Metal Band Saw ?

[Doug Colombo]

A friend of mine has a lead to purchase a 14" Lincoln Wood and Metal band saw. Has anyone heard of these saws ? I have attached a picture (not very clear) of the saw. Looks a bit like an older Delta saw.
He is interested in it but just not sure how good of a saw it would be for woodworking.
Any input would be appreciated.
lincoln band saw.jpg

[david brum]

I can't be sure, but that looks suspiciously like my old Harbor Freight 14" bandsaw. There were apparently lots of these generic 14" saws imported during the '80s from Taiwan. The obscure local brand around here was Foremost, but I think it varies with different regions. Very similar models were also available from Jet and Grizzly (again, early models).

Those saws are fine, really. The motors are kind of small and the blade guides aren't great, but that can be worked around. The curious thing is what makes this a "metal/wood" saw. A wood saw does best around 3000 fpm blade speed, whereas a real metal saw is closer to 100 fpm and would presumably have some kind of cutting fluid pump. If it's like my old HF saw, it has a "4 speed" pulley system like a drill press. The motor arbor has a stepped pulley and there is another intermediate stepped pulley, then the pulley that drives the wheel. My saw was only labelled "Wood Cutting" however. The available blade speeds were 600, 1140, 1670 and 2670 fpm.

BTW, these saws can run very smoothly if you remove the intermediate pulley and replace the belt with a red link belt. My saw passed the nickel test. Having said that, I don't think I'd lay out serious cash for one of these, $100 tops. You can get a brand new Grizzly with lots of improvements and a good fence for around $400.

[Larry Edgerton]

I assume that you meant to type Lincoln?

Lincoln , the same company as the welders did make band saws, or at least sell them under their name. My inlaws prototype shop had several very large Lincoln industrial metal cutting band saws. Lincoln may have rebadged a Delta, I don't know. I do know the Lincolns they had looked and aweful lot like the Do-All's sitting next to them.

I do have a old Delta Wood -Metal 14" bandsaw out of that same shop with a stepdown gearbox. It has the same pully setup as mentioned. It was not made in Tiawan. Looking at the pictures it looks like it may well be a 60's Delta round post. The only difference between a Delta wood/metal saw and a Delta wood saw was the wood saw will not slow down enough to cut metal well.

[Myk Rian]

Looks more like a Delta hex post to me. Lincoln might have been the distributor.
Those Metal/wood saws don't need a cooling fluid pump, and the 14' Deltas never came with one.
Try to get a picture of the pulley side for a better ID.

[Doug Colombo]

Thanks for the input - I will pass it on to my friend. And yes - it was a typo on Lincoln - sorry about that - a bit late last night when I posted : )