Small bandsaw recommendations

[Nick Decker]

Some things to extract from an engineering side that are getting a little obscured. 1) steel is much stronger than iron - which means that a pound of steel can be the the same tensile strength as 1-5+ pounds of iron depending on chemistry and heat treat. 2) both iron and steel are expensive and the newer companies spend quite a bit of time rearranging the material to reduce material cost while still giving strength to meet their tension goals (likely less than old iron machines where engineers were not trying to save every pound to be globally competitive or avoid shipping cost).
3) There are many ways to reduce vibration and having a heavy machine (steel or iron) is one one of the easiest as it is hard to perturb a heavy mass. Something an old machine will give you that the current woodworking market doesn't demand from new machines.

Thank you, Ryan. This makes sense to me.

[Darcy Warner]

I know I can tension a blade tighter on a newer steel framed saw. Old saws were designed to run thinner blades, .025 and could tension a blade like that.

I know I can't get the proper tension on a .035 blade on any of the big saws I have owned, y30, y36, Oliver #16, Oliver 116, wadkin, Fay and egan, etc.

I do know that I much prefer running and using a big old cast iron saw compared to a welded up frame newer one.

Yes. Someone mentioned rubber "wheels" about 7 times.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kick over the proverbial worm can. I am not in search of very high tension anyway, so I'm sure either steel or cast iron would suit me fine. I think the rubber wheel poster was referring to rubber tires, but I prefer urethane for my bandsaws anyway. I don't know if that's a kind of rubber too, but if so it's much stiffer than the stock tires I have replaced after they cracked.
Zach