Opinions on saws

Michael, If you are a beginner, do yourself a favor. Resist buying every tool on the shelf, they are nice, and the sales pitch on all of them make sense, but they are not for you at this point in your experience level.

learn to use the glass cutter and grozing pliers, then you will be able to answer that saw question yourself by the speed at which you are cutting pieces versus the saw,(which is slow).

Start simple, get alot of experience cutting and grozing, make a bunch of smaller projects, (or take you time making a larger one), and you will find what you save in tool purchase you can spend in glass. and that is much more enjoyable than another gadget.

You need to take a look around your shop, big boy. You have more tools than anybody I know. LOL

When I grow up, I wanna be just like you.

But it didn't start out that way.....it's an illness and I am trying to save others...

Thank you for the input. I should have qualified my question with my intention of starting out with the standard tools and learning the basics. The effectiveness and value of saws was now simply a question spoken out of curiousity.

Michael

I have a bandsaw attachment for a Krystall 2000S, an Inland machine I think. I don't use it for stained glass but rather for prep prior to slumping and for cutting colour bar to special forms for glass blowing. I don't think some of the pieces I have slumped could be done with normal cutting, ie multiple narrow Vs from the periphery of a piece in towards the centre. It works very well for that although I think the abrasive nature of the process leaves many microscopic scratches on the edges which seem to make some glasses prone to break easily, I presume due to stresses remaining in the glass, once slumped the edges are fused and the gass annealed. It seems to cope with 1" (25mm) Kugler colour bar quite well although slower than I would like, so your multiple thicknesses should not be much of a problem.

When in use I wear eye protection but as the cutting is done wet dust is not an issue.

In 25 years I've used my saws maybe a handful of times..... it's a total waste of money.