Advice Really Needed

As I wrote in my last blog, I have become interested in doing some hobby woodworking.  Whenever the lockdown ends and things get back to “normal” I hope to take a course at one of the community centres or a night school course at one of the high schools–in Ontario, it is common to run community programs out of the high schools.  It helps ease the financial burden on the school boards.  The benefit of this is both instruction and access to equipment.

However, no one knows what the post lockdown era is going to look like.  Will these courses run?  Will insurance for these courses or physical distancing rules make them prohibitively expensive?  We really don’t know.  It is most likely that they won’t run for this year.

I took stock of my equipment and I have enough pieces to do some hobby work.  The only tough one is the band saw.  I got a band saw from a friend when he decided the band saw wasn’t safe enough to have around his children.  He had bought it used at a garage sale.

I took a look at it and it is going to need some cleaning, oiling, and I am going to have to replace the blade.  My only question is, should I?  It would be infinitely easier to just buy a whole new saw.  It would also be more expensive.  I just don’t know enough about saws and their maintenance to make an informed decision.

I could also buy a table saw, which seems less intimidating and would probably make straight cuts.  Yet, if I go down that route, I could end up with a lot of expensive dust collectors, or worse massive credit card bills.

Readers, I would love your advice.