After making a list of my steel cutting tasks I began to consider steel cutting tool preparation and immediately narrowed my consideration to two saws. Both of which I already owned. The first, a 14-inch carbide tipped blade Dewalt metal cutting chop saw that cost me approximately 500.oo and included one blade. Extra 14-inch carbide tipped metal cutting blades cost 100-125.oo. The second a 4 x 6 inch cutting capacity Chinese made, economy grade, horizontal metal cutting band saw like the ones sold at Northern and Grizzley tool companies. These saws go for about 400.oo new and delivered. I bought mine used for 200.oo new at a yard sale. Don’t waste your money buying cheap band saw blades. Don’t settle for anything less than BI-METAL band saw blades. They cost about 26-35.oo per blade but cut 10-15 times as long as the cheap blades. Before I make my choice between the saws I want to add that there are some other ways to cut structural steel. Plasma cutters, gas cutting torches, abrasive disk chop saws, reciprocating saws, and the hand powered hacksaw can all be used to cut structural steel.  Given a choice between these five, I would choose the plasma cutter. Given that most vehicle chassis/frame building tubing and flats rarely exceed 1/4 of an inch and even more rarely 3/8 of an inch, the plasma cutter is a serious runner up behind the carbide tipped metal cutting chop saw and horizontal metal cutting band saw. So, what are the major consideration factors for choosing between the chop and band saw? The first is cutting speed. The carbide tipped metal cutting chop saw will cut 20-40 times faster than the horizontal metal cutting band saw. The second is cost per cut. The horizontal metal cutting band saw costs twice as much per cut as the metal cutting chop saw. The third is accuracy. The horizontal metal cutting band saw is more accurate than the metal cutting chop saw, but the chop saw is accurate enough given the associated and relevant parameters of chassis/frame construction. Summary: The 14-inch carbide tipped blade chop saw easily wins for most chassis/frame cutting tasks. Some would say yes except for thin wall metal tube cutting. Most problems, such as tool chatter and severe edge burring, are due to incorrectly choosing a blade with too few teeth per inch for the thickness being cut. NOTE: What about a hand powered hacksaw? This saw fails miserably when we assess using the hand powered hacksaw as an economy of labor issue within a time to completion and division of labor analysis. If we plug in the relevant production and task energy dwell time factors of metal cutting chop, band, and hack saws, the comparison will produce some interesting revelations about the costs of cutting with a hacksaw. Fifty cents of metal cutting on the metal cutting chop saw costs approximately one dollar on the metal cutting band saw and 13-14 dollars with a hand powered hacksaw, that is assuming you earn an average wage per hour of ten dollars. Why? It has to do with the economy of energy conversion and value stream factors. Mainly because of the effects of wage per hour earnings and use of the individual wage per hour earnings, to buy cheaper energy, than he can efficiently produce within himself. Simply put, if you plan to cut much steel, save money from your wage per hour earnings, and buy a power metal cutting saw.   Vertigo