Replies

1. 
   flairwoodworks | Apr 08, 2008 06:25am | #1

   Generally speaking, you'll want atleast 1 HP for resawing.  I have a General 14" bandsaw with a riser block for a resaw capacity of 12".  It has a 1 HP motor and I have had no problems power-wise resawing 8" thick boards of dogwood (a little harder than eastern maple).  Does it have power to spare?  Probably not, but it does the job.  I do have to go fairly slow though.

   I have played with the idea of getting the right pulley on the bandsaw so that I can use the motor from my contractor saw on the bandsaw.  The bandsaw motor is 1725 RPM whereas the table saw's is 3450 RPM.

   I am not one who would recommend Craftsman.

   Chris @ flairwoodworks

    - Success is not the key to happines.  Happiness is the key to success.  If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer

2. 
   forestgirl | Apr 08, 2008 06:48am | #2

   The logic of buying such a bandsaw on eBay escapes me.  Buying a Craftsman  is a cr*pshoot as it is, but at least if you buy it at Sears, you can return  it if it's not satisfactory.  Unless you are able to go look at and test the eBay saw, IMHO it's a bad gamble.  Cruising the want ads and Craig's List would be much safer (again, IMHO).  I  can totally identify with having a budget, but that also means you can't afford to lose the $200 on a bad buy.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) 
   
1. 
   Scag_man | Apr 08, 2008 07:39am | #3

   Seems like Craftsman isn't well regarded around Knots, and I'm not a big fan myself.  As far as Ebay goes, I search only in my local area and would need to see it in person before bidding, so in that regard it's about the same as the classifieds or Craigslist.

   How do you like your new tablesaw by the way?

1. 
   forestgirl | Apr 08, 2008 08:14am | #4

   "How do you like your new tablesaw by the way?"  Well, it looks good, LOL!!  I've had zero time to do anything with it, including getting that mobile base ordered.  I did get the old Jet saw sold.  Headed for Montana on Wednesday, hoping when I get back life will settle down a bit. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) 

2. 
   jagwah | Apr 08, 2008 08:13pm | #5

   While craftsman may be deserving of it's current disfavor in my youth it was a very good thing to get. All tools come  and go in value and quality.

   That said I was given a couple years ago an old Craftsman band saw. They said it was a POS and I could have it. A bit of fine tuning, new guides and cool blocks later it works very well. I use it for mostly quick simple tasks but I have resawn 4 & 5" oak, slowly.

   It has frustated me a bit. While it works fine it has thwarted my efforts to convince the wife of the need for a large new beast.

   Looks like I'll have to work harder to find that big job needing 2' corbels to convince her although the recent rockers are helping.

   E-Bay is more the issue, not getting to look at the saw first hand. I would not have bought this saw in that way or paid more that $50 but in retrospect it was worth  a couple hundred bucks. Besides checking out a tool it helps to scrutinize the sellers talents.

   A frusting or so-called poor quality tool for one is not always the tools fault. The quality or lack of quality in a tool can often times lay in the hand of the user.