| I need to replace my old bandsaw, primarily because I am doing more resaw work and also because SWMBO said it’s time. <grin> I have a lot of other Jet equipment and am leaning toward the JWBS-16. This is due, in part, to what I perceive as a good price/value unit. I’d like a unit with not less than 10″ resaw capability and enough power to handle the job of resawing hardwoods. I’ve reviewed several other manufacturers as well, but find myself drawn back to the Jet. Maybe it’s because the local Jet distributor is a friend. Am I just having a brain cramp? Do I need to be looking elsewhere? Thanks in advance for your help. Regards, |
Bill Arnold – Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Edited 9/24/2004 8:07 am ET by BArnold
Replies
Get yourself the October issue of American Woodworker; big test of just about every bandsaw under $1000. They thought the JWBS-16 somewhat underpowered and the the lower guides difficult to adjust. They liked the Bridgewood BW-17WBS and the Grizzly GO513. I've been bandsaw shopping earlier this month and found it a frustrating process. I looked at the Jet intrigued by it's price and capacity but passed due to what I thought was too flexible construction. The column is plenty stiff enough but to me, the upper wheel housing isn't. Extend the upper guides close to the table and pull; the whole upper wheel housing flexes. Resawing capacity isn't quite as high up the list for me as it sounds like it is for you; I wound up with the MiniMax S-14 and have been well pleased so far.
jc,
Interesting that you mentioned the G0513. I looked at it just now and it meets all the specifications I want -- including the price. The biggest issue I've heard about with Grizzly is that I'll have to unload the unit from the delivery truck. I don't keep a forklift in my garage! <grin>
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
I bought Grizzly BS and it's not that big a deal to unload. It's way lighter than the 1023slx I got. I picked mine up in the back of my truck and, a friend helped me slide it off the back of the truck onto a couple of $5.00 furniture dollies from Harbour Freight. We eased it to the edge of the and tilted it back and used the wooden crate it was in to slide it down to ground level. We then pushed it up my steep drive way. It is packed well , but a little top heavy. I put it on a shopfox base and it has been great. I would reccomend the timber wolfe blades. Plenty of power.
Hey there Bones, I was reading your post and got to your attachment and noticed your floor in the garage. I'm assuming its been treated with the "RustOleum" garage floor epoxy system? If so, would you recommend it, was it relatively easy to apply, any tips? Thanks in advance.
Yes it is the rustoleum product. One of the best things I did for my shop. I went by a friends house who put it down and it looked great. It seals the floor. My garage floor was bare concrete. If something spills a simple wipe up with a rag and its done. No more stained concrete. Secondly, my problem of surface rust on my tools was almost eliminated. I did not realize how much moisture was coming up from my floor. The methodology I used for mine went as follows:
I have a two car garage so I moved everything to one side and cleaned the cleared half of the floor. This is critical. If you leave any oil the epoxy paint will not stick. I used a heavy whisk brush to sweep up loose debris and wetted the floor down. It comes with a crystal citrus cleaner. sprinkle that around and scrubbed the dickens out of the floor. Rinsed thoroughly and let dry completely. It was 90 outside when I did mine so it will not take long. I also used my sears shopvac/blower to help it along. I taped the trim and a midway line down the center of my shop and mixed it up. A two car garage will take two kits ($100). The video that comes with it says to mix the two parts together stirring for a few minutes and its ready to put down. Here is the gotcha. It said I would have about 30 minutes of open time. After I had mixed the two parts together and was waiting the appropriate activation time, I happened to see a very important note in the document that came with the product. Depending on the temperature the open time will be different! I looked and because it was so hot, my open time was reduced to about 15 minutes! The activation time was reduced as well. I had to haul butt to get it down before it set up in the can. I would roll a little 5 foot area and my son would sprinkle the flakes. I did not stop until it was done. Kind of laughed about it when it was over, but it was not funny while I was rolling. Sprinkle pattern is up to you, but I found throwing it up in the air and letting it settle looked the best. We started out by dropping it close and it looks like little piles. It needs to set for a few days before you put anything on it. I moved everything back to the other side and repeated the steps. If I can say one thing, try to catch a day when the temp is reasonable!. The fumes for the product is not bad for Epoxy at all. My wife is very sensitive to VOC's and it did not bother her at all.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=17008.6
Edited 9/25/2004 9:52 am ET by bones
Edited 9/25/2004 9:54 am ET by bones
Edited 9/25/2004 9:56 am ET by bones
bones,
Thanks for your input. Your comments, along with a couple of others has me fairly well convinced to go with the G0513. Feature-for-feature, it seems to be a better deal than the Jet for sure. I have an F150, so it shouldn't be any problem for me to pick it up and get it to my garage.
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
I picked mine up at the dock. The guy fed a rope thought the open rungs on the crate and lifted it with a forklift and set it right down in my 150. Have some good ratchet tie downs. Sitting upright in the back of a truck the box is very tall and top-heavy. I cinched it down tight and took it easy going home. No sharp quick curves. Good luck, you will like it.
Bill,
Just thought I would let you know, all my Grizzly machines, including this bandsaw, was delivered by Fedex Freight, with a lift gate and offloaded in my garage by the driver, using a dolley, with no extra costs or arrangements.
Find out which carrier Grizz will be using in your area, and phone the carrier. I believe Grizzly puts this offloading clause in their order conditions, just to cover themselves.
Willie
It even varies by shipment. My BS arrived by a carrier that did not even offer tailgate delivery even if I was willing to pay extra. My TS was delivered by Overnight and I had to pay an additional $68.00 for special delivery. Best $70.00 I ever spent. Special truck and a pallet jack. Maybe he will get lucky and they will deliver to the door for no extra.
Jellyrug, bones and all the others,
Thank you for your comments about the machines. It really helped me make up my mind about this purchase. I ordered the G0513 bandsaw a few minutes ago. Now, let's hope a couple of my neighbors are home when I get it!!!
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Congrats on the GO513. Keep us posted .......... inquiring minds will want to know. Think there might be a Grizzly somewhere in my future.
Update:
The freight company just called to let me know my bandsaw is ready for pickup. Unfortunately, I have to wait until first thing Friday morning because of a scheduling conflict. Nothing like a new 'toy' to start off the weekend right! Several blades I ordered for the saw were delivered by UPS a few minutes ago.
More tomorrow.....Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Oh, you are going to have fun! Just don't get carried away resawing every piece of stock in sight, LOL!!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Moi? Carried away??? Surely, you jest! Yeah, yeah -- your name's not Shirley...
Well, no more than when I got my Jet cabinet saw earlier this year -- made up a lot of 'scraps' when I got it -- had to be 'tested', you know...<g>
Actually, I've been holding onto some nicely figured black walnut, a couple of pieces of makore and some anigre until I had a bigger bandsaw. Now to see if they bookmatch as good as I'm hoping!
Take care.Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Have some fun. When mine arrived, I had a block of mahogany that I played with. I decided to see how thin and uniform I could cut some veneers. With the timber Wolfe blade, I made a lot of dust, and by the end of the thick block, had made a lot of consistent cuts. Kids loved playing with the scrap that was thin as paper. Enjoy!
Bones,
What TPI is your resaw blade? Along with the saw, I ordered the standard Grizzly 1" 2TPI and 1" 6TPI to use for resawing.
I was planning on building a tall fence for resawing. Do you use a tall fence or a pivot point?
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Bill, I prefer the tall fence, but I have to adjust it for the drift angle of the blade (not much drift, but each blade is different). I make a note on the saw of the angle that each blade needs - e.g. 2 degrees right on the 1/2 inch blade.
I also have a home made pivot point fence - I use it occasionally when I need a quick cut and don't want to bother adjusting for drift. Don't get as accurate a cut with it (typically takes a couple trips through the planer to get two halves the same).
Enjoy the new saw!________________________Charlie Plesums Austin, Texashttp://www.plesums.com/wood
I purchased 4 blades and got one for free. Call the folks at Suffolk Machinery. I talked to them and the technician spent some time with me asking me questions about what I was going to cut and and volume. After we spoke for 10 to 15 minutes he made some recommendations. For resawing I got the 3/4 as-s. It is made for resawing and is excellent. I also got a blade for cutting green wood, so I can rough bowl blanks. They are running a special that if you buy 3 blades out of a range you get a fourth blade free. I got 5 excellent blades for a total of $94.24 delivered. The resaw blade was 27.61 by itself. They have a chart on their site with explanations what each is for, but I would call, they are great at helping you out. Good luck.
http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/special_blade_offer.asp
Bones,
Thanks for the lead for more blades.
Well, I picked up the 513 at the freight dock first thing this morning. Took about an hour and a half to get back home in morning traffic. As luck would have it, none of the neighbors who could have helped were home (wonder if they caught wind of what I was doing?). Anyway, I had the freight guys put it on its back in my F150, so it was fairly easy for me to get to a balance point on the tailgate and tilt it gently onto the ground. It's out of the crate and so far I've got the table mounted and cleaned up.
Interesting assembly instructions in the manual. Here's the text of the first step in 'Beginning Assembly':
The saw blade needs to be removed before the table can be mounted to the bandsaw.
To remove the blade:
1. Unplug the bandsaw!
2. Release tension on the blade by rotating the quick release tension lever clockwise as shown in Figure 9.
3. Remove the table insert and the table pin shown in Figure 10.
4. Adjust upper and lower blade guides away from the blade. Refer to the "Blade Guide" instructions on Page 23 for more details.
5. Open the upper and lower wheel covers and slide the blade off both wheels.
6. Rotate the blade and slide it through the slot on the table.
To mount the table:
1. Make sure the blade has been removed before attampting to mount the table.
Well, anyway -- you get the picture. Oh, speaking of pictures, I attached a scan of page 23 to which the instructions refer.
First Prize to the person finding the most 'interesting' aspects of the assembly procedure.
OK -- back to work...Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Well, I've got the machine all tuned up and going. Assembly and setup went very smoothly -- no complaints at all. There is an issue with one of the blades I ordered with the saw and I've reported it to Tech Support.
One question, though: I've tensioned the blade per the Instruction Manual and it seems to work OK. Is there a better way to accomplish this short of buying a tension guage?Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
I use the flutter method. This was recommended for my Timber Wolf blades. This link to the six rules of sawing contains some pretty good information.
http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/six_rules.asp
Bones,
Thanks for responding.
I checked the link and that's the same method called out in the Grizzly manual. It seems to work fine, so that's what I'll go with.
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Bill,
If you plan to use your bandsaw for resawing the most important criteria to judge are upper guide post flex and horsepower.
A band saw relies on the beam strength of the band (blade) to cut accurately. To maintain a straight beam the upper and lower rear thrust guides have to be perfectly coplanar. If the upper guide post flexes under pressure the blade immediately starts to twist as it cannot bow along it's beam and this causes the blade to essentially try to cut in two different directions resulting in blade wander and, often, "blow-out" as the blade twists and exits the wood usually at the bottom of the board being resawn (the lower guides are further away from the table allowing less directional support for the blade). A wider blade will lessen the problem because of the inherent beam strength of the wider beam section of blade, but if you are going to use a narrower blade, say a popular 1/inch resaw blade, upper guide flex will cause serious problems.
The horsepower consideration is the other part of the puzzle. To do an adequate job of resawing wide hardwood the saw should have at least 2 REAL horsepower and this will still be a slow resaw with a wide board. An efficient (good quality) electric motor will consume a bit over 13 amps @ 120 volts to produce 2 horsepower. (one horsepower is equivalent to 746 amps) Factor in line loss if your outlet is a ways from your breaker box and you can see how hard it is to get serious power out of 120 volts. Look at a 240 volt motor if you are serious about resawing.
Stout and powerful; the only way to go.
RJ
Bill--
I have a Jet 18" that I have had for about 3 years now--I was looking at buying the Laguna 16" when I bought it (beacause the Jet guy was a friend) and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I had laid out for the Laguna instead.
The Jet bogs down, even with an expensive carbide tipped blade on it, and it takes about a good 20 minutes to chande the blades and get them set right.
I have heard good things about Minimax, and also Bridgewood too, but I would stay away from the Jet.
On a side note, I have been quite pleased with the 15" jet planer that I have.
Peter
Bill, take a look at this thread:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=19175.1
The Minimax comments are consistent with what I've seen in several other threads that involved advanced woodworkers discussing bandsaws, and have certainly changed my daydreams, LOL.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
FG,
Thanks for your note. I've also looked at the Mini-Max and wished I'd just hit the Lottery. I'm trying to stay around or under $1000 total, delivered. As you said, we can dream and drool, but then reality sets in, unfortunately.
Regards,Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
I understand completely! I'll strongly second jc's suggestion to get a copy of the October American WWer before it goes off the stands next week. It was a very informative article.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I bought the Grizzly GO513 about a month ago. I've been very pleased with the machine. It is very smooth and quite when opperating. I can barely tell the machine is running when the dust collector is turned on. There is almost zero vibration.
I too was concerned about the weight. I think the weight when on the pallet was about 300 lbs. I had the machine delivered to a nearby distribution center, and they loaded it in the back of my pickup with a fork lift. Then I could drive home and unload it when I had more help. My help consisted of my two 11 year old boys. We could unload it without much difficulty. It was pretty easy to slide the saw 1/2 way out of the truck and then stand it up using the saws own weight to help pivot it up on the edge of the tailgate. Once the saw was standing upright, I could "walk" it along the floor by tipping it slightly onto one corner and twisting.
To me the machine has a lot of value. Some have knocked the machine for the plastic handles. Unless you regularly beat on your machines with 2 x 4's they look like they will last for a 100 years.
Another critisizm I've seen about the saw is the inabillity to adjust the rip fence. I haven't yet found the need to adjust the fence. I've been using a 1" blade for resawing with 2 teeth per inch. Its been cutting parralell to the fence.
Kurtis
BArnold,
I struggled with the same decision for 2 years. I had an old 18" saw that had the capacity but little else. It was a Taiwan knock-off and when resawing, it shook like a dog poop'in razor blades! I messed around with it off and on for years trying to get it to act like a real band saw with very little luck.
Early this spring I finally pulled the trigger. After waffling between "big old iron" (another project) and a new saw, I bought the Mini Max 16 when it was on special. It is powerful, solid, quiet, smooth and just plain sweet.
At just over $2k, it's probably more saw than I really need but it's an industrial grade piece of equipment that I will never have to upgrade or regret buying. If the extra money is not a back breaker for you I can highly recommend this unit!!
Regards,
Mack
"WISH IN ONE HAND, #### IN THE OTHER AND SEE WHICH FILLS UP FIRST"
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