Thread: Laguna 14-BX feedback wanted.

Found a video on this problem with some of the 14-12 units, enough of a problem for someone to test the 14-12 with Carter blue tyres and compare vibration and blade movement against the Laguna tyres.

Since they're sending me a tyre I decided to pries the existing one up and move it around a bit, see if anything changed. After a few goes it appeared to be not so lumpy on that high spot, fitted the blade and checked by turning manually, the blade does not deflect as much. Much better when running and a lot less vibration, more like a deeper hum vibration and blade is hardly flicking against the side guides at all, so looks like I'm on the right track. I have a feeling I will end up having to replace the lower tyre as well, it looks a little suspect, but nothing like the top.

An update for anyone at all interested: Replacement generic tyre turned up, it didn't fit - too wide - and no, I was not going to try and trim that particular tyre. I must stress that the service has been great from Gregory Machinery, they immediately sent me out a different tyre which can apparently be trimmed if needed ; It was a perfect fit.

New tyre fitted: Absolutely perfect feed transition from the blade leaving the tyre, no dipping / movement of the blade, just 100% perfect. Vibration went from a small metal object vibrating around the table, to a dollar coin "almost" staying on its edge. You can still feel a vibration and see the top cabinet of the BS vibrate slightly. Now that I know how perfect these wheels should be, I took a much closer look at the lower wheel / tyre, and sure enough, what I thought was ok before - compared to the top wheel - is actually not ok. There are a number of very small dips as the blade leaves the tyre. I'll be taking to them soon with the hope of getting a 2nd tyre, it should then be like the video I've seen, with a coin on its edge and not moving.

Well, they feel that if the BS is usable - it is - then a small vibration is normal, they offered to give a discount if I want to purchase a second tyre for the bottom, well, I'm not going to say much more about this for now, at least not until I've tried it with a few blades and some fine cutting. If no one has a 14-BX then I'm still hoping someone with a 14-12 can comment on their experience with that BS with regards to vibration. I'd accept it on an $800 BS, but these are little more expensive than that. Perhaps I'm being a little too critical?

Actually, feedback from owners of other newish Bandsaw brands, with respect to vibration, would be appreciated, at least it may give me some idea of what to expect.

Didn't get very far: After setting the lower guides up correctly, I found that the blade now rubs against one side of the lower exit guides, it hits /rubs for 10% of each revolution of the lower wheel (nowhere near the blade join). When you look at the way the blade transitions back onto the lower tyre, that slight movement I could see on the tyre is being exaggerated back at the lower guides.

Rang Gregory Machinery and pretty much got nowhere, in the end, as I've had a gut full of owning the saw nearly 2 weeks and not being able to use it correctly, I just told them I'd buy the dam tyre, got a whole 10% discount, and was told how they were basically wearing the $10 freight cost, obviously I was meant to feel grateful for such fine display of generosity and product knowledge / backup.

Anyway, I'm certain that it will run like it was designed to run with the new lower tyre, notwithstanding the spiel that they have sold tons of these and never had a problem, yes, so what! I have one with this unit, and it's exactly the same problem that a lot of previous models had with the Laguna tyres, and cropped up again in some of the 14-12 units, as shown on a number of youtube 14-12 vibration videos.

Wow, bad luck and as you say not what you expect from a more expensive machine. Unfortunately it doesn't sound like the distributor is covering themselves in glory either.

Keep us updated please - I've been looking at bandsaws for quite some time but yet to pull the trigger on one.

Thanks, I spent some time searching for more videos / posts on the LT1412, found a few that really highlighted how bad the vibration can be from faulty Laguna tyres. At least Laguna themselves acknowledged the problem to the owners and sent them new tyres, in the end, one or two owners swapped them out for Carter Blues and found the BS even better again.

My second tyre should be here tomorrow, I've still been cutting a bit of timber with the guides set slightly wider, I have to say that as far as finish and build quality goes, it really is a nice BS.

But there are a few items that go from being just plain stupid, like the dust extraction setup and the long fence locking bolt (still not fixed from the 14-12), to annoying problems caused by the way some of the locking screws are designed, they all detract from the quality feel and look of the rest of the machine.

Fortunately all are easily solved, and the result - to me at least - is a really smooth quality feel to the BS.

BTW. I have posted a lot of pictures of the BS and the dust collection setup and DC modifications in the Dust forum. I was also thinking of starting a new thread here about the various items that annoyed me and how I solved them, but it looks like there isn't a lot of interest in the BX.

Also posted in the other thread is a picture of my Automatic Safety Cutout that I implemented for the blade tension Quick release lever: Now there is just no way to accidently start the Band saw without having the Quick release lever set in the fully tensioned position, another thing I, and especially my wife, don't have to think about now.

Actually, you just reminded me of something I meant to do, take a video of the lower tyre and blade movement, I'll go and attempt to do that now.

Bottom tyre side movement, likely due to it being stretched during automated fitment, low point corresponds to the narrowed sections, there are two, and both correspond to what looks like a small square tool indentation, could this be where the tyre is gripped by the robot during installation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdai...ature=youtu.be

The top tyre was a heck of a lot worse and blade defelection was very pronounced, the blade defelection on the lower tyre is harder to see in video below, but it is there. I should have backed off the lower guides as they are masking this movement to some extent, you need to look right where the blade runs on to the tyre.

https://youtu.be/22LUv27yFBQ

The 2nd Carter tyre arrived 1/2 hour ago, I've fitted it and the difference is great, the only thing you can feel through the table is a slight hum, not that different from running the motor and lower wheel only (no blade).

With blade fitted and guides set, I can see no vibration at the top of the band saw, a $1 coin balances on the table and does not move. It stays there from powering up the BS and right through to pressing the stop button and letting it slowly run down to a stop.

I may post a comparison video for anyone who may be even remotely interested.

Here is a video of a piece of timber vibrating on the table, the cause is the lower Laguna tyre. This is about 20% of the vibration caused by the top tyre, which was also faulty and has been replaced with a Carter blue prior to this video. Shame I didn't think to take a video of that.

The clicking in the video is caused by side of the blade touching one of the lower guides, it is due to the movement of the blade as it takes up onto the faulty lower tyre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIrmepiZfDw

I have found only three references to someone actually using a dial gauge to measure vibration, and only one that showed side rim run out. As dial gauges can be had for around $26 here in overpriced AU, I thought that this would not be beyond the reach of most people, and easily available from places like Trade Tools etc. Although a Magnetic base is fabulous (at another $25) it's not a strictly necessity if you won't use the gauge a lot.

So with this in mind, and to at least give some measurable readings that can be used as a comparison when others are looking at things like vibration, here are a list of my measurements:

These unfortunately are with the new Carter tyres. I have no intention of removing them to test with the faulty Laguna tyres.

Note:

Bandsaw is mounted on its Rubber feet, different mounting can affect vibration measurements, the bandsaw is on a 9m x 6m concrete floor.

For what it's worth, when the gauge is setup to measure vertical vibration on the table, just bouncing my heals on the concrete floor can deflect the gauge needle around 0.02mm.

________________________________________

Top wheel Runout:

Axial:

Wheel Rim: 0.15mm = 0.006"

Radial:

Rubber Tyre:
Carter Blue: 0.08mm = 0.003"

On Blade:
1/2": 0.10mm = 0.004"
_______________________________________

Lower wheel Runout:

Axial:

Wheel Rim: 0.25mm = 0.009"

Radial:

Rubber Tyre:
Carter Blue:

0.13mm = 0.005"

On Blade:
1/2" blade: 0.20mm = 0.008" - In three places.
_______________________________________

Motor drive pulley Runout:

Axial:
0.25mm = 0.009" on Unfinished face.

Radial:
0.02mm = 0.0008" in Pulley Groves.
_______________________________________

Vibration:

Motor and drive pulley:

Table Vertical:
0.003mm = 0.0001"

Motor driving complete lower wheel:

Table Vertical:
0.01mm to 0.02mm = 0.0004" to 0.0008"

Table Side:
0.005mm = 0.0002"
_______________________________________

TABLE Vibration with Blade: ** Which means also driving the upper wheel now.

3mm - 1/8" Blade:

Vertical: 0.02mm to 0.03mm = 0.0008" to 0.0012"
Side: 0.02mm to 0.03mm = 0.0008" to 0.0012"
Front: 0.005mm to 0.01mm = 0.0002" to 0.004"

13mm - 1/2" Blade:

Vertical: 0.05mm = 0.002"
Side: 0.07mm = 0.003"
Front: 0.03mm = 0.0012"

For anyone interested in the Laguna LT14BX, I thought I would post a few thoughts and a few of the changes I have made to improve the annoyances (for me at least) with the design and QC of this BS.

NOTE: This review is only focusing on the things that I find wanting / annoying, so it may seem negative, but please don't read it this way. I feel this is a great Bandsaw and because of it, the annoyances tend to be more glaring. Most of the silly things are easily remedied, these are mentioned not to put someone off purchasing this saw, but more about simply refining or fixing the problems if you have them, along with a couple of things to look out for when first setting up the bandsaw.

Now it seems that despite all the hype about listening to owners of the Laguna 1412 and incorporating general feedback into the new BX model, they have not fixed one of the most often complained about and needlessly annoying things with this BS. I'm talking about that overly "long" rip fence lock screw / knob, this thing hits and therefore stops the lower door from being opened, that is until you move the fence back to the LH edge of the table. I cannot for the life of me think of a sane reason why that thread is so long, and because of its length, it looks butt ugly, like an aftermarket knob assembly. The Blade guide shaft lock also has a thread that is way too long. Listening to owners and attention to detail, pull the other one!

Other annoyances for me: The various locking and adjustment knobs and their associated end clamping surface finishes, and most of these impact on setting up the ceramic guides.

Going back through reviews and owner comments about the Laguna 1412, another of the often complained about problems was the fiddly adjustment of the guides, with the same annoyance mentioned over and over, when you try to adjust the guides and lock down the setting, the guides move slightly as the lock screw is tightened.

I found the same thing, the adjustments just feel "low end" and lacking quality or precision, however, when looking at the rugged design and nicely made aluminum guide assemblies, they really should not be this way!

Apart from the guide locking annoyances, one thing that really stood out most of all as a "total fail" was the "Blade Guide Shaft" locking action.

The guide shaft moves the upper guides up or down and also shields the blade, when I attempted to lock this in position, the complete shaft system tried to twist or kick sideways, or did both, and an inordinate amount of force was needed to turn the lock knob and clamp the shaft correctly. The cause of this is exactly the same for the guides themselves being hard to lock while holding their setting.

Like all the clamping end surfaces on these adjustment / locking screws, it's finished with a raised outer rim, now although this is typical of "some" shaft locking screws designs, it appears to be either poorly implemented or it's just how the screws are finished after the cut. This "roughly uneven finish" raised outer rim causes the turning clamp bolt to act like a rotating wheel, it either rotates the round movable shaft that it's attempting to clamp, or skews the fitting (guide block housing) that you are trying to lock down onto a fixed plate.

My basic tests showed that this not only gouges out some of the clamping surfaces, especially the Blade guide shaft that leaves marks you can see at different height positions, but it also creates an uneven clamping force and requires more effort to actually clamp it down.

If you encounter this problem and want to see how easy it should really be, just remove the brass tipped fence lock knob and use it to lock the Blade Guide Shaft - a totally different feel, far less pressure and it really locks down solidly, with less operator force and effort, and furthermore, the shaft no longer tries to kick or twist to one side, and there is less tearing into the blade guide shaft.

I found a piece of brass rod and made a tip for the original Guide shaft knob, I used that knob for the fence lock. With the larger Fence knob with bras tip now used for the Guide Shaft lock, my wife - all 5' 5" and 45kg of her - can now correctly lock the guide shaft.

The guides:

The lower guide assembly is mounted on a metal plate, it has two slots in the plate that are used to lock it to the BS frame. These slots allow the guide block assembly to move back and forward, and also allows it to twist in order to center the guide assembly. It is retained with two bolts with a thick long plastic shaft around most of the thread, that plastic shaft is again finished with a raised outer edge. Now this shaft spans the metal slots and therefore it jams in the slots as it bites down, this stops you from applying the correct pressure without a lot of force, and it causes the plate to slightly twist and move as it's tightened down. Over time, the plastic settles into the slots, it then takes even more force to undo these lock screws. These settings are all below the table, there is not much room, most owners and reviewers tilt the table 45 deg in order to access the back lock knob, you should not normally have to do this if they weren't jamming and so hard to tighten. The fix was simple, I sanded the raised rims so that they were at least smooth, and put a small washer under them, now I have full even clamp pressure, the plate does not move and it's easier to clamp, it also locks down harder and with less effort.

The locking knobs for the upper and lower side guides have the same thick plastic shaft, but as its mating to a flatter surface and not a long slot, I found that if you clean up that raised rim - slightly sand the outer rim so that it's smooth and has a slightly rounded edge - it locks down well and with no movement of the side guides as they are locked down.

The back guide rods run through aluminum machined blocks that are a really good fit, but they tended to hang up slightly in mine, sanding the spot inside the blocks where the shaft retaining screw is drilled through the housing eliminated that problem, although it felt smooth, it must have been raised ever so slightly, and as before, sand and round the raised metal rim on the lock screw, these little things make fine adjustment of the guides a breeze, I can now adjust these ceramic guides very quickly and accurately.

BTW, The wheel brush in the lower housing was not adjusted up to the wheel correctly, the nuts were only finger tight, something you should look at as it's not mentioned in the setup manual.

The blade tension Quick release lever. When that is lowered it appears to work fine and tension is indeed released, however in my case, the wheel SOMETIMES does not go all the way to the bottom, the mechanism hangs up slightly once tension is released. This caught me out the first time I tried to fit a blade, I had to pull down on the wheel quite forcefully to get the mechanism to drop the last 1" or so. Once again, something my wife would have trouble doing, that's if she realized that this was the problem in the first place, it should not be this way.

Most problems appear to be with final assembly, like the major problem with the elongated Laguna tyres and the seemingly insignificant things like the end finish of the locking bolt threads and shafts.

The overall finish of the saw is really nice and at the asking price it should be. There are some beefed up areas in this Bandsaw that you obviously pay for, but I expected more attention to detail for the premium asking price and Laguna's published purported attention to detail and quality.

Dust ports:

Laguna and almost every magazine reviewer and video, and every user video, all go on about the improved dust collections in the 1412 and 14BX and how really good it is - seriously ?????????

All tests or reviews I have seen, carry on about the extra lower cabinet port on the BX that Laguna has added, in both the 14BX and 1412, they marvel at the attestation to detail, especially the rubber strip on the door edge to "seal the lower cabinet for enhance dust pickup" - really! - And what of the unsealed 3.5" x 3/4" opening for the foot brake? Did it EVER occur to anyone that the rubber / foam strip along the door edge has been added to stop the metal to metal contact and banging of the door being closed against the cabinet? And to stop it rattling!

It's the reason there is the exact same strip of rubber / foam on the top cabinet boor, to stop the door from banging and rattling when closed.

Surely it doesn't take a PHD to think about what happens when a dust ports is connected to a "virtually sealed" chamber? There is very little flow out of the chamber, see for how long and how much air you can suck out of coke bottle with your lips sealed around the opening!

The top pickup in the bottom cabinet has some good design in it. It slopes down to create a straight air flow path up towards the bottom of the lower guides and either side of the zero clearance plate and wheel brush. Only one big problem, there is only a tiny slot for the total air intake, it's about 3.5" x 0.5", and the tiny slot opens into bottom and side of the lower guides and blade! Then there is a 3.5" x 3/4" opening for the foot brake - this is more that the 3.5" x 1/2" slot for pulling in air below the bottom of the lower blade guides and blade.

Think sucking out of a coke bottle with a pin hole in it.

Most of the fine dangerous dust pulled down by the gullet and natural air flow of the blade will exit below the table insert and above the lower guides, there is almost zero flow over the lower guides from the port in the lower cabinet. This is likely why they have no other air intake path into the lower cabinet. If they did, there would be almost nothing being picked up at all through this tiny opening. They rely on the hope that some of the visible dust gets pulled into the port via blade air flow through that tiny slot that is partly below and slightly up one side of the lower guides.

At least you would save power on your DC as the impeller would be handling little air, unless you opened up another blast gate and now you would have no pickup at the BS. About the only pickup that could suck through that restriction would be a vacuum cleaner.

Now this appears to be common with most bandsaw designs, so please don't read these comments / rants as a mark against the Laguna BS.

You really need some form of below table dust pickup with almost any Bandsaw.

With the pickup hood I designed for lower guide dust pickup, I have no buildup of dust around the guides or into the lower cabinet, the only dust that gets into the lower cabinet is from the bits of timber that stick into the gullet of the blade, particularly with some timber, this tend to flip out as the blade bends around the wheel, the bits left on the tyre are knocked off by the wheel brush and pulled out through the existing top port. I am temporarily using the lower extraction port as the cabinet air intake port. This allows air flow up through the cabinet and over the wheel, blade, brush, and zero clearance insert and out through the top port. The below table pickup takes care of everything coming through the table insert, the blade, the lower guides and the lower table area in general.

I've been using the saw with a 1/2" 4 TPI blade for some general cutting and testing, so far there has been zero blade drift on long cuts, virtually no dust anywhere , and I'm very impressed with the saw, wish I could say the same for the supplier. I emailed the video link to Gregory Mach of the lower tyre for a comment - nothing. For the fun of it, I emailed Laguna the link to the video and a question, got a "please contact this supplier who is bla bla", they didn't even read the email as the first line had that same supplier name that I was already in contact with.

Did I mention that despite the negative things I seem to be pointing out, I do like this bandsaw, and compared to others I looked at, this was a much stronger and better build in all the obvious areas, it just needed some simple quality control items to be attended to. That is apart from the hassle with the tyres, but I have read some real horror stories with all BS brands, my problem are relatively minor in comparison

I know I should have taken some pictures of the things mentioned, but I'm just running out of time lately. I plan on doing a recap in a few month, so maybe I'll include pictures with the things I've changed and final thoughts on the saw.

Thanks for sharing the story, I'm planing to purchase this band saw soon.

So did you get the replacement tyre from the supplier for free or you had to pay for it?

Got the top tyre as a free replacement and I had to pay for the lower tyre. They have not responded to the video or email I sent of the lower tyre, I plan on ringing them and asking if they "really" think that tyre in the video is acceptable.

Finally got to talk to Gregory Mach, there appeared to be some communication problems between the first conversation and my reporting the second tyre fault. However this has been resolved and Gregory's will take care of the second tyre.

Update.

I had an interesting chat with a another forum member about this thread, now it seems that some people are having second thoughts about purchasing a Laguna 14BX!

Seriously? That would be a BIG mistake.

For those that haven't read this thread correctly and missed the following:

From Post #11:

NOTE: This review is only focusing on the things that I find wanting / annoying, so it may seem negative, but please don't read it this way. I feel this is a great Bandsaw and because of it, the annoyances tend to be more glaring. Most of the silly things are easily remedied, these are mentioned not to put someone off purchasing this saw, but more about simply refining or fixing the problems if you have them, along with a couple of things to look out for when first setting up the bandsaw.

Did I mention that despite the negative things I seem to be pointing out, I do like this bandsaw, and compared to others I looked at, this was a much stronger and better build in all the obvious areas, it just needed some simple quality control items to be attended to. That is apart from the hassle with the tyres, but I have read some real horror stories with all BS brands, my problem are relatively minor in comparison.

As I stated before in this thread "this is a great bandsaw" and the information supplied for modifying the ends of the lock screws was for anyone who feels that the adjustments are a little touchy, the solution is simple and costs nothing, some of you may not even notice it and this is likely why I haven't seen this simple "smoothing of the end fittings" suggested before - that's why I posted it.

When reading online reports from other Laguna owners, one thing that many point out is this: Unlike other makes, the Laguna bandsaws allow almost everything to be easily adjusted.

Some others makes do not have the same ease of fine tuning the BS.

And again, the quality of the finish and construction of this band saw is as good as you'll likely get.

After the miscommunications between Gregory and myself, that strange tyer problem that I had has been fully resolved, and from what I can tell, apparently I really am the only one who has had this problem with a BX, so it would be stupid to change out the Laguna tyres for Carter blues if you don't have a problem, and again, it would appear the this may have been a one off as I can find no other reported cases of this with the BX.

As pointed out in this thread, there are some real owner horror stories about problems with other makes of band saw. After using the 14BX for the past week I would recommend this model to anyone. I cut some veneers with a blade that's not really suited for this and they were better that I expected, dead straight and consistent thickness, a quick hand sand and they were ready to go, I can see why most people who use these 5 point contact ceramic guides absolutely love them.