Thread: Laguna 18bx

Hi mate,

Again, can't help you with direct experience. But I do have the Laguna LT18 3000 series and am happy with it, so if the BX is an improvement it should be a fine saw. I've resawn 12" jarrah with no problem and with the resaw king blade the finish is very smooth, requiring only a few passes with the smoothing plane to finish. Does everything I need it to do very well.

My only doubt was whether I would have been happier with a MiniMax MM16 S400P, which is available in Australia and is an Italian made machine. For the amount I spent on the Laguna, together with the drift-master fence, mobility kit and veneer king fence/extrusion (approx $4100) I could nearly have purchased the MM16. Something to think about.

Thanks Dom.....the BX is Korean made I believe.....doesn't mean it's inferior I guess but I'll google the MiniMax and check it out.

cheers

Had a look at the MiniMax but out of my price range.
purchased the Laguna 18BX.....once up and running I'll post a review in the Review section of this forum.

cheers

Hi,

I have put the Laguna 18BX as the bandsaw

to purchase

for our men shed. Considering you have had it for over 12 mths now I would be interested in your feedback both positive and negative.

Brian

Hi Brian.......sorry for late reply.....don’t come here as often these days.
im happy now with the 18bx.....initially I wasn’t. When I first purchased it (my first big guns BS) I was told by the seller that I could use a 1.25” resaw blade no problems......and purchased a Laguna 1 1/4” carbide resaw blade......mistake! I had issues with fitting it to the wheel....I had to run it too far forward on the tyre otherwise it would hit the bolts on the upper casing. The saw cut would drift badly. The table was not flat but dipped at the back left. Overall at that time I thought this is crap for an expensive branded BS.

then I pulled the table off and carefully re- jigged it (on advice from Gregory where I bought it from) and it’s now pretty flat.....still a little dip at left back corner but it’s fine. And most importantly ditched the expensive 1.25” Laguna resaw blade and got a 3 TPI 1” resaw blade from Highland woodworking (which I used in the past on my old Basato 16” and was very impressed) and this blade was a game changer with this saw. Re-set up everything and......Now I’m getting perfect resawing with no drift down to 1mm slices.....wow!!!

this saw will power through anything and unlike the Basato it has heaps of power and I don’t have to push the material so slowly through the saw that I needed to take a cut lunch with me.

furthermore the dual dust ports work a treat (I have two 4” ports connected to a 6” duct to my big cyclone). When I open up the wheel casings there is hardly any dust to vacuum out.

And finally the quick stop foot pedal is fantastic.....I just step on it and immediately the saw is turned off and the blade stops......really great safety feature.

so now I’m really happy and enjoy using this powerful BS.

cheers

mike

Glad to hear your BS is going well now. I too would not be impressed if it’s not right out of the box. Hope they have sorted the table out by now. Interested in the issue with the blade I was also looking at the resaw blade, might rethink that.

Hi,

Decision was made and our Men's shed is now the owner of the LT18 BX bandsaw. having only just received it last week and still setting it up. This looks like one beast of a machine, and makes our current Jet 14 look like a Hobit. Accessories we included were the mobility kit and the drift master fence system.

At this stage I'm not impressed with the installation of the drift master fence system. Gregory Machinery site says it "designed for the 14 and 18 bandsaws", however it seems for it to fit we have to drill holes in the table top and there is very little space to achieve this. There are universal brackets you can use and from what we can gather, using these will impede the opening of the lower door.

If this is the case this is a very poor design. A call to Gregory Machinery by one of the members was not helpful.

So, I'm after anyone that has purchased and installed the drift master fence system on a Laguna 18BX bandsaw. Any help will be much appreciated.

Brian

Hi, Just thought I'd let people know that I took delivery of a new Laguna 18BX this week and discovered something annoying.

To get CE compliance they have fitted a deadman brake onto the motor. This is IMO superfluous since you already have a foot brake that stops the blade from turning and cuts power to the motor.

The worst thing about this is that it makes it almost impossible to turn the flywheels when the machine is turned off. So adjusting the tracking on a newly installed blade is a pain in the aorta! ☹️

Thinking of removing the electric brake on mine but worried about warranty implications.

Please let me know if you have a solution to the tracking adjustment issue?

Thanks!
Mark.