Advise

[Harry II]

I want to get a bandsaw mainly so I can re-saw wood accurately for small boxes, pannelling, draws etc. Can anyone suggest a setup suitable? I would imagine the machine would work maybe 4hrs a week and be able to cut softwoods and hardwoods equally well.
Would consider good old secondhand model that I can get blades/parts for.

[AlexS]

Depends on how big you want to resaw and how much you want to spend. I bought the cheapest, bottom of the line 14" from Hafco and spent some time tuning it (see one of the Australian Wood Reviews from a couple of years ago). I've had to replace the motor and some of the bearings, but now have a machine that will happily cut 6" veneers 1/2 mm thick from blackwood. However, after using a few other bandsaws, I think that if you have a machine with enough grunt, it can be tuned to do just about anything. Go for grunt over finnesse.

[Harry II]

Thanks for the reply Alex, it sounds like your doing what I want to achieve, if you can cut 6" x .5mm veneer straight with what you got then I'm stoked as I thought it maybe difficult to rip say Blackwood accurately with a band saw. I didn't intend to go that fine with thickness, what type of blade do you use?

[AlexS]

I use a 1/2" 3tpi blade for just about everything. I don't normally cut that thin, I just wanted to see if I could do it. The important thing is to take your time, don't force the timber, have the machine set up properly with the blade running on the crown of the wheels, and use a good fence - I made mine from 2" aluminium angle with an MDF face. I also replaced the metal guides with delrin. You can sharpen blades using a dremel or similar with a small cylindrical grindstone - just a touch in the gullet and underside of each tooth does the job. Also, some timbers leave a resin residue which makes cutting worse than a blunt blade. This can be removed with oven cleaner - get one of the environmentally friendly ones.

I've since had the pleasure of using a BIG bandsaw with heaps of grunt, and this does the job much more easily.

One point with Hafco (and probably most) bandsaws - check the table as soon as you get it. Mine was ok, but another bloke who bought his the same day complained that his was nothing like flat.

[Pete]

Alex,
Do you remember the details of the Wood review? I'd like to obtain a copy. I have a Hafco band saw and it has more rattles than a millionaire’s baby. I’ve checked the wheels and they seem to be running true, no idea where the vibration originates. Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Pete

[Harry II]

Just a quick note to say thanks to Alex for all the info, a bit of info here, a bit of info there, soon I'll know what I'm buying, thinking of purchasing something pales into insignificance when the thoughts of Bali's brutal welcoming to the spineless terrorists game enter my head again, sorry folks just had to say what I was thinking, I only got back from Bali 2 months ago and its close to home ya know, this "short note" is getting too long,

THANKS AGAIN ALEX
seeya

[Little Festo]

Harry,
I think one of the current Australian Wood mags has a comparison of 14" machines. The Carba-Tec Deluxe reviewed very well.

BTW - I work at Royal Darwin Hospital and a lot of the Bali casualties came in here. It wasen't very pretty. The staff worked really hard, quite a few 24 hour shifts. The Army and RAAF were very impressive in what they did as as well. You can see one of my pics in the Who magazine. Panoramic of the Emergency Dept.

Peter

[Harry II]

Thanks L Festo,I've got to catch up with my mag collection, one way or another I haven't got around to the newsagent lately, I'll put it on the list. All I can say is poor poor Bali, the Hindus' don't deserve what happened, not to mention everyone else who got in the way of the faceless evil scumbags.

[JackG]

I purchased a 14" BAS350 from carbatec about a month ago, the engineering of that machine is imho sub standard, the finish is pathetic, I had to replace all the screws with the plastic handle with entirely metal screws after 2 weeks, the base is very weak and to operate properly the saw needs either a stronger base or being bolted to the floor, the fence has a non operational horizontal/vertical adjusting system.

Details like the need of a coin to open the panels or the need to remove the fence attachement to change the blade show the lack of thought at design.

After some tune up and just a couple of hours playing around I found the saw to be surprisingly accurate, the 1.5HP motor did not have problems ripping 150mm softwood after about 25 lm cuts the motor was barely warm. (I did not try thick hardwood), I like the large table, it is quiet and all in all working properly.

As I said I only have the saw for a month or so and I did not use it a lot but so far it performed ok.

Would I buy it again ? Yes, it cost $800 it looks just as bad as similar priced band saws and it does exactly what I expected it to do.

Hope that helps.

Jack

[Roly]

I went and splurged the tax return on one of Carbatecs 18 inch saws and must be completely honest. Had no problems. Love the thing. Does what I want it to do and no problems. Set it up according to the manufacturer's specs and been using it since for cuts that range from little delicates to robust 14 inch logs. Love it. Only complaint. Want the blades to be more accesable.

[Glen Bridger]

Hi,
Pete mentioned earlier about vibration in his Hafco bandsaw. I suggest replacing all the bearings with quality bearings (timkin, skf, torrinton etc). All these machines have cheap bearings fitted. The other thing to check if you can, is to see if the shafts are straight by sitting them in vee blocks on a surface plate and measuring with a DTI.
I found that most bit which have been "turned" are quite good, its just that when it comes to making precisions fits (like the quill shaft-to-body on a drill press) they just can't do it.
If this is the case then you have to have parts repaired or re-made.

Glen