Thread: 14" Bandsaw Comparisons

Yeah, good service and advice from Henry Bros. I got a bimetal blade from them which is lasting well.

Any case, you'll need several diff blades for various purposes.

GJ has been impressed with his Basato. As for my Woodfast, see my blog (insert sound of raspberry blowing here).

Bear in mind that the brand doesn't mean much; just says who assembled the unit using parts from various suppliers. The Jet premium is for their QC; the parts come from the same kinds of factories as other assemblers.

One thing to look for is whether the fence is adjustable. When you change the blade the tracking will likely change. On mine you have to reposition the table; only two fasteners true but it's a fiddle.

I finally got myself to Carbatec in melbourne today and I was very underwhelmed by the BAS-350. Maybe it was the age of the display model, but it had a very unstable very "crappy" feel to it, even with cast iron wheels.

The CTJ-3501 was much more impressive - even with Cast alloy. I liked the tensioning mechanism and the fence was great. Loved the quick release too. Overall the machine felt much more solid and the flared out basemakes it feel quite stable, it did not rock like the BAS-350.

I later went to hare and forbes. I saw the BP-16A, the BP-355 was missing in action as they had sold out and the display model was in the shop getting repaired. The thing I found most disappointing about both the BP-16A and the BP-355 was the blade changes require you to remove the fence, bugger if that is not a terrible design.

At least the CTJ-3501 does not require that!

But the BP-16A is very sturdy and with 2HP of power its definately still in the running for me. I am heading out to H&F late next week to see the BP-355 once they get it back out into the shop.

It was a fun afternoon, although google maps did have me going all over the place from my work in burnley ) I ended up getting lost, oh well.

Cheers
Jason

I found it interesting comparing Carbatec's BAS-350 with Timbecon's at the Perth Show. The Timbecon model was rock steady and the Carbatec was wobbly. The difference was in the bases, The Timbecon model had a wide and very sturdy base of different design which kept the unit rock solid.

I actually bought Timbecon BAS-350 before taking a second look at the TBB-14 ( H&F BP-355), which I eventually settled on. I still like the BAS-350 though, with a good base I thought it was remarkable value.

Is lifting the fence off the table really a problem when changing blades?

Hi I'm a new member and have started to set up my workshop, pellcorp did you find a BS, I just ordered the Basato 4, price now quoted at $1089 at hare & forbes Sydney, hope I have made the right choice

Originally Posted by bj343

Hi I'm a new member and have started to set up my workshop, pellcorp did you find a BS, I just ordered the Basato 4, price now quoted at $1089 at hare & forbes Sydney, hope I have made the right choice

I purchased a jet delux 14" including fence for $990. The Basato is what the Triton bandsaw is based on I believe and it gets good reviews.

Otherwise I was not considering the Basato at all, but I believe others on the forum have the saw.

I finally got my Delux JET 14" bandsaw setup and all I can say is WOW!!! Of the 3 tools I have so far setup the Jet has been by far the most impressive. The instruction manuals (for the bandsaw and the fence) are written in very clear english with lots of photos. The parts are all nicely packaged up and they all just work. I made very little modifications to the settings as part of setting up my bandsaw to get it functioning correctly.

JET has got my vote for a very nice bandsaw. Even if it has less resaw capacity than others the quality of the end product blew me away.

Me thinking JET will feature prominently in any future purchasing decisions. I have one other JET product due to arrive in my shed any week now - the 6" delux jointer, lets hope it has the same quality as the bandsaw.