Thread: 14" vs 18"

Hi guys, like you i'm looking at buying a B/S. I've looked at the Jet carba-tec and hafco. and i hope to look at a couple of others before i make a decision.
One comment i would like to make and that's the guide system on a couple i think is pretty good. BUT just about all of them where the rise and fall arm is attached to the machine is down right terrible. It's all very well to be talking about wonderful guide systems in some of the right up's i have read of recent. But fair suck of the sauce bottle......... A chain is strong as its weakest link. And some are just terrible.
If you wind the rise and fall arm down to just above the table say 25mm. On just about all them you will be very surprsied just how easy you can deflect the arm forward, backwards, and sideways. Its no wonder when you see the attachment of the arm inside of the machine. It's basically bolted to flat 2-3 sheet metal.
The trunions on some were very good and the guide system good. But the stiffness of the structure is pretty ordinary on some of these machines. Granted they are not a great deal of money but to stiffen the basic structure i don't think would be a big ask for some of the manufacturers. Anyway sorry for the whine i was just ready to part with some money, but i may have to wait and save for that Hitachi re-saw after all.
Sinjin
PS SailingAmerican if by chance you happen to read my post can you tell me what you think of your Hitachi please

Hi Sinjin,
yes, I agree with you about the large amount of deflection and twistability of most 18" bandsaw guideposts when they are lowered down to within 20 to 50 mm above the table.
The other thing to test is to wind off the blade tension and then attempt to wiggle the upper wheel by gripping it on opposite sides. You will find most 17" and 18" bandsaws have a large amount of movement there.
American Woodworker (in their Nov 2004) review of larger bandsaws had 3 quick tests for a well-built bandsaw - 2 of the tests are what I described above. You can read this review online by google searching for it.
However, bandsaws that pass the above tests are very expensive as they will be commercial machines. The ones I located (in NZ) were larger (typically 20" or 24") and cost around $3000 upwards.
The other question I do have in my mind is whether this matters in actual practice? Lots of people on this forum have the 17" Carbatec (which has the above characteristics) and are happy with it - I haven't heard many/any complaints. It may come down to what your main uses of the bandsaw are, e.g. turners like large bandsaws to cut big blanks and aren't too concerned about extreme straightness of cut so an 18" bandsaw with the above characteristics doesn't worry them.
Cheers
Paul.

Hi, I don,t think a little flex under stress is a problem really. After all the guide post is merely locating the blade in one position and supporting it in the cut. It shouldn't ever be expected to take much pressure in actual use. The best advice I ever got from my bandsaw blade maker was "just let the saw do the work, don't force it." He was absolutely right and when you are feeding stock through a bandsaw the pressure you apply should be about eighty percent moving the stock against the friction of the table and about twenty or less percent pushing the stock onto the blade.
More important is the accuracy of the travel of the guide post. That is, you want the guides to be holding the blade in exactly the same place from the lowest point of travel up to the highest point of travel so that you can continually raise and lower the blade guides to accomodate different thickness stock without having to stop and adjust them.
P.S. Just added the upgrade roller guides to my carba-tec 19'' and after about two weeks of fine tuning it is absolutely sizzling, noticably more accurate and smoother to use.