Thread: Carbatec 14" bandsaw and its 6" riser kit.

Jake

Just to put it in context, my 1.5HP is OK most of the time, powerwise, but I do a fair bit of resawing and thats when it lets me down. I ordered a Henry Bros 1.5 TPI blade and the saw simply will not drive this thru our harder woods, 90mm cut. Not enough grunt. I ended up donating the blade to Wongo who says his Jet drives it fine (comments Scotty)

I could live with the power thing, but what makes this BS a POS is its very poor accuracy. Castings are off, won't cut to a fence straight, etc etc ad nauseum. Nothings parallel or square.

Having said this, I still use it more than any other tool and have learned to cope with its inadequacies. I long for the new shop and a new, big mutha BS.

If I said 'yea buy one' its cheap and cheerful and better than nothing (which were my original thoughts) I doubt you'd speak to me in a few months.

Start saving or get a 2nd hand one.

Originally Posted by apricotripper

Underpowered tools bother me a lot. So I'm thankful I've been informed of that.
Baxter, you shore the jet isn't underpowered too ?....
Bodgy made a point about his 1.5hp being underpowered......

Jake my comment was based purely upon my personal opinion that, for less than an extra $100, the Jet 14" Deluxe is a better proposition than the comparables, based upon finish, out of the box quality, tuning and all of that. In addition it has a bigger hp than the one you are comparing with.

The hp you will require is based upon the type of cutting that you see yourself doing in the future. This can also be governed by blade width, TPI and tooth style.

If you can get hold of a cheap second hand bs and replace the motor within parameters, then this might be your best option. Don't forget though that the bigger the motor you might end up with overkill if you don't also have a corresponding depth of cut or throat width. This means that you could limit the scope of bandsaws that you could buy second hand. Then be careful that you don't have to upgrade to a 3 phase power supply, because that could cost more than the bs.

acrotripper,
I have owned the Carba-Tec deluxe, two speed, 1 HP bandsaw for about two years now and have not been happy with it.
I bought, on the recommendation of the Carba-Tec salesman specifically to be able to resaw but for this purpose it is useless! I tuned it and purchased excellent quality baldes but it is just too underpowered to be able to resaw anything near 150mm in width.
There is also a problem of tension in the drive belt from the motor to the lower wheel and there is no way of altering the tension of that belt as the motor is in a fixed position on the cabinet. I am curently looking at either replacing the motor with a 2 HP one and remodeling the cabinet to allow me to tension belts or buying a new saw.
I would recommend that you look elsewhere.

Jake

I took these pictures today.

Here is the 14" Carba-tec BS1400 plus 1.5 hp replacement motor and 6" riser kit resawing a roughly 10" high piece of Tassie Oak.



A picture of the bandsaw on its stand.



And a close up of the result - 3/4" 3 tpi blade (not my ideal here but my 3/8" has 6 tpi and is inappropriate for resawing). Not too bad, although my hand could have been steadier. It cleaned up quite quickly with a handplane.



I am not trying to sell a 14" bandsaw to you - given what I know today and with a big enough budget, I would buy a 18" machine with 3hp. However this was way out of my budget then, and remains out of my budget for a few years yet. So I will make do with my upgraded 14", which also serves to re-affirm that it is good enough to do the necessary. There will always be others that do it better, but the cost is significant to reach their height.

Regards from Perth

Derek

....don't think I want one now.

I do appreciate the photos Derek. Thankyou.

In the mean time I'll try and borrow the bosses beast....for re-sawing at least.

so with all the above info IF one was to buy a carbatec 14" what model would you get. My catalogue they are oin page 35. I have a new 1.5hp motor in the shed, is the dust extractor any good I have a big stack of used jarrah uprights all 120mm x120 mm and up to 3m length will they cut these the............old Triton wont
cheers Tonz