Thread: Hafco Bp355

Just a brief review of this Bandsaw...


Like a few others I have been looking around for a bandsaw for a while. My budget was limited, but I did not want to end up with a tool that I would outgrow (again!) in 6 months. I had a good look at the offerings from the usual culprits and decided on the HAFCO BP355.

This is a little log of my experirence with this saw over a period of one week. I must say this is my first saw and hence I have no baseline to compare this to.

First things first. The saw arrived in two well packaged boxes and is relatively heavy (?116Kg). The large box essentially contains the almost assembled baw and the smaller box the components for the bottom cabinet.

The bottom cabinet was easy to put together and then you are faced with the dilemma of how to get the heavy saw frame fixed onto the cabinet (this is achieved using 4 bolts). If you have a few people to lift the saw onto the cabinet, it should be fine. I was putting it together alone, so I ended up laying the bandsaw on a crate on the floor and bolted the cabinet on. I then pushed the saw upright (relativey painless). I then proceeded assembling a mobile base and pushed the saw onto the base.

The saw come pre-fitted with the blade. The next step is to remove the wax paper from the table and and the grease (I did this with turps). Once cleaned I wiped down the table with metho and coated the whole table with ubeaut wax. The table is cast iron and although not the best finish (not polished like the TSC) it was flat. There are two mitre slots. Once the table was squared to the blade, I checked the tension on the blade and then adjusted top and bottom guides. I think the manual suggests spacing these 0.5mm from either side of the blades which I felt was a little loose, so I finetuned by spacing with a sheet of A4 folded in half.

I then checked the tracking of the blade which needed minimal adjustment to get it spot on. Adjustments for tracking the blade and blade tension are very easy to get to and user friendly. There is a tension indicator with a window so you can adjust it without opening the cabinet. Most adjustments are achieved using wheels. The guides are metal bearings and seem to work ok with minimal noise. I am sure these could be improved upon but they seem to run ok. There is rack and pinion adjustment for the top guides using a wheel.

The saw somes with a few accessories including a reasonable fence and a mitre gauge. The fence has a back rail that is already fixed to the table from the factory, you only need to fix the front rail. The clamping adjustment works well and the finish on the fence is ok but not in Kreg territory. The front rail needs to be adjusted to the blade so the scale will be accurate. This is achived by moving rail side to side and adjusting the position of the magnifier/indicator.

The mitre gauge works ok but the fit was a little loose for my liking so I fine-tuned this by marking the bar sides with a metal punch to get a tighter fit.

The paint finish of the saw is of good quality and the knobs and adjustments work painlessly. The saw comes with a 2HP induction motor which is quiet and smooth.

On initially firing up the saw I was pleasantly surprised by how quiet it was and the lack of vibration. I did several test cuts in hardwood and softwood and these were square and straight. I am sure the blade could be improved upon but it does a reasonable job of powering through most things I threw at it.

Just for fun I cut some veneer from 4 inch cypress pine and the latter were of consistent thickness. The saw sliced through them easily, there was no problem resawing the 2 inch hardwood either. When connected to a dust exctractor, most of the dust is efficiently removed. Cutting capacity is 235mm.

One small criticism is that with the mobile base I am using, the base cabinet (storage cabinet) cannot be opened fully as the wheels of the base get in the way. This really just reflects the way I have setup the mobile base. When I get a chance I will swap the wheels around.

Overall I am happy with the quality of this saw, and essentially the saw ran true straight out of the box with minimal adjustment. I have no baseline to compare it too but at this stage I would recommend this saw to anyone starting out with a bandsaw. It is solidly built and has enough grunt for most jobs.

I paid $719 for this saw which I think is excellent value for money.


regards

Marios