Band Saw

[sunburst]

...if you think that an 8" long-bed jointer is too much machine for you, then the 18" bandsaw is probably too much as well.

Old American cast iron tools -- worse than MAS or GAS.

I suppose my 12" Crescent jointer would indicate that my 30 Yate American bandsaw might be found in the same shop, then.

[jazzjune18]

Assuming I bought new, what other companies do you feel good about for a 14 inch? My wife has given me the green light

[Phil-D]

Jet, or Powermatic.

[Bluetickhound]

Highland hardware in Atlanta has the 14" Rikon for $799. I love my 10 inch bandsaw... check their website.

[Jeff Hildreth]

"Assuming I bought new, what other companies do you feel good about for a 14 inch? My wife has given me the green light"

Jet or Powermatic.

Powermatic is a bit better with better guides and table.

Also consider the riser block.

[Steve Sorensen]

Laguna.

[Marty Jacobson]

The Grizzly 555 is a very good value in 14" bandsaws. It's a Jet clone, but comes with ball bearing guides above and below the table. Come check mine out if you don't believe me. :-)

[j. condino]

....get the biggest, heaviest, best, strongest, most powerful bandsaw you can afford and have room for, and sometimes old ones fit the bill well.

!!!

[Bluetickhound]

!!!

Now THAT, sir, is a bandsaw!!

[emurray]

While I see this thread has gone to recommendations for buying new I'll still put in a word for the old Delta 14" saws. There are lots of them out there and they made them for decades on end without a lot of changes. It's a popular machine, naturally, for people who enjoy restoring old machines. Parts are constantly available on Ebay if you need something quickly but a parts machine can be cheaper.
Bearings are standard, loads of information online about all aspects of repair and restoration. Nice and heavy, fits easily in a small shop. Get one with the art deco cast iron stand and you've got something even cooler to enjoy. With the riser kit you get some resaw capability with the right blade and motor. Mostly found with the open type stands and priced pretty low. Watch for broken trunnions from grabbing the table to move it, frozen bearings and resulting damaged shafts. The model with the gears for metal cutting are out there too. They will run direct, generally for the higher woodworking speed or with the gears for a range of slower speeds. This is kind of a neat capability to have but metal and wood cutting aren't compatible uses with bits of metal getting into the tires and contaminating woodwork. Buy one if it's cheap enough and just use it for wood.
For vintage machines you kind of have to enjoy working on the machines as well as doing your woodworking but this isn't unusual. The Walker Turner 14 and 16 saws are nice heavy machines but bearings are odd sizes, but not impossible to get. Their 12" saws also found badged Craftsman are pretty neat for small stuff but in general I wouldn't recommend them. The Atlas 912 is a nice 12" saw. Old Powermatic is good, I'm led to believe, no personal experience.
I don't know anything about the modern stuff except a Delta three wheeled number I encountered in someone's shop. It was all jammed up somehow and seemed so crappy that I didn't even want to handle it. The old guy, mainly a wood carver, had some other small, older machines and I spent the time there getting a little old Craftsman band saw tracking properly for him.
There are lot's of cool old bigger industrial machines if you have the space or inclination to deal with moving them and all. The Delta and Walker Turner stuff that crossed the line between home shop and professional shop is found all the time in general estate auctions and on Craig's List and the like.

[belbein]

Other screws rattled loose. .

I knew it!

[Pete Jenner]

You don't know the half of it.

[j. condino]

'Gotta agree with emurry; a used Delta 14" is the number one suggestion I have for folks looking for a bandsaw. They made tens of thousands of them, they are readily available for a reasonable price all over the country, and are in high demand for a reason. An older model with the cast iron base is even more desirable. There is NO imported saw currently made that I can reccommend. You'll spend four times the money in the long run buying cheap imported " bandsaw shaped objects" and eventually wind up with a 14" Delta and a larger piece of old iron for big work. Checkout the forum over at old woodworking machines (www.owwm.com) if you want some real old 'arn lust.

My small saw is a 16" Walker Turner and it is pound for pound the best saw in its class. The bearings are still readily available and not an issue. Just get a good one. Ever get tired of hearing John Hamlett talk about his big old American Bandsaw or me showing photos of my Yates snowflake? Well, that is because for the price of a rusted out non running old volkswagon, we got the equivalent of a Lloyd Loar signed bandsaw! A cheap import is like trying to learn on a cheap import mandolin- frustrations and headaches.

Frustrations on a cheap mandolin turn into sore fingers. Frustrations on a cheap bandsaw turn into missing fingers!

j.
www.condino.com

[w burton]

Just to throw my 2 cents in, I have both an 18 inch and a 10 inch bandsaw. Both are Rikon. I keep the 18 inch one set up for resawing most of the time, and have found the little 10 inch Rikon to be a fantastic machine. I have outfitted it with the Carter stabilizer system, and I find it cuts better than the 14 inch Delta that I used to have. You can find the 10 inch Rikon new for about 200 bucks on sale pretty often, and the Carter stabilizer allows you to run 1/8 inch blades that will track perfectly.

(Woodcraft has the 10 inch Rikon on sale on their website for $199.99 right now.)

[J.Sloan]

I built my first F5 with a Ryobi 9" bandsaw....but it was a very aggrevating experience. I had the saw set up well, with several new blades on standby, but there just isn't enough power or table room to do the job. I had to build a clamp on table out of wood to even be able to do some of the cuts that had to be done. Blade drift, no power, no room.....I'm still not sure how I pulled it off but I did. Oh yea, I screwed up several pieces of good wood.
Save yourself a lot of hassle and get a better saw. However, I do still use the little 9" for headstock scroll cuts, custom cutting binding, and smaller stuff that it can handle. I keep a 1/8th blade on it and it does come in handy occasionally.
I now have a Grizzly 20" with a 13" resaw...3.5 hp motor...220 phase saw. Got it cheap on craigslist and love it. When cutting maple necks on this saw, I always remember that catchy commercial quote...."I can't believe it's not butter"..!!

[jazzjune18]

Thanks for the tips so far guys. I am most likely going to get a Grizzly G0555 this week. Anyone have experience with the G0555LX? It comes with cast iron wheels opposed to aluminum. 25 dollars cheaper, but it looks like it has upgrades..Am i missing somethng?

[thistle3585]

For what its worth, I tracked down an expired 20% off coupon from Home Depot and took it to Lowe's and bought my 14" Delta there because they honor competitor coupons.

[Jim Adwell]

This thread has inspired me to replace my Ryobi bandsaw with a 14 inch Craftsman. I'm picking it up later today.

Anyone know a good place to buy bandsaw blades online?

[tree]

Ever get tired of hearing John Hamlett talk about his big old American Bandsaw or me showing photos of my Yates snowflake?

Seriously? Never!

[J.Sloan]

This thread has inspired me to replace my Ryobi bandsaw with a 14 inch Craftsman. I'm picking it up later today.

Anyone know a good place to buy bandsaw blades online?

Jim....Try Woodcraft Supply in Jacksonville being that you're not too far from there. If no luck, I think there's a Grizzly shipping warehouse in Florida.....you'll have to Google that. I ordered my last one thru Grizzly and it arrived here in Tallahassee in just a couple of days.

[Dale Ludewig]

blades online- try here. I've had good experiences with them.

http://www.bandsawbladesdirect.com/

[jazzjune18]

Just ordered the grizzly g0555lanv. It is the LX,just a different color scheme. It is essentially the same as the 055 but with cast iron wheels. It is my understanding that cast iron is an improvement.

[amowry]

I think you'll be happy with it. I've had a 555 for more than a decade, and I think it's a great saw for the price. I have the riser block, and I can resaw 12" hard maple easily.

[jazzjune18]

I am sure I will be

[barney 59]

What I find on small bench top tools are that they pretty junky,badly designed and really not worth the trouble. I bought a small Sears miter saw and it is really junk. I had to remove pretty much all the safety gear to make it possible to use. I have big stuff but there are times that I wouldn't mind having a much smaller tool but I still want a good accurate tool. My question is does anyone have experience with Proxxon tools? Proxxon does make a very small band saw --maybe 6 inches! All their tools are that -tiny-designed for model builders and the like and claim to be well made and extremely accurate but I wouldn't mind getting some feedback from someone that has tried them..They aren't cheap! I can see how some of their stuff might be just the thing for instrument work.
By the way I had a Walker Turner 16" and it was a good saw but I decided to let it go along with the old Delta Unisaw and some other stuff. It was a fit actually, I found myself spending way to much time maintaining the old equipment and it was eating into my making money. I built my shop up buying a piece of old equipment one at a time but eventually I got to the point that I had work all the time and I needed to do the work not fuss with old tools. When I realized I could buy new and write it off that's what I did. I ended up with a 18" Jet and it's a nice saw- well,it is since I switched to the Carter's-I thought Jet's guides sucked but the thing about the Walker Turner was that it was Heavy! I think one of those cast iron doors weighs as much as my whole new saw. When running correctly there was almost no vibration and very stable and I've considered tracking down another, send it to a machine shop and have it done up like new 'cause they don't make them like that anymore! The Snowflake is way cool!