Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, the insurance company have finally agreed to compensate me for injuries received when the cab driver knocked me off my motorbike while I was on the way home from work, it's only been 2 1/2 years since the accident (man, doesn't it hurt when you come off?). Actually, to be fair to them, they were really fast with a pretty good offer, once the lawyers had finally finished crossing the t's and dotting the i's. No, I'm not silly enough to accept their first offer! It's gonna be a few more weeks of negotiations til I see some $$$

Anyway, I'm thinking large-ish bandsaw & the missus has given the nod. The Jet 18" band saw costs about $2000 Australian dollars, and that's about as much as I really want to spend on a band saw (I'm also thinking good tablesaw, amongst other things). I think this machine will pretty much cover my needs. These being primarily resawing. Living in Australia is great, but it costs an arm and a leg to stock pile a bunch of back and sides sets if I have to import everything, or buy wood already imported. Well, we've got trees here too, so I'm thinking that I'll be experimenting with local woods, there's a ton of local Eucalypt and Acacia species that should produce good results. But to do this, I need a good bandsaw.

So My question is, what are your opinions of the 18" Jet bandsaw? Jet seem to have a good reputation, Are there any others I should look at too? Any known problems?

Thanks.

Paul, I just went through this search about a   year ago. I ended up with the Jet 16" for about 2/3 the money. You still have the same height as the 18" but loose 2" of throat depth. Something that I've only maxed out once and that was a "homeowner" type project. In guitars, I don't thing you'll ever max out that depth. Worth looking into.
As far as the machine itself goes. I love it. I've done a ton of resawing and once set up and tightened down, it runs very straight and true. Very powerful too. I only bogged it down once with a 10" resaw of Zircote. Believe it or not I was actually trying to bogg it down to see what it would take. I had to feed it pretty hard to accomplish such a task.
Either size you get, I think you'll be very happy.

I own the same one Woolson does, bought it two years ago and it's never let me down, it's a great tool. My ONLY wish was that it had a foot brake on it, but man can it resaw and setups a breeze, I'm very happy with it.

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I have a Grizzly 18" that I bought perhaps 4 years ago. I forgot the part number, but it's no longer available. This also was a time when Grizzly still have "questionable" quality - I hear it's improved in the last few years.

My experience overall is that I'm happy for the money (it was $695) back then. But, it is very finicky - I mean more so than the usual bandsaw. Also it took quite a bit of tweaking to get it running right. I have to admit that Grizzly support was great. I had several long conversations with them, and they were willing to machine out parts that may help the setup, and without hesitation they shipped a couple of free replacement parts, including a whole new upper casting.

It's now running well, and resawing well, but a little slowly with the 1.5HP (or 2HP?) motor. Now I'm at the stage where I find the blade is the limiting factor, rather than the machine. For instance I found that the welds on two out of three Timberwolf blades (AS-S series) were problemmatic. The replacement blade Timberwolf sent was worse than the original. The next resawing session I do will be done with a WoodSlicer blade, which most if not all people love. I hope they're right!

Pete,

If you haven't bought the Woodslicer yet, email me and I'll give you the phone number for Iturra Design, which sells the same thing for about 2/3 of the cost.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don - I already have one but haven't tried it yet. I would ask for the information anyway, but if I DO like that blade, well, that'll last a lifetime, right?

;-)

Kidding - I'll email you. Or maybe you want to provide the info to everyone here?

PaulB, the Jet's are nice saws for the money. I have an 18" and I've used it to cut a lot of wood. Handles small blades pretty well too.

Pete, I never had a bad weld in probably 50 Timberwolf blades. They had a bad run of welds a few years ago when I believe they hired a new person... just call them up, tell them what happened, and that you want another blade. They are nice folks.

I like the Woodslicer fine.

Dave at Hasting's saws sells a blade that I like too; they're cheap at under $20 and the kerf loss is very small, only about 0.03". You go through them pretty quick, but sometimes they get you that extra slice.

Bob, a run of bad welds, eh? The blades I bought were probably a couple of years ago, so maybe they fall in that category. In my case there's be either a front-to-back or side-to-side misalignment that would manifest itself in the cut. I was quite disappointed when I threw on an el cheapo Grizzly blade, and that had no anomalies like that in the cut!

Maybe I will talk to Timberwolf again and ask for a replacement for the replacement! ;-)

And I'll probably try the Hasting's too. And I always do seem to be looking for that "extra slice".

Thanks,
Pete

If you want to run a carbide, generally they prefer you own an 18 inch saw. I love carbide, but at the cost steel blades may make more sense. The Timberwolf steel blade is great. I'm ready to try the Hastings and have two thin kerf steel on the shelf. Laguna is the saw I have. It has the footbrake and a 2 HP motor. My only beef they've upgraded, the guides. They also upgraded the motor to American Baldors now. More munnneey than the jet for sure... I'm glad I lucked onto it at a woodworking trade show, and bought a General Internationl dual drum sander at the same show. They both earn their keep. Many good machines out there, good luck in your search.

   Woodslicer has came out with a 3/4" blade . I liked the cutting ability of the 1/2" ,...but the beam was just to weak to really be a reliable resaw blade.
The I put the 3/4 " through some pretty intense resaw hours. It passed with flying colors . I will order a couple more.

Thin kerf and cuts just like the 1/2" but with some needed backbone. Zero drift .

Price was right around $34.00 .JD Myers38415.8688888889

The Jet did not get that great of a review in the 2005 Tool Guide. But looking at it at my local Woodcraft I think that it would be more than sufficient for lutherie needs. Even resawing...... The fence on the Jet is very nice.

But I ended up going with the Delta 18" which I like a lot too. Suppossedly it has less deflection under heavy loads, and cuts a little cleaner on the resawing....

Plus it was on sale. :-)

But it really came down to splitting hairs.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Check out the new Laguna Ceramic Guides, my say has the old Euro guides but my machinist performed an upgrade on the rear thrust bearings so it's super now.

But the new Lagunas have something no other bandsaw has: Double Upper and Lower ceramic guides. Two sets of lateral guides above, two sets of lateral guides below, pretty impressive. Plus they upgraded to the Baldor motors made in USA.

This saw is very likeable and does a great job. I like it as much for what it does as I do my Delta 14" for necks. I just wanted you to have a look at their guides.

Thanks everyone,

I wanted the 18" bandsaw, 'cause I'd like to keep my options open with regard to carbide blades, don't know If I'll end up using them, just nice to have the option.

The Grizzly 18" band saw is available in Australia for about the same price as the Jet, there's a company in Perth that re-badges them as "Carbi-Tech" brand, but they are the same saw. Only problem is that Perth's 4000km away, So shipping will add to the price. The Laguna looks like a nice saw & is probably better than the Jet, but they don't seem to be available here - probably out of my price range anyway.

I guess, I was really trying to find out if anyone was going to say don't buy the Jet saw 'cause they aren't suitable, due to some major design problem. But that doesn't seem to be the case. And there's a dealer just across the river who sells them, so I can pick it up and save on shipping.

Cheers,

Paul

Laguna (and MiniMax, and probably a few others) sell rebadged Mebers (and possibly other brands) made in Italy, I believe. Might want to check with them directly and see if they know of resellers in your area.

Things are always changing when it comes to whose really making these saws. Laguna is no longer selling the Meber. Laguna is now having, at least some of their saws, made in Bulgaria. MiniMax is now selling a Meber as their S16. This is the saw that used to be sold by Laguna as the LT16. The current LT16 is made in Bulgaria. Other MiniMax band saws are made by Centauro. I believe all their band saws are Italian made. It pays to be careful when evaluating tool reviews. This years model might be a completely different machine, and made by a different manufacturer, than what got great reviews in last years publication!

True Mattia and Joe...

These manufacturers even probably watch Amazon.com and woodworking reviews like a hawk. If you can get a 80 percent ranking with over ten replies that's a pretty decent machine. But when you find one with 90 to 95 percent ratings, wow, it's a winner.