Having trouble trading off bandsaw features

[Jeff Ranck]

Not sure if the forum can stand yet another bandsaw thread, but I'm having a bit of trouble trading off bandsaw features. I've read every bandsaw thread on the forum and have gained a *lot* of insight - thanks everyone!

I've pretty much narrowed it down to either the Griz 636X; Agazzani B-20 (or maybe B-18); or MM16. The Griz has an edge price wise (of course), but all are not that far off. Each seems to have their advantages and disadvantages (naturally). But I'm really having trouble trading off the features and since this is my first (and hopefully last) bandsaw, I'm not sure I know enough to trade them off.

Since I only have room for one bandsaw, it has to do all duty - from resawing to curves.

How important is the detensioning lever? Do folks tend to detension their blades after use? Seems like a pain if you want to detension your saw and don't have a lever.

The MM16 makes a big deal of their universal mount guidepost and their guidepost assembly. Is it important that you can buy a bunch of different guide types or that the assembly is a whole unit vs. parts in the saw?

Why would you need a two position fence as on the Agazzani?

Which of these saws are easier to adjust to make sure everything is in alignment and such?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jeff...18 months ago I was in the same predicament except I had the Laguna brand LT-16HD in the mix also. I traded emails with a renowned b/s expert and he stated "You can't go wrong with any of those Italian made B/Ss."

So...in the end I went with the MM-16. The deciding factor..their generosity. When a fellow Creeker had the roof of his shop cave in due to excessive and unexpected snow fall....MiniMax-USA donated a brand new b/s to Steve Clardy when Creekers and folks at FamilyWoodWorking approached them about buying a replacement for Steve at a reduced cost. Steve is a professional and makes a living out of that shop.

If I couldn't go wrong with "any of those Italian-made b/s" and they were that generous.....

I didn't go wrong. I've used my MM-16 minimally but just this past weekend I resawed my first hardwood...a piece of 8" cherry. I was impressed and that was using the cheap blade that came on the saw.

Suggestion...buy Mark Duginkes book on bandsaws. You can find it at Amazon or Fox Chapel books. It is an incredible wealth of knowledge, photos etc....it's well written and illustrated. THe book is cheaper at Amazon. I would tell you the title but ....I just loaned to a fellow Creeker yesterday after giving him a sharpening lesson. "The New Complete Guide to the Bandsaw"....$12 and change at Amazon. No relationship with Mark Duginske or Amazon...just a happy user of the product.

The MM-16 is my first bandsaw. My wife has been hounding me to make a few more large pieces of furniture so that when we have both gone to meet with our makers, our children would inherit at least one piece of furniture made by me for her. My youngest son when told of that suggestion said "You can have the furniture...I want Dad's toys!" I'm sure he meant tools!

To release pressure on my blade...I just turn the handle 4 complete revolutions. When I'm ready to use it again....4 complete revolutions and then quickly check the tracking and guide alignment.

The 2 position fence might be handy low..for normal ripping...high for resawing wider boards.

Good luck with your decision!

[John Thompson]

I think my biggest concern in your shoes is you are going to do curve cutting on the saw. The MM and Aggi are very well made but I know MM and I think the Aggi has Euro guides. IMO.. Euro guides are more suited for re-saw. MM sells a cool block kit (extra $100 or so) but you have to install it to change to a small curve cutting blade. I am not sure if the Aggi has something available to get small blades on the saw or not?

The Grizzly you mentioned has roller guides which are more suited for smaller blades. But.. you are looking at the larger 0536X which is 5 HP and without seeing it.. I don't know just how large those roller bearing are? If they are really large.. the saw must have a range of adjustment to get them back far enough to get the gullets on say a 1/4" tpi curve blade forward of the roller guide. BS blade teeth and guides don't mix well.

With that said.. if... if... you alternate time between re-saw and curves and can get away with 12" re-saw (if you cut very large bowl blanks as a turner you may need the additional 4") I would most definitely consider the Griz 0513X2B 17". It would be more suited IMO to a combination of both task.

The MM and Aggi are great machines and shine at pure re-saw. I ran across this cross-road you are at also. I had a $500 deposit on the MM but after thinking it through.. I could get away with 12" re-saw. So.. I withdrew my deposit and purchased a Steel City 18" which has roller bearing and 12" re-saw similar to the 0513X2B I mentioned.

I re-saw and average of 100 linear feet a month and cut curves every day as I am retired and spend hours a day in my shop. I don't regret my decision to go with 2 HP.. 12" re-saw and curve cut with only a quick blade change in lieu of changing out guides.

Good luck with your decision...

Sarge..

[Pete Bradley]

How important is the detensioning lever? Do folks tend to detension their blades after use? Seems like a pain if you want to detension your saw and don't have a lever.

Totally unimportant. Many people (including me) rarely detension, and turning the knob is no big deal.

The MM16 makes a big deal of their universal mount guidepost and their guidepost assembly. Is it important that you can buy a bunch of different guide types or that the assembly is a whole unit vs. parts in the saw?

You don't really want to buy and change guides regularly do you?

Why would you need a two position fence as on the Agazzani?

I haven't used it, but this actually looks like a nice fence. Being able to flip it down will give you the ability to leave the same fence on most of the time, with the low position allowing you to set the guidebar low for thin stock, up for taller or modest resaws. Just make sure that the flip to vertical is repeatably perpendicular to the table or you'll pay back most of the value by having to fuss with it every time.

Pete

[Jim O'Dell]

As far as the guides for the MM bandsaws, and others with the Euro style guides, follow the information Sam Blasco gave us here a while back, and resurfaced recently by another Creeker, of using a block of oil soaked wood, or phenolic material, cut a kerf in it with the blade or with a hacksaw, and sandwich it between the euro guides from behind to hold it in place. Use the back bearing to keep the blade tracking in it's plane, and you have a quick change and the best of both worlds. I'm going to use this trick to get my MM E16 lower guides to support all blades underneath and closer to the table, as that is it's biggest design shortcoming. Jim.

[Jeff Ranck]

Thanks for the info. This is very helpful.

One additional question: does anyone know the overall size of the B20? I'm starting to wonder if it will fit where I need it to.

[Rick Fisher]

I am a big fan of the Euro Bandsaws. I have a Delta 18" Saw which is 7 years old, and a 20 year old SCMI Centauro..

The Italian saw is 10x the machine, in every way. If I where in your position, I would get a Euro Bandsaw and never look back. As you said, your only buying one, so make it the best saw you can get..

[Charlie Plesums]

The MM series of MiniMax bandsaws are made by Centauro, and are great machines.

I also have a small Grizzly. The small machines with crown tires need to be detensioned, and they are a pain to do without the lever, due to small tension wheels in inconvenient location.

It is less important to do on the big saws with flat tires, like my MM24. I only bother to detension if it will be idle for an extended period, but it is no problem to do with the large convenient tension wheel.

See my solo woodworking web site (look at my profile) for a long story on my choice of saws, blades, blade vendors, alignment, tension, etc.

[guy knight]

i have the mm20 great bs the euro guides work down to a 1/4 blade anything less and you can get a carter guide i wouldn't consider the grizz to be in the same class as far as detensioning i only do it on small blades and lets not forget great cs from mm i have not seen or used a angassi but i here they are great saws

[Guy Belleman]

I have and really like the 17" Grizzly G0513X2B, it has done everything I have asked it to do, on 110V. I will rewire as soon as I get 220V lines put in. When I purchase the saw, I didn't really give much value to the detensioning lever, or the blade tracking window, or the tension window. Now, I would never buy a saw without these features. They are just to convenient and handy. I really like being able to track the blade without opening the wheel door. I really like being able to set the tension properly. I really like being able to quickly detension the blade when I done for the day, and not having to do the common 4 turns off method.

If I needed a larger saw, I would get the 19" Grizzly G0514X2B. It is less expensive than the 17" you are looking at, yet has all the features. 3HP on a bandsaw is a lot of power. Not sure why I would ever need to cut on the 5HP saw you are looking at. If you are set on 5HP, then the 21" G0531 is a great saw. Currently, the 21" G0566B, with a price right in your range, seems to more saw than you will ever need. Some of these even currently have free shipping. All of these saws have the features I would want.

I am not sure that more power on a bandsaw is a good way to approach this decision. A 2HP motor has been more than enough for me, and I cut some 9" planks last summer with no problem. I think getting a very good blade is a greater improvement than adding more power.

I think you need to evaluate your true needs to decide what size would best fit. I am happy with my 17". The old 24" Delta I have used occasionally is a beast, a tool I don't really like stepping up to and turning on. Of course, that is probably because it doesn't seem well maintained to me. But it is still uncomfortable.

Good luck.

[Jeff Ranck]

Ok, let me ask one more question - for those of you with the mm16, do you ever wish you had a bit more swing? I'm having a hard time imagining using more than about 13" of resaw, but I don't know about the swing.

[Pete Bradley]

That's one thing that really matters. Assuming a choice between good quality machines, I'd go for the bigger wheel. There's a *big* difference between 16" and 20". I still get that "clunk-scratch head-figure out how to make cut" even with my 20" machine.

Pete

[guy knight]

Ok, let me ask one more question - for those of you with the mm16, do you ever wish you had a bit more swing? I'm having a hard time imagining using more than about 13" of resaw, but I don't know about the swing.

a few times i have needed the extra swing that my MM provides but what i do use allot is the large resaw my saw does 20 and i have resawed up to 19" so far before this saw i had a rikon and had to rip down a few nice boards due to its 13" resaw the 16" resaw may seem an overkill until you need it and it opens up new doors for wide wood and the 4.5 hp cuts the large resawing like a hot knife threw butter

[Tom Cross]

Three months ago I bought the Agazzani B-20. It is 75.8" tall, 473 pounds, 13.6" maximum resaw height, plenty for me . I can provide other dimensions if you need them. Like you I had spent several months reading hundreds of posts on band saws. Then I spent two hours using an MM16 that a local guy was kind enougth to demo for me.

My choice of the Agazzani boiled down to usability. This is a personal thing so I will describe what I mean.
1. Two Position Fence - The Agazzani two position, aluminum fence I find to be a joy to use. I both rip and resaw frequently so the two positions work very well for me. It squares up to the blade every time. The one position, heavy cast iron fence on the MM16 didn't work well for me.
2. Blade Tensioning - The Agazzani gauge is very accurate and repeatable. It is easy to detension the blade using the handwheel. The MM16 tension gauge I used did not always read correctly.
3. Euro Guides - The Agazzani has new style guides with tighter tolerances and no lock nuts. They are so easy to adjust and use. The MM16 guides took too much fiddling for me.
4. Tilting the Table - The Agazzani has a true trunion so when the table is tilted the blade stays centered in the table insert, not the case with the MM16 that I used.
5. 1/4" Blades - The Agazzani guides work well with 1/4" blades. The MM16 requires work arounds to make the 1/4" blades work.

Jesse at Eagle Tools was great to work with. Before shipping the saw, they do a thorough quality check of the saw including running it and doing some resawing. The saw arrived with no damage at all and everything square and ready to go. I was amazed at the packaging Eagle Tools did - 200 pounds of crating, four sheets of 5/8" CDX plywood and many 2x4's assembled with hundreds of 2" staples. It took several hours to uncrate it. Seeing how truckers treat these machines, I sure was glad that the crate was so secure.

Electrical is very sound on the machine. Jesse put a 12' cord on it. All I had to do was put on a plug.

I highly recommend the Zambus Carrymaster casters AC-300S. They bolt direclty to the machine using the leveling studs on the base. It is so easy to move around and very stable. Stay away from Johnson bars like are standard on the Laguna and MM16 as the machine does not move easily using the Johnson bar as I found out during the demo.

The Agazzani B-20 has been a great machine for me. I have the 1" Woodmaster CT blade on it and the cut is very nice. The Agazzani B-20 is rugged and built to last. It tensions a 1" blade easily.

Good luck with your choice.

["Gary Brewer"]

Jeff: The Agazzani B-20 , then Grizzly, then mm16. The Agazzani is very well thought of (also the most expensive). The Grizzly you mentioned I looked in great detail and I liked it a lot. It is the best value and the quick release tensioning is very nice. I wish I had it. It also has two drive belts, and rack and pinion tilt table if I remember correctly. The fit, finish and machining is excellent.The minimax is a good machine but it's not the best choice for what you have listed ( my opinion ) I do know several people that have one and have used them. The throat depth for me is very important. The resaw height is important but is over emphanized and throat depth is often ignored. All would be good machines. Also I feel if you are spending all that money on a quality bandsaw then spending a little bit more to go from a 16" machine to an 18" or 20" is money well spent. Not much more $ for increased throat, heft, etc. I also always release the tension on the blade. Small blades can leave a groove in you tire.
Gary