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Thread: Steel City Deluxe Bandsaw Review

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Edmonton, AB
    Posts
    246

    Steel City Deluxe Bandsaw Review

    Here is a review for the other new tool I just bought. The Steel City Deluxe 14" granite bandsaw.




    I bought this saw at the same place as the table saw I purchased, Marson Equipment, in Edmonton. The service at Marson is excellent, for more on this, see my table saw review here: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...el+city+review

    When I brought the saw home I was impressed with it's heft, and how well it was packed up. A solid wood crate protected the saw and all the parts, which, at 300 lbs+ I needed a neighbors help to get off my truck.

    Opening the crate, I managed to take out all the main parts, then stand it up on end, and slide out the heavy base.
    Looking at the instructions, I made sure all the parts were there, and this time I wasn't missing anything. The instructions were very clear and well illustrated, and easy to follow.

    Like the table saw, the assembly of the bandsaw was pretty straight forward, even though I had never assembled a band saw before. I was able to assemble it all in about an hour, and that was really taking my time. I only needed my wife's help once, to lift the top half onto the base. The excellent fit and finish on this saw made the task as easy as it was. I had no issues at all with alligning bolt holes, getting the pulley lined up on the motor and drive wheel, and affixing the heavy granite table. Everything fit together wonderfully.

    This saw comes with a mobile base built in. It's nothing more than two fixed wheels on one side, and a single swivel wheel that lowers with a foot lever to secure two rubber feet to the floor. I am not very impressed with this type of mobile base. I would have preferred a much more stable design with two swiveling wheel on one side, instead of just one. When the wheel is down and I'm moving the saw around my shop, I have to be extra careful, as it already almost toppled over on me once! That being said, once the wheel is up and the saw is sitting on the feet, it is quite stable. Still, given how much I move it around my shop, I may look into getting a better mobile base for it.

    Installing the table was really idiot proof (trust me, I would know) And the positive stops were set very precisely from factory. The table tilts to 48* right and 10* left, a nice feature. Checking the table with a straight edge, I found that it is perfectly flat. It has a standard 3/8" x 3/4" miter slot, but the saw does not include a miter gauge.

    The upper and lower wheels were perfectly co-planer when checked with a straight edge. The lower wheel is solid granite, which makes it very heavy and stable. Both wheels run extremely smoothly, and the weight of the lower wheel has claims of acting as a flywheel effect, giving more cutting power. It does. The tires seem to be good quality, although I don't really know enough about the different types to know what material they are. The hinged doors to access the wheels are nice quality and I really like the turn knob type latches that hold them closed.

    The saw's motor is a nice 1.5 Hp unit wired up for 110V service. At the owners option, it can be wired for 220V. I left mine at 110V. The paddle type switch is located well and easy to use. The saw also comes with a work light, which runs off a different plug.

    Another great feature of this saw, and one of the major reasons I bought it, is it comes standard with 12" of resaw capacity. The rack and pinion height adjustment is smooth and solid, and locks in place very securely. I'm quite impressed by how solid it is. My only (very minor) gripe is the small windows that are supposed to allow you to see where your blade meets the wood. Well, they get covered in dust in no time and are really useless. Fortunately, they are removeable with two screws each, so I just took them out. Even with a proper dust collector hooked up to the saw (which I don't have yet), I can't imagine those little windows would stay clear.

    The bearing guides are great. Having not much experience with other guide types, take this for what it's worth, but I couldn't imagine needing a better guide system. The bearings are very smooth and easy to adjust, with NO TOOLS! This was always my bane on my little bandsaw. Now, it's easy to set them exactly where they should be each time I put on a new blade. And they secure in place easily so they don't move, even with heavy resaw pressure.

    The saw also comes standard with a quick release blade tension lever, and a blade tension scale. It is very easy to release the tension to remove a blade, and quickly tension it up again to the proper setting. There is a red pointer that points at indicators for the different blade widths. Using the "push to the side" test, as well as listening to the sound of the blade (again, not that I'm an expert) I found that the settings on the saw are very accurate, but maybe a bit on the loose side. So I tension the blade slightly more than the "recommended" tension, and have had good luck for that so far. Overall though, the lever is really nice, and I couldn't imagine a better system for blade tension adjustment.

    The included fence system with this bandsaw is very similar to the table saw. The fence kind of clips onto the rear fence rail, and sits over the front rail, and clamps very securely in place. Another nice feature is that the saw comes with a resaw guide as well. A simple bar that bolts to the fence and acts as a pivot point when resawing. The fence is easy to adjust to get right down to the table top. It has set screws to square it to the table, which was very easy to do.

    Before I got my saw, I had ordered some Tufftooth blades from R&D, the Swedish silicon blades in 3/4", 3/8", 3/16", and 1/8". The saw came with a 1/4" blade. After I used the stock 1/4" blade on a few cuts (which cuts well itself) I was eager to try out the 3/4" blade (3tpi), which is the max blade width you can use on this saw. I grabbed a scrap of black walnut, about 7" wide that already had a flat face, and a square edge. After installing the blade, which was easy, and tensioning it for the 3/4" blade, I set up the fence to cut some 1/8" slices from the 4/4 board. The saw effortlessly powered the blade thru 7" of walnut. The cutting was very smooth and there was really very little vibration at all, thanks to the smooth running motor, the granite lower wheel, and the heavy solid granite table. I sliced the board into 5 pieces (each a bit more than 1/8") with little effort.

    Since then, I've used the saw to resaw a bunch of 8" wide birch boards, for drawer parts. Also with little effort. With a good blade on this saw, I have no doubt at all that it could easily resaw 12" of the hardest wood you could throw at it. It has power to spare.

    The dust built up quite a bit, but that's because I don't have a prper dust collector to hook up to this machine, and only used my shop vac. With a proper DC, obviously the dust would be much less, and not a problem. The port for the DC appears well positioned at the lower wheel right below the cutting area.

    I put the 1/4" blade back on and tested some curved cuts in some 2" thick hard maple. The saw again cut effortlessly, and with the bearing guides set up close to the blade, the curves were easy to handle and accuratly cut where I intended to. Checking the cuts afterwards, they were square to the face.

    I don't know what more I can saw about this saw. It is very well built and put together. The 1.5 HP gives plenty of cutting power and the 12" resaw capacity without having to add a riser block, is very nice. I think the saw is everything I will need for a long time and I highly recommend it.

    The only improvements I think could be made are with the mobile base and the viewing windows, as mentioned.

    Of coarse I am open to all questions and comments. Hope this review is helpful.

    Ryan
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 06-28-2009 at 9:20 AM.
    Remember this when you work with wood:

    "I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business. "
    Michael J. Fox

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Edmonton, AB
    Posts
    246
    I forgot to mention in my review a VERY nice feature that this saw has. Two speeds.
    There are two sets of pulleys and the speed can be adjusted from 1500 SFM (for resawing and cutting thicker wood) to 3000 SFM (for cutting thinner stuff and tight curves). This makes a big difference and lets the motor run more effeciently for the type of cutting your doing. I imagine this will help with blade life as well(?)

    Ryan
    Remember this when you work with wood:

    "I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business. "
    Michael J. Fox

  3. #3
    Here's my review of the saw. Obviously not nearly as glowing as yours.

    lumberjocks.com/reviews/796

    Cheers,
    Charlton
    Last edited by Keith Outten; 07-01-2009 at 7:13 AM.

  4. #4
    Ryan,

    Thanks for the thorough review of your new band-saw.

    I took a close look at the the last time I was at WoodCraft and I have to say I was impressed. Two of the biggest stand outs were the granite table and the HUGE motor. In my opinion you can never have enough HP and it'll be there when you need it. The granite top is one of those additions to the Steel City line that makes a lot of sense but since they're so new time will tell.

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