Hello,
I'm looking for some feedback from any small (14" Delta style) bandsaw owners. I'd like to hear your concerns / problems about your day-to-day use of the machine you own.
Some issues I've seen with these saws include: not maintaining guide alignment when changing guide height, various blade tracking issues, inability to tension properly, etc.
I'm thinking of buying a 14" bandsaw for general purpose work - I already have one for resawing so I'd be using a 3/8" blade or less only. The real point of my question is to find out how accurately your specific saw can be setup and how well it maintains that setup. (I know there was another thread like this one - but I couldn't find it.)
This is my first post to this forum - so thanks in advance.
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In other words, I miss it. It's very handy for doing smaller work, such as you intend to do. There is some tendency in having to re-track it when heights are changed, but typically, very minimal. Use a decent blade (Timberwolf, for instance) and you'll be OK. I was able to tension it enough for most everything I used for, though its main uses were for roughing out bowl blanks and some bandsaw boxes. It did just fine for those tasks and I have heard of many folks using such saws for smaller resawing. (The riser kit, in my instance, was primarily for the bowl blank cutting.) Some say that the lower guide setup on the Delta's is nicer, as it's closer to the table. I did not have issue with my Jet, but to each his own. One of the major drawbacks with most of the 14"-ers is dust collection. Like others have done, I punched a 4" hole in the lower wheel cover and attached a 4" dust port going to the rest of my DC system. Awesome improvement!
In the end, the Jet and Delta's out there are pretty well proven out, though there's also Grizzly and now I hear the Rikon may be another to be reckoned with. Good luck in your search!
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