Bandsaw Pre-Gloat

[Christian Aufreiter]

Congrats on the new equipment, Timo.
Where's the Holzkraft manufactured?

Regards,

Christian

[Ian Barley]

Timo

Nice saw - Holzkraft have some nice equipment - I suspect that it will be all the bandsaw you need for quite a long time.

But it does not make sense to me that imports would cost more, unless there is an import tax of some sort...

Michael - there is a an import duty (certainly in the UK) and the price also suffers because of the difference in relative market size. I can't speak for the mainland of europe but in the UK we genarally pay in pounds not far off what you guys pay in dollars. I have before now purchased items in Florida, that were made in Sheffield for less than I can buy them in Sheffield. Go figure?

[Timo Christ]

Niels,
the Bernardo and Holzkraft bandsaws are the same machines, only a few details differ. They are also very similar to the Grizzly machines, so i do think they come from the same factory. I am not sure where the factory is, but i'm guessing Taiwan. Bernardo (used to?) source machinery from Bulgaria.. maybe i can find out when i have the machine. Does someone know where the Grizzly G0566 is manufactured?
It looks like Bernardo has a bit nicer guides (hard to judge from a catalog picture) but Holzkraft has a laser cut line indicator and nicer paint job. The motor may be different, too (Holzkr. rated 4kW, Bern. 3.75kW).

[Niels J. Larsen]

Sounds like you made the right choice then

Just a quick newbie question from a guy who's never used a bandsaw:
Why did you choose such a big beast ?

I mean - what jobs do you have to do that needs a saw with this size ?
From what I've read here, all that you usually use a bandsaw for is:

- curved sawing
- resawing of wood before jointing/planing
- joints (large tenons/dovetails etc.)

I'm not trying to get you to justify why you bought this machine - I want one too!

/Niels

[Timo Christ]

Niels,

resawing at a reasonable speed and with repeatability requires a big saw with a big motor. See the "am i asking too much of a 14" saw" thread.
I want to do quite a bit of resawing, and i want to use the saw to make boards from "firewood" logs.
I asked Hema (the bandsaw mercedes) about ripping on a bandsaw with large cutting height, and they said it comes down to blade selection and first of all power. Anything below 3kW won't cut it, is what they told me.
I also plan some projects which require curved cuts with large cutting height, almost 30cm.
Also want to do dovetails etc on the bandsaw. I think this will become my primary saw, as my TS has a small table and weak motor.

Cleaned the shop a bit today to make room for the saw. Also built a small storage rack for planes and saws.. you'll get pics in the shop tour when the bandsaw is here.

Timo

[Pete Harbin]

Nice Timo! I've been using a large bandsaw in a class I'm taking, and I'm thinking I'll probably upgrade my badsaw now before I upgrade my tablesaw. I probably won't upgrade either for a while, but the bandsaw just moved up on the list ahead of the table saw when it does happen.

It's really nice to have a bandsaw with power and size.

Pete

[Timo Christ]

Christian and all,
i found out where they make the Grizzly, Holzkraft, Bernardo bandsaws. It is in Taiwan, the company is called OAV Equipment. Link: www.oavequipment.com
Unfortunately my saw didn't arrive yet, the shipping company messed up somewhere.