Bandsaws similar to scmi 600

[Greg Quenneville]

Around here Italian saws are common…because of shop moves I am on my third 24” machine in fact. I have an Agazzani now but have had Mebers and used friends' Centauros and SCM. All of them worked well.

I agree about 3 hp motors on older saws being inadequate for easy resawing and will eventually change my own to at least 5 h.p.

[Kevin Jenness]

Here's one in your area https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...c-e77785e1c6a1

Lots of old steel Rockwell and Powermatic 20" machines out there. If you have the room, the older American cast iron saws are excellent. I had a Crescent 36 for a long time, traded it in on a minimax 16 to gain some space back but the Crescent is the nicer saw and the old Wright hardened steel guides put the stock Euro guides and the modern Carter ball bearing guides to shame.

[Albert Lee]

I had a few bandsaws in the past.. partly due to size of the shop and mistake on my behalf selling my bandsaw that I shouldnt be selling...

SCM S440, smaller brother of s600
Wadkin B7
Sicar Top 6
Taiwanese 600 series

anyhow, my current badsaw is a Meber 600, its great, similar to 600 series.

my favourite is the Wadkin B7. unfortunately it was way too big for my shop.

[lou sansone]

I’ve had a few bandsaw‘s
A 20 inch American bandsaw from early 1900’s a modern 24 inch Italian bandsaw and now I have a 36 inch American bandsaw made by Moak. with a super slow speed motor

I love the cast iron bandsaws. nothing compares to them in my opinion. The Italian bandsaws are boxy and pretty boring looking . The Cast iron saws are beautiful with their curves. the Tannewitz is the same kind of big heavy cast-iron saw. they’re fantastic, and the same goes for the Oliver saws and the Yates snowflakes

[Jay Houghton]

I've tried most of them. Euro, Laguna, roller, and I finally ended up with the Carter CP-30. Not cheap but you can adjust them to extremely tight tolerance between the rub block and blade. The effect is to scrape the blade of any dust, debris, sap that accumulates on the blade. For those doing a lot of resawing you can get carbide blocks. My first Delta 14" saw was from the 40's and I immediately replaced the old style guides but now I see the wisdom of how they did it in the "old days"!
JayGuide Lower.jpgGuide Upper.jpg

[lou sansone]

for large bandsaws consider the paddock guides. they are fantastic

The Paddock Tool Co. Inc. | Band Saw Guides | Topeka, KS

lou

[lou sansone]

I have had a few bandsaws, including the Italian ones. Consider used American cast iron ones. Personally I prefer them over the euro ugly steel bandsaws. I really like the Moak super 36” with the 5 hp direct drive super slow speed ( 30 hp frame) moter that I have

[Tom Trees]

I have had a few bandsaws, including the Italian ones. Consider used American cast iron ones. Personally I prefer them over the euro ugly steel bandsaws. I really like the Moak super 36” with the 5 hp direct drive super slow speed ( 30 hp frame) moter that I have

Bit difficult on the logistics end though, well at least for me.

I'd chance a guess a good percentage of folks who've moved on from the Italian machines to old'arn,
were using carbide blades exclusively, thus muddying the waters in relation to the performance of the machine, ceramic guides, same deal again too,
and if regular blades were used instead, then they might show something up...

Especially if the saw was bought used and the camber was worn off, that's a recipe for compression of the set,
not to mention lousy performance in relation to beam tension, which makes for a very noticeable difference using said blade, with damaged set,
comparing vulcanized flat tires to crowned ones, (ala copying the profile of the spare Centauro CO600 tire I have, with an offset crown apex 1mm closer to the front of the wheel)

Such a difference, night and day whilst resawing some wet ash with a hefty gauge 3/4" 3TPI blade, what's not really suited for the job,
and I only got about two or three inches into the timber before it refused to cut,
whilst after crowning the tires thereafter, managed to get through it using that very blade.

There's other factors there too, wheel alignment being a lottery on any bandsaw with a non adjustable flange mount motor,
and none of us are on the same page here.
The best we've got to go on is folks like John and some other folks,
should some be honest about things and not making excuses, who can honestly attest to achieving the performance there,
and I'm talking about the exact same Grizzly saw as that one,
I think I can recall of a few owners of "the same machine" , ahem, .... before.

As from the sounds of it, John has mentioned Mario Martins (utoober with a Sicar Top 7) saw was cutting slowly, lol!
or Kris DeVo with the LT HD24" machine using the power feeder for instance, which I might have mentioned before,
Those results are about as good as I've seen, so John's comment was an interesting one to me.

All the best
Tom