Hi All
I’ve had a Grizzly G1148 bandsaw for about 10 years. I did some upgrades over time, ball bearing guides (not worth the money) upgraded fence that I sold and built one I liked better, and most worthwhile a 1.5 h.p. GE motor to replace the .75 h.p. motor that came with it. The Griz actually worked pretty well when properly tuned but it was limited to 7" of resaw and was somewhat inconvenient to use. A 17" or 18" saw wasn’t much more money but I don’t think a larger saw would have fit in my space. The biggest advantage of the larger saws is the ability to use carbide blades for my uses I don’t think carbide is critical to me but Bimetal might be interesting.
I was at a local woodworkers store (Woodworkers Haven in Southampton PA.) to pick up a half pint of finish ($5.99) for a small project and SWMBO wanted to use the facility. I picked up the finish and spied 2 Rikon bandsaws, the 14" deluxe and the 18". These guys hadn’t sold Rikon the last time I was there. Oh Oh. I first laid eyes on the 10-325 at Highland Hardware but getting it home from Atlanta posed a problem. Southampton PA. was just too convenient for fiscal health ;-). SWMBO said I should get if I wanted it, bless her heart. I didn’t need 2 bandsaws so came home and posted a for-sale on Craigs List. 3 responses in 24 hours, and one guy came up the next day and bought the Grizzly for what I thought was a fair price. The next day was Sunday and the store was closed so it was Christmas Eve level anticipation ‘til Monday A.M.
Loading the saw at the store wasn’t a problem, they had a hydraulic cart. Unloading it at my house wasn’t as simple. The weather was warm and wet so the lawn was soft. I have a Bilco door to the basement but couldn’t figure out how to get the saw to the Bilco door without causing ruts in the lawn. It had to come through the house and down the basement steps. Here was the only painful part of the process. I grabbed one of the straps that bound the box and pulled. Bad idea. The band broke and I went backward and landed awkwardly against a ramp. OUCH! Time to take a break, some Motrin and regroup. Got a tie-down strap, wrapped that around the box and got it out of the pickup and standing up in the garage. Opened the box, inhaled the new toyl smell and removed the table and box with the base in pieces. That was as far as I could break it down. The saw was in form fitting styrofoam so was pretty safe in the box. I was able to pull and roll the box with the saw in it to the basement steps. A tie-down strap clamped around the box provided a handle and the box slid down the steps under good control. Dragged and walked it to where I wanted it.
I resized a Delta mobile base to fit the base. Assembled the base and wondered how to lift the saw onto the base. Coffee and contemplation were the order of the morning. I have a steel beam running across the basement and a come-along. Was able to rig the come-along so it’d lift high enough and attached the saw with the ever popular tie down strap. Ratched that puppy up, slid the base under it and bolted it down. That was the part that concerned me most. The rest was straight forward.
Bear in mind that I’ve only used this saw a very little bit and with the factory blade. Having said that:
LIKES
1) 13" of resaw! As far as adequate power, I’ll need to get better blades before I can judge this.
2) Smooth blade tension release. I was expecting hard to move and jerky and was pleasantly surprised.
3) Pretty good fit & finish. The table appears to be flat and it was protected with oil, not cosmoline. Easy to clean up.
4) Not only is the table good sized, the slot to remove the blade is ahead of the blade, not perpendicular to the blade as many saws are. The blade comes straight ahead instead of having to turn the blade ahead of the lower guides. There should be less inclination to use the wrong blade for a cut when it’s easy to change them. Instead of the tapered pin to keep the table aligned on each side of the slot, this saw uses a bolt and wing nut vertically through a counterbored hole. It seems like it should keep the table aligned just fine.
5) Easily adjustable blade guides. The guides are bearings with the thrust bearing oriented the right way! The blade runs on the outer race, not the side of the bearing as it common. All 3 of the top blade guide bearings are micro adjustable. On the bottom guide, the thrust bearing has micro adjustment. The two side bearings are adjusted by loosening hex head screws and moving the bearings manually. The manual adjust works better than it sounds like.
6) There’s only 1 screw to remove (table slot) and one screw to loosen (front of blade guard) to change blades. I don’t know if I’ll have to adjust the side bearings when changing blades, I’m hoping I’ll only have to adjust the thrust bearings.
7) Dust collection seems very good. After the first use, there was no dust around the lower wheel at all when connected to a DC. There was some around the outside of the saw.
8) Table leveling. It uses the standard bolt with a locking nut but with a twist. There’s a small figure 8 shaped piece that pivots under the table bolt. Set the bolt so the table is perpendicular to the blade. If using a resaw fence or something like that, move the figure 8 shaped piece away from the stop bolt and the fence can be tilted past perpendicular if necessary.
9) Blade guard. The blade guard on the guide post is hinged and held shut by one screw & slot setup. Loosen the screw and the blade guide swings open for blade change.
10) Practical speed change mechanism. The 2 speeds are 2950 FPM and 1445 FPM. I’m not sure what the use is for 1445 FPM, possibly cutting nonferrous metal? The lower handwheel moves an idler pulley which loosens and tightens the drive belt. Works pretty well.
11) The fence can be mounted left or right of the blade. Right now I have it left of the blade-I have to remove the fence from the mount to remove it from the saw. I think I'll move it to the right of the blade so I don't have to remove the aluminum extrusion to mount or demount the fence. With a 7" resaw height working under the upper wheel housing and left of the blade felt a little claustrophobic so I had the old saw fence mounted to the left of the blade. Shouldn't be a problem with 13" resaw and the fence to the right of the blade should feel more natural.
The Not-So-Good
1) The paint on the base seems soft. It was pretty easy to scuff.
2) The saw is pretty tall and a bit prone to rocking on the Delta base. In fact, it’s too tall for me. My table is about 40" high. I’m vertically challenged and would be happier if the table were about 34". A new lower base may be in the future.
3) There appears to be no way to use solid Cool-Block type guides. I understand that narrow blades <1/4" blades don’t work well with ball bearing-type guides. Carter sells a grooved upper thrust bearing that works with narrow blades but that’s another expense. The saw is rated to use 1/8" to 3/4" blades.
4) The lower thrust bearing adjustment knob was disconnected. I was able to get it to engage but the thrust bearing adjustment knob may be short on travel with a 3/4" blade. The saw comes with a 5/8" blade.
5) Right now, here’s a big one. The saw won’t start without tripping a 20 amp breaker on a dedicated circuit. I spoke with Rikon about it and they indicated over tensioning the drive belt would cause that problem. I loosened the drive belt and it started but slowly. On subsequent starts it was real slow to accelerate and was drawing 40-50 amps. I found that if I helped spin the wheels on startup it would accelerate and run normally drawing about 7 amps. The start capacitor isn’t leaking but does have an odor. I have a message in with Rikon so we’ll see how this pans out.
6) The motor seemed to be pretty warm for running a pretty short time and not much of that under load. There were several starts in a short time which may have contributed to the heat but I’m still concerned about this.
7) The door for the base is missing. I called Rikon and they’re sending me one. I don’t know if the box containing the base parts were opened or not.
The "We'll See"
1) Table support and stability. This was a concern in the FWW review. The table seems fine but the attach area for the trunnion mechanism is about 4" X 6 1/2" and the table is 15 3/4" X 21 1/2". I'm not worried about my planned uses, but I'm no sure how happy it'd be with a 12" log plunked down on it. With infeed and outfeed support it'd probably be fine.
trunnion1.JPG trunnion2.JPG
The finished product
saw1.JPG saw2.JPG
Yup, it works
First Sawdust.jpg
Thanks for Looking
Curt
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