Band Saw Trigger Pulled

[Rob Holcomb]

Over the past week, I had a hard time making the decision to wait for a sale or to pull the trigger now on a new band saw, but today I bought the Grizzly G0513X2BF. After it was all over, I discovered that the trigger pull was smoother than I anticipated and my wallet fired flawlessly. So flawlessly in fact that I pulled it twice more. Once for a Y connector for the two 4" dust ports and then again for 5 Highland Woodworking blades (3/16", 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" general purpose blades and a 3/4" Woodslicer blade). I need to pull that trigger one more time to buy the 220v plug to match the outlet in my shop but that can wait until tomorrow. I already have a heavy duty mobile base from my previous band saw so I won't need to get one of those. Thank goodness too. I'm all out of bullets!

G0513X2BF.jpg

[Mike Cutler]

Congrat's, that's a nice saw you bought. I think you're going to like it a lot.
When you get it, I'd be interested to know your impressions on the re-saw fence.

[Rob Holcomb]

Mike, I'll be sure to let you know about the fence.

[Matthew Hills]

Nice saw. I liked the table heights and sizes of the grizzlys.

For my bandsaw, I also like having a task light focused on where the blade enters the wood. I have a magnet-mounted lamp from woodcraft; think some others use LED-based lights.


Matt

[Jebediah Eckert]

Nice, what bandsaw did you upgrade from?

[Rob Holcomb]

Jebediah, When I first was able to build a wood shop and outfit it with tools, I had limited funds so I bought the Ridgid 14" band saw. I quickly learned that it wasn't a very good saw to say the least. Many said that if you change this and add that and replace this, it could become a serviceable saw but I didn't want to put money into it knowing it would only become an "ok" saw. So I sold that saw on craigslist after owning it for 4 years. I still didn't have a lot of money to spend but the Craftsman BAS350 14" band saw had come out by then and it was getting good reviews as the clone to the Rikon 10-321 band saw which also had many good reviews. At the time, it was $399 and so I bought it. It actually was a decent saw and I had no troubles with it. I sold it to a fellow Creeker who was upgrading from a 10" saw. Hopefully he will get many years of use from it. The reason I am now upgrading again is because I wanted a bigger saw that could do more. I found myself working on projects and I always seemed to be saying to myself....I wish the table was just a tad bigger. I wish I had just a little more hp. I wish I had more re-saw height. I wish my saw was a little beefier. I wish, I wish, I wish! So I started saving and researching at the same time. I am just a hobbyist but I do sell things from time to time. I took every dime I made from selling with the idea of upgrading my band saw and I will be retiring in 2 years and plan on doing a lot more woodworking. So when the opportunity presented itself to sell the Craftsman band saw, I sold it but then I had no saw! I did a final research and asked questions and read review after review and I bought the best saw I could find for the money I had to spend. Hopefully this will be the last saw I need to buy and that it will be trouble free for years to come.

[Fred Belknap]

I have that saw and it has served me well. I think you will like it. I have had it about three years mostly to cut bowl turning blanks. I hooked up both dust ports when it was new but one of them was kind of hard to get the blast gate open. I found out it works great with just the top one hooked up. Rarely use the table saw anymore. BTW the blade that came with mine was a waste of metal.

[mike mcilroy]

Thank goodness too. I'm all out of bullets!

Reload quickly its not safe with all that cool stuff out there.

[Rob Holcomb]

Fred, I'm aware the blade won't be worth much. I plan on using it just to set the saw up. I ordered better blades to make sawdust with.

Mike, Don't I know it. There's always something we "want" but talk ourselves into "needing" it.

[Cary Falk]

I have the G0513x2 and love it. I think the fence is great. I'm sure you will be happy with the purchase.

[Curtis Myers]

Very nice bandsaw at a great price

[Rich Riddle]

Congratulations on your purchase(s). You are sliding down the slippery slope with many other Creekers.

[Michelle Rich]

glad you got what you wanted..I enjoyed your post..gave me a good laugh this morning. Keep your trigger finger limber, there is no end to this woodworking vortex.