"Leon" wrote in message
news
Wellllllll Swingman, Nailshooter, Mrs. Nailshooter, my wife and I got
together today and did the WW show in Houston. It was very nice meeting
Nailshooter and Mrs. Nailshooter. :~)
I have been going back and forth between the Laguna 16HD and the MiniMax
MM16 band saws trying to decide which would be the better buy for me.
Last weekend my wife and I went to the MiniMax store in Austin to meet
with a rep to see the saw in action. While the service has always been
reported as superior, I'll say that my meeting was arranged weeks in
advance and e-mail conformations were sent late last week. We arrived
Monday morning as expected and they did not have a machine that was in
running condition. Basically a 300 mile round trip for nothing.
Anyway I will say that the machine did look better than the brochure and
the web pictures.
Today I was able to compare the MiniMax MM16 directly to the Laguna 16HD.
Both are nice machines and are most likely more than I will need in a band
saw but IMHO hands down the Laguna wins.
The MiniMax simply looks like it needs to be finished. The paint and
welds look terrible for a $2500 saw. While looks do not affect the
performance of a machine I would hope that the machine at least looked
new. The sales reps indeed compared their machine to the Laguna but were
not factual about the Laguna with respect to saying that you cannot adjust
the Laguna fence for drift, which you can. They indicated that the Laguna
front fence guide bar was hollow, which it is not. They indicated that
the ceramic guides get so hot that they delaminate from the holder. I
have my doubts. They did demonstrate that you could grab the upper guide
bar to tip the machine over however I cannot think of a reason to use this
feature. ;~) Strongly the mobility Johnson bar had a broken wheel and
could not be demonstrated. The rep did cut a wide laminated chunk of wood
in to a sorta thin veneer slice. The center of the cut was about 3 times
thicker than the beginning and end of cut.
The MiniMax tension wheel is actually made out of stamped steel and has
many exposed edges on the top side. The table tilts off center in
relation to the blade. Basically the table insert has to be removed if
you tilt the table to a 20 degree or greater angle. The blade ends up
about 1/2" from center when the table is tilted to 45 degrees.
The Laguna machines looked new. ;~) I did grab the upper guide bar and
it felt plenty sturdy to me however I did not try to tip the saw over to
see if the bar would flex. I still cannot see the need to this. :~)
The Laguna has a slightly smaller table than the MiniMax. The Laguna has
a huge honking 4.5 hp Baldor motor hanging off of the back side. The
Laguna produced a smoother resaw cut that was thin enough that the piece
of walnut curls in my hand and lays flat on a table. Saw blade tooth
marks were almost undetectable. The Laguna was fitted with a Resaw King
blade and the MiniMax had a Lennox carbide blade. The Laguna top and
bottom doors open at the same time which I thought odd but after opening
the doors 1 time I felt that this would not be a problem for me. The
upper and lower doors are connected by a square tube that covers the slot
that the blade goes through in the spine when removing or replacing the
blade. I can see how this might eliminate or lessen the chance of
standing up and hitting your head on an open upper door also. The Laguna
of course had the 10 point ceramic guides as compared to the European
guides on the MiniMax. The blade tension wheel on the Laguna was
basically what you would expect as far as being smooth with no thin rough
edges however I could not determine if it was metal or plastic. Either
way it was much more comfortable cranking up for a blade wider than 1
inch.
Both saws are similar in price however the longer I stood around the more
accessories the MiniMax rep threw in. It started off at $2495 for the
saw, carbide blade, and delivery on the ground. It ended up at $2495 for
the saw, carbide blade, miter fence, mobility kit, and delivery on the
ground or the same with 2 carbide blades instead of 1 if I would drive
from Houston to Austin and pick it up myself. This is $100 more than just
the saw alone. Normally this would total about $2850 + delivery from
Austin to Houston.
Laguna offered the saw, Resaw King blade, mobility kit, 3 Swedish Silicon
blades, and delivery on the ground for $2595. This is $300 more than just
the saw alone. Normally this would total about $3040 Delivered.
I ordered the Laguna and expect to see it the second week in April.
I really don't think that you could go wrong with either saw. I have a
Laguna 18" that works fine but if I were going to purchase again I think
that I would go with MiniMax.
I don't understand why MiniMax markets it's service as being fantastic. It
isn't, and I believe it sets them up for failure. They create expectations
that many times they fail to meet. There are lots of message threads on
their Yahoo forum from unhappy customers.