I'm looking around for a good small woodworking bandsaw for my garage shop.
The one I've got right now is one of those little 8" Delta saws. I think
it's never seen a piece of wood that didn't scare its little heart to death,
even with cool blocks, a 3/8" blade, and all the tension I could screw into
the blade tensioner. About the only good experience I've ever had with it
was cutting rigid foam, and I've concluded that it's useful only for taking
up space that might be better occupied by a better tool.

This would be just a light-duty casual-use saw, rather than a workhorse
tool. I have the use of a friend's woodshop nearby, and if I have any
serious sawing to do I can use his 18" Grizzly, but I'd like this one to be
a competent tool even so.

A bandsaw in that general size range that I've heard good reports about,
long ago, is the Inca 340 10 1/2" saw, which Garrett Valley, or was it Lee
Wade -just kidding, folks! :-) - used to sell some years ago. I've been all
over google and google groups, and even ebay, looking for someone who sells
that line or has one they'd like to sell, and I can't turn up any recent
information on Inca tools at all, let alone on that saw. So maybe they're
out of business nowadays or have no American distributor, and everyone who
has one of those saws wouldn't dream of parting with it - who knows?

Anyone know of a Inca 340 for sale in good condition, and know where to get
parts? Failing that, what would the collective wisdom of the wreck recommend
in this situation? Delta used to have a 10" saw, but I've never seen any
chatter on the wreck about it, and I fear that it wouldn't actually be any
better than the 8". Three-wheel saws are out, in my opinion, because of
blade flexing around the tiny wheels and because the ones I've seen looked
pretty cheesy. Delta's BS220LS 12" saw is a little bigger than I'd like, and
comes with a metal stand I'd have no use for (the saw needs to go on an
existing work table, due to limited space in the garage). Jet's smallest is
a 12", and doesn't look much different from the Delta 12" in either features
or disadvantages. Grizzly's G1052 9" saw looks attractive, at least to judge
from the marketing info on the web site - anyone have any experience with
this model?

Thanks for any comments,
Tom Dacon