I looked at both those reviews and the one on 18" models in FWW. In
fact, I have gone back through every subscription I have for the past
year (several) and read everything on bandsaws. But you can't trust
magazines to give you the full story on machines. That's why all of
your opinions are so valuable.


Cox West wrote:
American Woodworker magazine, Oct-04. Part 2 of a Bandsaw review.
Part 1
covered smaller machines.

Dave


"Stephen M" wrote in message
...
BTDT

1 Laguna LT16 (16") - $1500 I have heard some rumours about the
Bulgarian models

Nice fence, revolutionary guides. Shipping was brutal and presales
support
turned me off. They just did not want to find a way to get a saw to
me
without me eating $250 in shipping costs. People can be creative if
they
really want to. I just felt like a small fish nuissance small fish.

I also heard some customer service horror stories about them not
being
able
to fix vibration problems on their lower end machines.

2 General International 90-270 (18") - $1600

That looks like a honey of a machine. With CI wheels, that thing
will spin
down for *minutes*. Seriously. A foot break is nice to have.

There was a reviw by one of the mags about 6-8 months ago about 18"
saws.
Google the group to determine which rag it was.


FWIW, their top "value" machine was a Rikon at around $900. A
machine I
was
not aware of when I was doing my research. I would give that one a
look
too.

Good luck, Let us know what you choose and write a review.

-Steve