Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

I have their 14" wood/metal bandsaw. Overall I have been happy with it
cutting wood and aluminum. The manual speed control is a little cumbersome
to use, but it does the job. The motor belt tension is set by the weight of
the motor hanging down and I found this wasn't sufficient. I added a 40 lb
brick of lead and that fixed the problem. The rip fence option works
suprisingly well and I would recommend getting it if you don't have another
way of ripping. Their design as far as dust control goes, though, is a joke.
I had to make many mods and do a lot of sealing and it still isn't as clean
as my 25 year old craftsman that I replaced. Now that I read what I just
wrote, I guess I'm pretty tolerant of imported tool quality since I usually
can't afford better. I consider them an assembled kit of parts with a pretty
good starting point toward becoming a useful tool.


"Robert Scibienski" wrote in message
...
Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:36:41 GMT, (Robert
Scibienski) wrote:

Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?

I have their 14" wood-metal bandsaw, only use it on metal. I'm happy
with it. A professional shop would be better served by a Do-All
(more money, more floor space, more performance) but the Wilton does
everything I want to do and it is worlds better than having no
bandsaw at all. Good blades are important. The blades that came with
it were crap but I had some blades made locally of Sandvik bladestock
that work very well.

Robert Scibienski wrote:

Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

Wilton used to be a very reputable US manufacturer. Then they "sold out"
their name and now it's just another brand of tools made in Cheapistan.
Further, they didn't use to make things like table saws and shop vacs or
kitchen slicing gadgets or whatever foolishness they are up to now. They
mostly made machinist vises and grinding air spindles and a few other
things, maybe a vertical bandsaw. So you need to say whether you're talking
about old Wilton or Homo Depot Wilton. I'm guessing you can infer from my
tone which I'd recommend ..

GWE

If you rumage around recent posts, you'll see I just bought an Enco bandsaw.
You can get a lot of machine manuals online and the one for my saw was
pretty terrible. I happened across a Wilton bandsaw blade PDF from
somewhere, and the quality of the manual itself is very good. Then thing I
noticed is that at least the Wilton 7x12" metal cutting bandsaw is made by
JET. Don't know about their other stuff.
"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
Robert Scibienski wrote:

Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

Wilton used to be a very reputable US manufacturer. Then they "sold out"
their name and now it's just another brand of tools made in Cheapistan.
Further, they didn't use to make things like table saws and shop vacs or
kitchen slicing gadgets or whatever foolishness they are up to now. They
mostly made machinist vises and grinding air spindles and a few other
things, maybe a vertical bandsaw. So you need to say whether you're
talking
about old Wilton or Homo Depot Wilton. I'm guessing you can infer from my
tone which I'd recommend ..

GWE

"Robert Scibienski" wrote in message
...
Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

I have one of their little cut-off saws which seems to have been made by a
Swiss company and imported by Wilton. Its worked well in light duty for me
and Wilton was good about replacing the belt guard which was damaged in
shipping.

Mike

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:04:18 -0500, "NokNokMan"
wrote:

If you rumage around recent posts, you'll see I just bought an Enco bandsaw.
You can get a lot of machine manuals online and the one for my saw was
pretty terrible. I happened across a Wilton bandsaw blade PDF from
somewhere, and the quality of the manual itself is very good. Then thing I
noticed is that at least the Wilton 7x12" metal cutting bandsaw is made by
JET. Don't know about their other stuff.

Wilton and Jet are both part of WMH toolgroup.

I don't know if the 14" wood/metal vertical bandsaw is "Old Wilton" or
"New Wilton", can only say that I'm happy with it. YMMV. It is way
far better than a similarly-sized Craftsman saw I had occasion to use
in the early '80s. The construction is quite rigid. I have not had
to touch the tracking since I first set it up, even though different
blades run with different amounts of tension.

I too have the 14" wood/metal bandsaw and have been happy with it for the
money I spent.
Lane


"Robert Scibienski" wrote in message
...
Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:36:41 GMT, Robert Scibienski
wrote:

I bought their 6x48 belt / 12" disc sander.
There were several problems with it, screws stripped, totally unadjusted,
and there was a major problem requiring it to be disassembled (don't
remember
exactly what is was, one of the shafts). I informed Wilton of the problem.
I returned that
one and picked up another one. I asked that it be checked to be ok.
Turns out that one had stripped screws, was unadjusted, and apparently
been dropped before I picked it up. The table was bent. I ended up
returning it.

Wayne D.

Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.

Terry Mayhugh wrote:
I have their 14" wood/metal bandsaw. Overall I have been happy with it
cutting wood and aluminum. The manual speed control is a little cumbersome
to use, but it does the job. The motor belt tension is set by the weight of
the motor hanging down and I found this wasn't sufficient. I added a 40 lb
brick of lead and that fixed the problem. The rip fence option works
suprisingly well and I would recommend getting it if you don't have another
way of ripping. Their design as far as dust control goes, though, is a joke.
I had to make many mods and do a lot of sealing and it still isn't as clean
as my 25 year old craftsman that I replaced. Now that I read what I just
wrote, I guess I'm pretty tolerant of imported tool quality since I usually
can't afford better. I consider them an assembled kit of parts with a pretty
good starting point toward becoming a useful tool.


"Robert Scibienski" wrote in message
...

Any of you people out there have any experience with this mfg.?
TIA
Bob S.


I too have one of the backgeared 14" wood/metal Wilton vertical
bandsaws. I'm also generally satisfied with it, for what it cost. It's
doing what I bought it to do.

It's hardly fair to brand it as a "ready to rebuild" import (though it
is made overseas), it's far better built than the average low-end import
machines. The HF and similar saws aren't nearly as nice (or as
expensive), and they don't offer a backgeared version anyway.

Actually, it's a near part for part copy of our *VERY* similar Delta
machine. I've had the Wilton at home for about two years, and the Delta
at work for about 30 years ... so far, what one can say about one, can
be said for the other.

And yes, the Winton's dust collection is lousy, but the Delta has NONE
at all.

Dan Mitchell
============

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:33:54 -0500, "Daniel A. Mitchell"
wrote:

I too have one of the backgeared 14" wood/metal Wilton vertical
bandsaws. I'm also generally satisfied with it, for what it cost. It's
doing what I bought it to do.

It's hardly fair to brand it as a "ready to rebuild" import (though it
is made overseas), it's far better built than the average low-end import
machines. The HF and similar saws aren't nearly as nice (or as
expensive), and they don't offer a backgeared version anyway.

Actually, it's a near part for part copy of our *VERY* similar Delta
machine. I've had the Wilton at home for about two years, and the Delta
at work for about 30 years ... so far, what one can say about one, can
be said for the other.

And yes, the Winton's dust collection is lousy, but the Delta has NONE
at all.

The only improvement I made to my saw was to lose that triangular
plastic blade-tensioning knob and replace it with a larger aluminum
knob with a little "spinner" handle on it. It makes blade changes a
lot faster because I can wind up the slack and some of the tension
using the spinner.