First impression--this ain't no toy saw. It's not a particularly large
box but for the size it's a heavy one, almost 300 pounds. Took two Sears
guys to get it into the truck. This ain't no lightweight toy saw.

Getting it downstairs was fun.

Stand went together fine. After trying to hoist the saw onto the stand, I
finally laid it down and bolted it to the stand then stood the whole thing
up, that worked much better than trying to lift it. Note, put the table
on last, the effing table feels like it weighs as much as the saw.

Structure is steel weldment except for the table and wheels that are cast
iron and the trunnion which appears to be cast aluminum. No provision for
a riser block of course but I don't anticipate resawing anything wider
than 8 inches so it's not an issue.

Went through the adjustment procedure, did fine until I fired it up to set
the tracking. Had it plugged into a power strip (need to put in an outlet
for it) with a breaker, turned it on, it started to spin up and popped the
breaker. First time that's happened--that power strip has run every other
tool I have--the only time it's ever popped before was when I was running
the 3 HP router and the "6 HP" shop vac off it at the same time. That
motor's drawing some serious current. Got an exension cord and plugged it
into the wall and it spun right up, a little bit of vibration during spin
up but quite steady once it's up to speed. Anyway, once that was done, it
turned out that the factory tracking was right on.

Finished going through the setup, and then tried it out.

Had a project that had been hanging fire for a while because I needed a
piece of 1/4 inch stock, and I never felt like either planing 4/4 down to
that dimension or springing for "microwood" from Woodcraft. So set fence
on 5/16 and resawed a piece of 6 inch wide 4/4 maple--went fine, no going
off at odd directions, cut was reasonably smooth, two passes throgh the
planer and I have a nice piece of 1/4 inch maple with enough left over to
make at least one and maybe two more.

On 4/4 maple it cuts (through the thickness, not the width) as fast as I'm
comfortable feeding. Cut isn't smooth like a WWII on the RAS (or the Bosch
jigsaw with the right blade) but it's better than I expected for a band
saw, and certainly adequate for many purposes.

The fence is OK, not great--you can adjust it for both horizontal and
vertical perpendicularity, but the degree to which you tighten the
positioning screw alters the horizontal alignment. Still, it'll do and
for anything critical the table's big enough that I should be able to
attach the Incra.

The thing I find interesting though is how much I enjoy working with it.

On balance I'm liking it a lot. When it's on sale it's definitely good
value. Geez, just looked at the clock, it's 10 PM, I had no idea that it
was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke wrote:
First impression--this ain't no toy saw.

Big snippage


The thing I find interesting though is how much I enjoy working with it.

On balance I'm liking it a lot. When it's on sale it's definitely good
value. Geez, just looked at the clock, it's 10 PM, I had no idea that it
was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

John, thanks for posting your report. I for one was glad to hear of a
value being found in any tool less than $3000. And of course,
Craftsman has been the target (rightly so in most cases) of a lot of
hand wringing, disgust, and ****ed off customers. I for one would like
to see them try to take back some of the many miles of good will they
lost over the past few years. Guess my old tired butt is ready to hear
some good news about tools and a company that is at least trying to do
something right.

It is sad but it took one hundred years to build the Sears tool
reputation, and just ten to just about ruin it completely. I still
have a Sears router that is about 25 - 30 years old that runs like a
watch. Those were the days. I still remember seeing Sears tools out
no jobsites from time to time. THAT hasn't happened in a while.

But for them, ten years of crap will be a really tall mountain for them
to climb, and they will do it only if they stay with it. I guess a
good sign is the pretty fair reviews they got for their cabinet saw,
and now maybe something else has worked its way into the stable. I
hope you keep us posted and tell us what you think in a couple of
months.

After all, not everyone can afford a LAGUNA like my rich neighbors in
Houston.

;^) and a VBG over here.

Robert

J. Clarke wrote:
Had it plugged into a power strip (need to put in an outlet
for it) with a breaker, turned it on, it started to spin up and popped the
breaker. First time that's happened--that power strip has run every other
tool I have--the only time it's ever popped before was when I was running
the 3 HP router and the "6 HP" shop vac off it at the same time. That
motor's drawing some serious current.

I've noticed with my Delta 14" BS when I start it up, there is a big
power drop to anything else running in the house - even on different
circuits. Admittedly, my house is 40 yrs. old and I've not upgraded
the electric service, but the BS is the only tool that makes such a big
hit on other circuits at startup.

Mike

On Dec 1, 8:16 am, "Mike" wrote:
I've noticed with my Delta 14" BS when I start it up, there is a big
power drop to anything else running in the house - even on different
circuits. Admittedly, my house is 40 yrs. old and I've not upgraded
the electric service, but the BS is the only tool that makes such a big
hit on other circuits at startup.

Mike

(Sorry to switch directions on this post - thanks for your review of
the 22401! If I hadn't found a used Griz 16"er when I did, I was
seriously considering this Sears machine...)
Anyway, Mike, as far as the power drop, do you have your saw wired for
220V? Is that an option? If so, I'd recommend it. My 1.5HP Griz is
wired for 220, and it's on its own circuit, but it starts right up and
doesn't noticeably dim anything else. Interestingly, tools like the PC
laminate trimmer and Bosch jigsaw seem to dim lights on other circuits
slightly, but have never tripped anything.
Andy

J. Clarke wrote:

On balance I'm liking it a lot.**When*it's*on*sale*it's*definitely*good
value.***Geez,*just*looked*at*the*clock,*it's*10*P M,*I*had*no*idea*that*it
was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

Glad you like it. FWIW, that saw is made for Sears by Rikon (or by whoever
makes bandsaws for Rikon). Even the pasted instruction sheet inside the saw
is the same :-).

--
It's turtles, all the way down

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:31:53 -0800, Andy wrote:

On Dec 1, 8:16 am, "Mike" wrote:
I've noticed with my Delta 14" BS when I start it up, there is a big
power drop to anything else running in the house - even on different
circuits. Admittedly, my house is 40 yrs. old and I've not upgraded
the electric service, but the BS is the only tool that makes such a big
hit on other circuits at startup.

Mike

(Sorry to switch directions on this post - thanks for your review of
the 22401! If I hadn't found a used Griz 16"er when I did, I was
seriously considering this Sears machine...)
Anyway, Mike, as far as the power drop, do you have your saw wired for
220V? Is that an option? If so, I'd recommend it. My 1.5HP Griz is
wired for 220, and it's on its own circuit, but it starts right up and
doesn't noticeably dim anything else. Interestingly, tools like the PC
laminate trimmer and Bosch jigsaw seem to dim lights on other circuits
slightly, but have never tripped anything.

220V is an option and I dunno about Mike but as soon as I can find somebody
locally who has a bloody 20A 220V receptacle and a handy-box in stock
(Home Depot's electrical department has zip these days, not even a geezly
handy-box with half-inch knockouts) it's going on its own circuit.

(time passes)

Well, Lowes has it--thinking about it if I'm going to be inside the
breaker panel anyway maybe it's time to put in a subpanel for the shop.
Been needing to do that for years, maybe now is the time.

Andy

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:36:51 -0800, Larry Blanchard wrote:

J. Clarke wrote:

On balance I'm liking it a lot.Â*Â*WhenÂ*it'sÂ*onÂ*saleÂ*it'sÂ*definitelyÂ*go od
value.Â*Â*Â*Geez,Â*justÂ*lookedÂ*atÂ*theÂ*clock,Â* it'sÂ*10Â*PM,Â*IÂ*hadÂ*noÂ*ideaÂ*thatÂ*it
was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

Glad you like it. FWIW, that saw is made for Sears by Rikon (or by whoever
makes bandsaws for Rikon). Even the pasted instruction sheet inside the saw
is the same :-).

Yep, looks an awful lot like a Rikon or any of several other brands, I
figured that wasn't a coincidence. Debated going the extra 300 or so for
the extended Rikon but decided that I was probably never going to need
that much resaw capacity and if I was ever in a situation where I really
did _need_ it it would mean that someone was paying me to do something
fairly large at which point I could probably afford more saw.


--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Andy wrote:

Anyway, Mike, as far as the power drop, do you have your saw wired for
220V? Is that an option? If so, I'd recommend it. My 1.5HP Griz is
wired for 220, and it's on its own circuit, but it starts right up and
doesn't noticeably dim anything else. Interestingly, tools like the PC
laminate trimmer and Bosch jigsaw seem to dim lights on other circuits
slightly, but have never tripped anything.
Andy

My Delta is running on 110V. I haven't looked into switching it to 220,
because I don't have 220 run to my garage. My electrical service is
pretty old, the breakers are the old pushmatic type, and there are no
open spots in it anyway. In order to do much in the way of upgrading,
I'd need to have new service brought into the house, put in a new
circuit box, and (ideally) put in a sub-box in the garage. No money for
such things now, but who knows down the road.

Mike

J. Clarke wrote:
220V is an option and I dunno about Mike but as soon as I can find somebody
locally who has a bloody 20A 220V receptacle and a handy-box in stock
(Home Depot's electrical department has zip these days, not even a geezly
handy-box with half-inch knockouts) it's going on its own circuit.

Electrical Wholesalers only has 21 locations in the massive state of CT.
I'll bet there are at least (4) within a 20 minute drive for you. G

http://www.ew-inc.com/locations.html

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:28:57 +0000, B A R R Y wrote:

J. Clarke wrote:
220V is an option and I dunno about Mike but as soon as I can find somebody
locally who has a bloody 20A 220V receptacle and a handy-box in stock
(Home Depot's electrical department has zip these days, not even a geezly
handy-box with half-inch knockouts) it's going on its own circuit.

Electrical Wholesalers only has 21 locations in the massive state of CT.
I'll bet there are at least (4) within a 20 minute drive for you. G

http://www.ew-inc.com/locations.html

Yeah, but their catalog doesn't show that part.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:30:08 +0000, J. Clarke wrote:

snip
Had it plugged into a power strip (need to put in an outlet
for it) with a breaker, turned it on, it started to spin up and popped the
breaker. First time that's happened--that power strip has run every other
tool I have--the only time it's ever popped before was when I was running
the 3 HP router and the "6 HP" shop vac off it at the same time. That
motor's drawing some serious current. Got an exension cord and plugged it
into the wall and it spun right up, a little bit of vibration during spin
up but quite steady once it's up to speed.

snip

Well, just finished putting in a 20 amp 240v dedicated circuit for the
saw, it's a _much_ happier camper now. Spins up almost instantaneously.

Looks like they intend it to be rewired for 240--not only does the manual
tell how to do it but when I opened up the junction box on the motor I
found that they had included an extra wire nut. The junction box appears
to be an investment casting and is sealed with an O-ring.

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:30:08 +0000, J. Clarke wrote:

First impression--this ain't no toy saw. It's not a particularly large
box but for the size it's a heavy one, almost 300 pounds. Took two
Sears guys to get it into the truck. This ain't no lightweight toy saw.

Getting it downstairs was fun.

Stand went together fine. After trying to hoist the saw onto the stand,
I finally laid it down and bolted it to the stand then stood the whole
thing up, that worked much better than trying to lift it. Note, put the
table on last, the effing table feels like it weighs as much as the saw.

Structure is steel weldment except for the table and wheels that are
cast iron and the trunnion which appears to be cast aluminum. No
provision for a riser block of course but I don't anticipate resawing
anything wider than 8 inches so it's not an issue.

Went through the adjustment procedure, did fine until I fired it up to
set the tracking. Had it plugged into a power strip (need to put in an
outlet for it) with a breaker, turned it on, it started to spin up and
popped the breaker. First time that's happened--that power strip has run
every other tool I have--the only time it's ever popped before was when
I was running the 3 HP router and the "6 HP" shop vac off it at the same
time. That motor's drawing some serious current. Got an exension cord
and plugged it into the wall and it spun right up, a little bit of
vibration during spin up but quite steady once it's up to speed.
Anyway, once that was done, it turned out that the factory tracking was
right on.

Finished going through the setup, and then tried it out.

Had a project that had been hanging fire for a while because I needed a
piece of 1/4 inch stock, and I never felt like either planing 4/4 down
to that dimension or springing for "microwood" from Woodcraft. So set
fence on 5/16 and resawed a piece of 6 inch wide 4/4 maple--went fine,
no going off at odd directions, cut was reasonably smooth, two passes
throgh the planer and I have a nice piece of 1/4 inch maple with enough
left over to make at least one and maybe two more.

On 4/4 maple it cuts (through the thickness, not the width) as fast as
I'm comfortable feeding. Cut isn't smooth like a WWII on the RAS (or the
Bosch jigsaw with the right blade) but it's better than I expected for a
band saw, and certainly adequate for many purposes.

The fence is OK, not great--you can adjust it for both horizontal and
vertical perpendicularity, but the degree to which you tighten the
positioning screw alters the horizontal alignment. Still, it'll do and
for anything critical the table's big enough that I should be able to
attach the Incra.

The thing I find interesting though is how much I enjoy working with it.

On balance I'm liking it a lot. When it's on sale it's definitely good
value. Geez, just looked at the clock, it's 10 PM, I had no idea that
it was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

Adding some more to this, it came with a 1/4" blade. For some reason I
was thinking it was 3/8. Didn't notice until I put the half inch blade
from sears' $60 set of three blades on it today. The 1/4 inch blade
actually works fine for just about anything I tried except resawing
exotics.

Been using it for resawing various woods into 1/4 inch slices for making
small boxes. So far cut hard maple, quina, sassafras, and lignum vitae.
The 1/4 inch blade works fine on maple but it's working hard on
quina--didn't try it on LV. The half inch blade goes through 5 or more
inches of any of them with no trouble. With the tension tight it goes
straight on all of them. Was able to cut 1/16" with no trouble. The
quarter inch pieces when I didn't screw up the cut needed about 1/32 shaved
in the planer to get a clean surface.

Fence is short for resawing. I suspect that with a taller fence 1/32
veneer wouldn't be beyond its capabilities.

The half inch blade is pretty much the limit in my opinion. I'm working
hard on the tension knob to get that one tight and the tracking screw
is at the limit of its motion. I'd be surprised if it could track a 3/4
inch blade at full tension, but I can't see where there's any real need
for one either.

The tension knob lifts out--it's on a short shaft with a pin through
it that fits into a socket on the tension screw--I'm debating making up a
long crank for the tension, or just sticking a pin through a bolt of the
appropriate diameter and using a ratchet on it.

The extrusion that supports the blade guides is ever so slightly
twisted--if the guides are dead on with it halfway down the left one
will be touching the blade at the top and the right one at the bottom--at
some point I'm going to have to pull it off and straighten it, but it's
not enough so far to induce me to do that.

There's a plastic piece on the lower blade guides that is an annoyance
when changing blades--a little bit of hacking with a utility knife got the
offending corner cleaned up.


--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:30:20 +0000, J. Clarke wrote:

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:30:08 +0000, J. Clarke wrote:

First impression--this ain't no toy saw. It's not a particularly large
box but for the size it's a heavy one, almost 300 pounds. Took two
Sears guys to get it into the truck. This ain't no lightweight toy saw.

Getting it downstairs was fun.

Stand went together fine. After trying to hoist the saw onto the stand,
I finally laid it down and bolted it to the stand then stood the whole
thing up, that worked much better than trying to lift it. Note, put the
table on last, the effing table feels like it weighs as much as the saw.

Structure is steel weldment except for the table and wheels that are
cast iron and the trunnion which appears to be cast aluminum. No
provision for a riser block of course but I don't anticipate resawing
anything wider than 8 inches so it's not an issue.

Went through the adjustment procedure, did fine until I fired it up to
set the tracking. Had it plugged into a power strip (need to put in an
outlet for it) with a breaker, turned it on, it started to spin up and
popped the breaker. First time that's happened--that power strip has run
every other tool I have--the only time it's ever popped before was when
I was running the 3 HP router and the "6 HP" shop vac off it at the same
time. That motor's drawing some serious current. Got an exension cord
and plugged it into the wall and it spun right up, a little bit of
vibration during spin up but quite steady once it's up to speed.
Anyway, once that was done, it turned out that the factory tracking was
right on.

Finished going through the setup, and then tried it out.

Had a project that had been hanging fire for a while because I needed a
piece of 1/4 inch stock, and I never felt like either planing 4/4 down
to that dimension or springing for "microwood" from Woodcraft. So set
fence on 5/16 and resawed a piece of 6 inch wide 4/4 maple--went fine,
no going off at odd directions, cut was reasonably smooth, two passes
throgh the planer and I have a nice piece of 1/4 inch maple with enough
left over to make at least one and maybe two more.

On 4/4 maple it cuts (through the thickness, not the width) as fast as
I'm comfortable feeding. Cut isn't smooth like a WWII on the RAS (or the
Bosch jigsaw with the right blade) but it's better than I expected for a
band saw, and certainly adequate for many purposes.

The fence is OK, not great--you can adjust it for both horizontal and
vertical perpendicularity, but the degree to which you tighten the
positioning screw alters the horizontal alignment. Still, it'll do and
for anything critical the table's big enough that I should be able to
attach the Incra.

The thing I find interesting though is how much I enjoy working with it.

On balance I'm liking it a lot. When it's on sale it's definitely good
value. Geez, just looked at the clock, it's 10 PM, I had no idea that
it was this late, I guess I really do like it a lot.

Adding some more to this, it came with a 1/4" blade. For some reason I
was thinking it was 3/8. Didn't notice until I put the half inch blade
from sears' $60 set of three blades on it today. The 1/4 inch blade
actually works fine for just about anything I tried except resawing
exotics.

Been using it for resawing various woods into 1/4 inch slices for making
small boxes. So far cut hard maple, quina, sassafras, and lignum vitae.
The 1/4 inch blade works fine on maple but it's working hard on
quina--didn't try it on LV. The half inch blade goes through 5 or more
inches of any of them with no trouble. With the tension tight it goes
straight on all of them. Was able to cut 1/16" with no trouble. The
quarter inch pieces when I didn't screw up the cut needed about 1/32 shaved
in the planer to get a clean surface.

Fence is short for resawing. I suspect that with a taller fence 1/32
veneer wouldn't be beyond its capabilities.

The half inch blade is pretty much the limit in my opinion. I'm working
hard on the tension knob to get that one tight and the tracking screw
is at the limit of its motion. I'd be surprised if it could track a 3/4
inch blade at full tension, but I can't see where there's any real need
for one either.

The tension knob lifts out--it's on a short shaft with a pin through
it that fits into a socket on the tension screw--I'm debating making up a
long crank for the tension, or just sticking a pin through a bolt of the
appropriate diameter and using a ratchet on it.

The extrusion that supports the blade guides is ever so slightly
twisted--if the guides are dead on with it halfway down the left one
will be touching the blade at the top and the right one at the bottom--at
some point I'm going to have to pull it off and straighten it, but it's
not enough so far to induce me to do that.

There's a plastic piece on the lower blade guides that is an annoyance
when changing blades--a little bit of hacking with a utility knife got the
offending corner cleaned up.

Further to this, got a couple of pieces just now that only took 1/64 on
the planer to clean up on one side, the other took more because the
faces weren't parallel--it appears that the fence isn't quite vertically
aligned with the blade, or it may be that the fence is just too low for
resawing. Need to work on that.



--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)