Laguna bandsaw

[tom martin]

About 12 years ago I decided I needed a good bandsaw. I did my research and decided on the Laguna 16sec. With 12 inch cutting hight capacity and a 2.5 hp motor I knew I could cut my turning blanks. The saw never ran as smooth as the reviews led me to expect, but it did the job. Recently I needed new tires. I have run the new urethane tires for the past several years, but have had trouble tracking. I decided to call Tom at Suffolk machine based on feedback from the creek. Tom told me that because my wheels had a channel in the center (my original tires had a corresponding (tenon?) on the back that fit in the groove and kept the tires centered) I should talk to laguna or take it to a machine shop and have the grove filled and remachined with a small crown at which point I could run any tires. He did say that it could mess up the alignment so I decided to call laguna.
My tire arrived yesterday and when I opened the package there were two strips of rubbed. I called Laguna and explained that they sent me two strips of rubber instead of two tires. The tech explained that thats the way all of there tires are! They no longer sell Meber bandsaws and he said that the factory tires were too expensive so they were going this rout. I asked about the channel explaining the trouble I was having tracking and he said that the rubber strips needed to be set in flexible epoxy and that the epoxy would fill the channel and I could then sand a crown in the rubber!!
My question is does anyone have a newer laguna and if so do they have the glue on strips? Has anyone ever heard of this before? Is there such a thing as flexible epoxy? and finally is there anyone out there that needs a 16 inch bandsaw!!!!!!!!

[Jack Mincey]

I don't own one, but think that Mini Max uses a tire that fits into a channel. Maybe one of their tires would fit your bandsaw?? Here is a link to Mini Max showing one of their tires. It is on the right second row down.
http://www.minimax-usa.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=18&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=36
Jack

[tom martin]

Thanks Jack, I sent them an email. The tires do look very similar-only the Mini Max looks thicker. Hard to tell from the photo.

[Andrew Hughes]

Hi tom i ran across the same problem on my laguna 16 sc. I sent the wheels to a saw sharpening service .They glued new tires on and trued them.With a crown.I am in california .The service is daily saw service in south gate.Hope this helps