Carter Band Saw Products

[Jerry Thompson]

I would like some info on Carter's bandsaw products. I was looking at the kit for $180.00. Does it provide enough benefit to justify the $. I have a Delta 14" and I am going to do a lot of resawing in the near future. The lumber will be cherry and walnut.
Sorry for the font. I just now noticed it.

[Peter Kuhlman]

Just starting to learn the benefits myself as I just installed the kit with micro-adjust on my 14" Jet yesterday. Was using CoolBlocks bu t they sure wore fast. Hoping for great blade control. Nice quality products.

[Tom Hintz]

I have been a fan of Carter's stuff for years. tbheir bearing guides are the best I have seen and are on every band saw I have int my shop either when it comes or shortly afterward. In my opinion with Carter Guides (and fence stuff maybe) along with Timber Wolf blades I am pretty much in band saw heaven.

[Philip Duffy]

I have had a very negative experience with the Carter system. The amount of improvement is negligible compared to the very large cost. After multiple adjustments of the tension, the wheels, the guide parts and all sorts of advise from friends, very little has changed from my old cool blocks.

[Ron Natalie]

I've got the carter guides, both he regular ones and the stabilizer. They are a darn site a lot nicer than the original equipment on my grizzly 16". I agree with Tom, they are very easy to adjust and switching out the standard guide for the stabilizer takes only seconds when I want to play with that (now admittedly I have not yet really had any use to that other than to show my high school shop teacher wrong as to how tight you can turn a bandsaw cut). Someday I'll get into some bandsaw boxes. What I really wish is that I could get the quick tension release on this saw (but they only make it for the 14" delta and its clones).

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Jerry,
I own a Delta/ Rockwell 14" saw and have for many years. Your biggest problem won't be blade guides when you resaw. It will be blade and blade tension, and horse power. You will need to find a good re-saw blade. Depending on what you will saw, and I assume you will not be sawing green wood, the blade will have more effect on your success or lack of success than anything else. Secondly, don't bite off more than you can chew. Your saw was built for 6" saw height. It probably has a 1/2 hp motor. That will limit the speed you can feed. Blade tension is last but equally important. As the blade stresses and heats up it can begin to bow within the cut. That will overheat and break the blades. Co, spend your money on a good blade specifically made for resawing, stick with sawing dry wood, control your feed speed and if necessary, buy a new tension spring to achieve the greatest tension possible with your blade.

[Peter Kelly]

As above, Carter Guides are nice but they aren't going to improve much with re-sawing. You're better off spending that $180 on the right blades, a new spring and a blade tension gauge from Louis Iturra. Give him a ring and explain what you're trying to do: 904-642-2802.

[Van Huskey]

First, I love the Carter products. I have put their guides on dozens of bandsaws over the years and used a handful of their other stuff on different saws. The main benefit from using carter guides over most stock guides is ease of adjustment. Guides are not miracle workers and especially when resawing if the saw is not pushed beyond its capability and you have the correct blade and the saw is tuned correctly the blade should not contact the guides very often if at all.

For me resawing's priorities are blade, ability to properly tension said blade and horsepower.

If you are really planning a lot of resawing (especially if it is veneer or taller than 7-8") you may well want to consider looking for a more capable saw, but it can be done with a 14" Delta saw but it is way beyond what that saw was designed to do.

I suggest one of the hardened spring steel blades for that saw when doing resawing. They came from the meat cutting industry and have thin kerfs, thin gauge backer, limited set and are very sharp (but do dull rather quickly). They are avaiable as the Woodslicer from Highland, Bladerunner from Iturra and the Kerfmaster from Spectrum Supply, they are all the same stock but Highland charges the most and Spectrum the least. For some basic blade info you can check here: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?149862-Lets-talk-bandsaw-blades!&highlight=lets+talk+bandsaw

[glenn bradley]

As shown from other responses; most love Carter's stuff, for resawing - the blade is key and a cast iron 14" saw is at the very limit of its ability so don't be too hard on it. If you will primarily re-saw, I too suggest a different tool. We can't all afford to run out and buy a new saw and I think we all understand that. Just don't curse your hot-rodded 14" saw for not being something it is not ;-)

[Stew Hagerty]

Here is a link to a thread I started after I installed my Carter Guides. I would go into details, but the thread does that quite well, so lets just say that I was VERY IMPRESSED!!!

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?184591-I-m-Impressed!!!&highlight=

I can not recommend them highly enough. Buy em... Just buy em

[Dan Rude]

I had bought some Carter guides a couple of years ago when the woodworking show was around here. Put off putting them on, then decided to do it a few months back. They made a huge difference in setting up my 14 " C-Man Pro. Wish I had put them on sooner. Well worth the price if just that I don't need that little allen wrench to adjust my guides anymore.
Dan

[Steve Kohn]

I've been less than impressed with Carter customer service however. I was restoring an old Homecraft bandsaw and wanted to use Carter guides. Sent them an email asking what version of their product I should buy. Well they told me to get the wrong set of guides. I was able to make them work, but it took a lot of work and machine time to do so. It was frustrating to say the least.

[Van Huskey]

I've been less than impressed with Carter customer service however. I was restoring an old Homecraft bandsaw and wanted to use Carter guides. Sent them an email asking what version of their product I should buy. Well they told me to get the wrong set of guides. I was able to make them work, but it took a lot of work and machine time to do so. It was frustrating to say the least.

This is not an isolated incident, if they make a stabilizer or guides specifically for and listed for a saw it usually is a simple and more or less perfect fit, get beyond that and you could run into trouble. They make a lot of guides for just about every saw made but the more odd-ball the saw the more of their homework you have to do.

[ian maybury]

This is not an isolated incident, if they make a stabilizer or guides specifically for and listed for a saw it usually is a simple and more or less perfect fit, get beyond that and you could run into trouble. They make a lot of guides for just about every saw made but the more odd-ball the saw the more of their homework you have to do.

+1 on the service/if it's not stock or on the list it's very hard to get information. My experience in trying to figure if the guides might fit a Taiwanese saw sold in the US under a different brand to where I could have sourced it in the UK was that I had to give up. Nice ladies, but whoever knows about saws in the organisation didn't seem to be available to provide input and nobody was offering to go look.

ian

[Van Huskey]

Nice ladies, but whoever knows about saws in the organisation didn't seem to be available to provide input and nobody was offering to go look.

ian

I didn't really want to say it but the folks on the phones, though very nice ladies as you note, don't seem to know bandsaws and I have never been able to get past them with any ease. I may hit the Carter booth up at IWF this summer and see if I can get an extension for someone that can deal with the hard issues.

For the stabilizer I have found a place with line drawings that are really helpful, they aren't on Carter's site anywhere I can find and I have only come across them one other place on the web, even on the PS Wood site they are hard to find unless you know where to look:

http://www.pswood.com/home.php?cat=49

I have been able to confirm several "non-listed" applications for the Stabilizer by using these. I have always hoped to find a similar set of drawings for the guides but as of yet nothing.

[Ron Natalie]

Did you try EMAILING them? I had problems with the mounts for my ancient 16" grizzly which was listed as being supported but there were minor things wrong with it fitting. I made the modifications my self (I had to shim out the block and modify my blade guard a bit), but I wrote them and they sent me back that there were a couple of models of that griz (plausible) and that if I wanted they'd send me a slightly wider block that I wouldn't need to shim.

The top guide mount is the same for the stablizer as it is for the regular blade guard. (I know that doesn't help you with the bottom mount).