Agazzani N'RA-500 bandsaw + Jet 18's

[Larry Gipson]

I've been going through the used Agazzani bandsaw I bought recently, familiarizing myself with it, cleaning it, tuning it, and so forth. I thought I might share some pictures. I also have a few pictures of other Agazzani bandsaws I can refer to when it's useful.

I also own the Jet jwbs-18 that has been talked about in this forum recently and can post a few pictures of that. I've also found a few pics of the X model I can post. Perhaps someone with the Qt model can also some pics. I may have some Qt pics here as well, but haven't run into them lately. I found the evolution of the Jet machine through the various models to be really interesting from an engineering perspective.

I like bandsaw threads. :-)

First, I've added the pic of my two saws side by side once again and then the Agazzani from both sides.

Next I'll take a look more closely inside the boxes. The wheels are absolutely massive. I've removed and replaced the lower wheel and it must weigh 40-50lbs. When you turn the saw off, momentum makes it continue to spin for what seems like several minutes. Maybe I should time it? :-)

[Larry Gipson]

These are the top and lower boxes of the Agazzani. The wheels sort of hide the construction, but I think you can see the internal structure behind the wheels that gives it its strength. All bandsaws of this type have to basically recreate the support system of the earlier cast iron bandsaws. Some have this structure inside the boxes and others still have bracing outside the box. In any case, this is where the stability comes from. A major design consideration is to provide this strength while still allowing the blades to be removed and replaced easily from one side.

The tension indicator is located in the lower left of the top box and a window is provided through the door so it can be easily seen without opening the door.

The lower box on this model has a foot brake, which kind of works like a drum brake on a car. When you push the pedal down, a brake pad rubs against a drum on the back side of the wheel. Both this brake drum and the drive pulley are part of the wheel casting, making it extra heavy.

You can see the lower guides on the top right of the lower box. I really like how they did this. A vacuum port is provided right at the guides. There's a sheet metal baffle that directs the airflow such that it comes down from the top of the table, through the guides, then out. Normally a zero clearance insert is in place around the blade so air pulled from this port doesn't come from the lower box - there's a second vacuum port for that. In the third pic, you see a close up of the lower guide with one of the air baffles removed. The next 2 pics show the air baffles in place, with and without the lower door open.

The last 2 pics show how the air gets pulled from the top of the table. There is this hollow plastic thingy. I suppose it's fine, just that both the last owner and I have had a fight with it. The problem is that there's a flaw in the casting that has left a lump of cast iron where one of the little plastic legs go. I suppose I could grind it out if I were more ambitious, but instead I've fixed the problem by sanding the plastic leg down a little. This allows the top of the plastic to be adjusted even with the table top. It seems this plastic piece may have always been 1/32" or so higher than the table, interfering with the cut for the life of the saw until now. The adjustment screw in the affected leg is missing. Oh well . . . :-) It's fixed now. Maybe I'll grind out the cast iron one day.

[Andrew Hughes]

Nice saw larry,Looks new,Is that a resaw king blade on the saw?

[Larry Gipson]

Sorry Andrew, I don't know. It may be Lenox since that is the brand Eagle Tools normally uses I think. It's a 1" carbide.

[Van Huskey]

Probably a Lenox Trimaster, if you can no longer read the printing on the blade you could measure the kerf to determine what it is.

Can't wait for the rest of the thread!

[Larry Gipson]

This set of pics shows how the jwbs-18 is built. Of course, it's an 18" and costs about half of the Agazzani, so direct comparisons shouldn't apply.

There are a couple of small braces in the bottom box to support the motor, but no braces at all in the top box. Most bracing is done on the outside of the boxes as can be seen from the motor side view. There have been several discussions regarding weakness in this machine (flex) when the blade is tensioned and also lateral flex when pressure is applied to the guides. Why might this be? The sheet metal is around 1/8" in the boxes themselves, which is about the same thickness as the Agazzani. It must be something else.

A clue? When lateral pressure us applied to the guides, the slot in the blade cover near the spine can be seen to flex in and out, opening and closing the gap. The connection of the guide post to the top box seems rock solid. What seems to be happening is that the pressure applied to the top box flexes from the spine. The 4th pic shows the bottom connection of the box to the spine. The weld is only about 1 7/8" long. The rest makes the gap for blade access. The top weld goes the entire width of the box, but apparently isn't enough support. The only ways to fix this would be to 1.) Make the metal in the spine Much Thicker, or 2.) Somehow create a bracket that would transfer the force from the thin metal sheet in the middle of the spine to the sides of the spine. Apparently you don't want to hang a box in the middle of weak sheet metal and think it won't move when sideways force is put on the box. Just educated guesses.


I've never had a problem with flex as I tighten up the blade on the machine. Of course, I've only used a 1/2" bimetal blade.

Next we'll see the improvements in the saw in the 18x version . . .

[Larry Gipson]

I think this is the version of the saw I'd want. They made it massive. The weight has to have increased by something like 100lbs.

These aren't my pics. I found them on the internet. If they're copyrighted, I apologize all over the place and will take them down immediately.

The interesting thing to me is how much stronger they made the saw. First, you see the sort of angular geometry in the spine. This can be seen in the first 3 pics. If you compare the 3rd pic to the same pic of the original saw, you can see how much larger the brace is along the (bottom) outside of the top box. The vertical brace is also larger. Looking inside the box, you can see a brace along the bottom, which is likely part of the back brace from the motor side. You also see a 45 degree brace in the lower left corner. Looking closely at this angular brace, you see a piece of metal going behind the saw blade extending to the side of the spine. This is what I was saying before. Unless you increase the thickness of the metal on the face of the spine where the boxes are hung, you have to have a brace of some kind to transfer the force to the edge.

The same 45 degree brace can be found in the bottom box as well. This can be seen in the user guide for the machine.

If someone has this saw, please let me know how much lateral flex is left in the machine. :-)

Of course, the Agazzani and Rikon machines have taken a much different approach, filling up much of the boxes behind the wheels with bracing.

I found the pics I had of the Qt, but they're in a user guide and might be copyrighted. I'll see if I can find some - or maybe someone else can post? Meanwhile, I'll post more on the Agazzani next.

[Larry Gipson]

The kerf is close to 1/16"

[Van Huskey]

The kerf is close to 1/16"

Probably a Trimaster a Resaw King has a thinner kerf.

BTW Larry if you want to keep all your posts close together you can just make mutiple posts with just a couple of words in them to hold the place, then within 24 hours you can edit them to include the pictures and text you want.

[Larry Gipson]

The pic on the left is the trunnion. No gears on this model. The 4 coarse threaded bolts & lock nuts are supposed to to the alignment work. If they're all loosened, the table is free to move in every direction just like a Unisaw. They control the angle the table makes with the blade from side to side and (should) control the relationship from front to back. I've been able to get it level from side to side and from front to back using the return-to-zero bolt in the second pic, but then the calibration of the angle scale is off from zero. I've played with it now for about a half hour. There has to be a way :-)

The trunnion is a really nicely machined piece of equipment. Only the bolt adjustment has proven elusive.

The third pic is just a terminal block the line cord gets tied to. The 2 blacks are hot; the colorful one is ground.

If you take the cover off the motor, the above colored wires can be seen connecting to yet another terminal block. There's a relay that completely disconnects the motor feed from the line cord, thank goodness. Don't ask me why :-) If you step on the brake, open a door, hit the red button, or just turn off the "on/off" switch, the power is killed to the motor. Everything has to be right before the motor can get power.

Some have noticed that there's no place on this machine that doesn't look new. It's several years old, but pristine.

Finally, on the far right is a pic of the new geared trunnion on the new models saws for comparison (from Eagle Tools). I have to admit I'd like to have this, but I notice it has those same coarse adjustment bolts on the top. Hmmm.

[Larry Gipson]

The pic on the left sort of hints at the large sheet metal tube reinforcement that goes along the bottom of the top box behind the wheel. It's angled at the bottom to match the box, but is level at the top behind the wheel.

The middle pic shows where the guide bar enters the top box on the bottom.

The far right pic shows this same guide bar as it exits the top of the tubing I mentioned. In other words, there's a worm gear or some such mechanism in that tubing that raises and lowers the guide bar. The problem is that the tolerance is a bit loose for this bit of machinery. It allows the guide bar to flex from where it mounts to the tubing. It's one of the few weaknesses I've seen in the design. Don't get me wrong. It's way better than my jwbs-18, but not as good as an old style (cast iron) Delta 10 inch I played with in Toolmart one day. That thing was just solid.

The Agazanni doesn't flex from the spine as does the Jet and I see no flex as I tension up the 1" carbide blade. It's only this little connection to the tubing in the top box that's the issue. I'm guessing the flex is only about 1/8" at the guides. It makes me want to weld a machined collar around the guide bar (far right pic) to see if I could firm it up some. I'll have to disassemble this bit when I have the top wheel out one day just to see how it works. I'd imaging the guide bar is supported at top and bottom already.

And yes. The cut does show a small gouge when the work is started and stopped, or pressure is changed. It's really small though. I'll have to resaw something once I get the vacuum hooked up and add a pic of the cut to the page.