New ceramic guide blocks for bandsaws

[Geoff Crimmins]

I was perusing the Spaceage Ceramics website the other day and noticed that they now sell ceramic guide blocks for bandsaws with ball-bearing side guides. The kits include some steel and fiber washers, and the ceramic blocks, which have slots in them so they can be attached in place of the bearing guides. This caught my attention because I prefer guide blocks over bearing guides, but I think Laguna is the only company that still sells bandsaws with guide blocks. I have no complaints with Laguna, but it's nice to have options. Has anyone here tried these?

--Geoff

[Erik Loza]

Not firsthand but a few customers have with positive results. Look at what Space Age charges. Like I've been saying all along, you're paying for a name at some other places.

Erik

[Geoff Crimmins]

Thanks for the reply, Erik. I'm glad to hear that these guides are working well for people. And yes, they seem pretty affordable compared to some other options. It seems like it would be a good marketing move for Grizzly to sell these as an option for their 513 series of saws. There seem to be a lot of posts from people on the fence between a Grizzly 513x2 and a Laguna 14" saw. Significant factors seem to be the larger size of the Grizzly, and the ceramic guides on the Lagunas.

--Geoff

[Bob Vavricka]

Now this one of the things I hate about this site. :) it costs me money. I didn't know this company even existed and I just ordered a set of ceramic guides for my band saw. Not that I haven't been wishing for something better than what it had.

[Bob Bouis]

I don't suppose they have a laguna-style set for Minimax saws, do they? I didn't see one. Not a fan of the euro type.

[Carroll Courtney]

I'm living a shelter life,but what does ceramic guides do for ya?Does these guides make a big noticeable difference or just slightly?Like ya'll if it helps I want it but if its just a fad then I need to pass.-----Carroll

[Geoff Crimmins]

I don't suppose they have a laguna-style set for Minimax saws, do they? I didn't see one. Not a fan of the euro type.
Laguna sells Laguna Guides that they say can replace the Euro guides on most Minimax bandsaws. They are listed on their website. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of them, or know anything beyond what's on the website, but it sounds like they might work for you.

--Geoff

[Cary Falk]

Now this one of the things I hate about this site. :) it costs me money..

+1000. I keep finding stuff I didn't know I wanted.

[Bob Bouis]

Laguna sells Laguna Guides that they say can replace the Euro guides on most Minimax bandsaws. They are listed on their website. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of them, or know anything beyond what's on the website, but it sounds like they might work for you.

Yeah, but they're $280. Seems like a lot of money for some little aluminum brackets and a few flakes of ceramic.

[Erik Loza]

Yeah, but they're $280. Seems like a lot of money for some little aluminum brackets and a few flakes of ceramic.

According to the Space Age site, you could outfit a Minimax bandsaw with all ceramic guides for about $150. Of course, it will not be the fancy blue color.

Erik

[Bob Bouis]

It's not just the ceramic I want, but the adjustability of the two-point Laguna guides. It would be nice to be able to just tilt the guides to sit perfectly on the blade instead of trying to carefully adjust the bracket, shim the guides, whatever else it is you're supposed to do to make the Euro guides actually contact the blade evenly.

[Erik Loza]

It's not just the ceramic I want, but the adjustability of the two-point Laguna guides. It would be nice to be able to just tilt the guides to sit perfectly on the blade instead of trying to carefully adjust the bracket, shim the guides, whatever else it is you're supposed to do to make the Euro guides actually contact the blade evenly.

Bob, here is my 2-cents, feel free to do with as you like:

-Ceramic is not expensive and neither is aluminum. As you pointed out, why should a set of guides cost almost $300?

-Being in the industry for as long as I have, I've seen it all as far as this or that vendor making claims about why you absolutely must have this or that system. It's just blade guides, not an internal combustion engine or computer.

-I've been working with bigger (greater than 1/2") blades on bandsaws for over a decade and never had a situation where the stock (Euro-style, in my case) could not give me the cut I wanted.

-For straightline cuts with blades wider than 1/2", I set the guides so that they never touch the blade during the cut. That gives the straightest cut possible.

Again, just what works for me.

Erik

[Bob Bouis]

Eric, thanks for the tip. I've heard that before (I think from you, actually), but it doesn't work well for my application. I've got two things going against me, first that I'm cutting green wood, and it's just not possible to keep the blade as sharp as I'd want it to be. I also have the 24" model and that extra resaw height doesn't help with the rigidity of the blade. If I had it to do over I'd probably get a different saw with less resaw height, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

I'm actually experimenting with wide, heavy gauge (~.42?) bands like the kind you use on sawmills. The thinner gauge ones (~.35?) didn't work well for me. The tension I needed to get the beam strength I wanted led to them breaking after a while. I've also switched to sharpening with a file since clumsily sharpening with a dremel probably wasn't helping with the blade integrity.

I like to think the laguna guides would help the blade resist twisting as it often does when dull.

[Cary Falk]

I called them this morning. No thrust bearing solution for the Grizzly G0513/514 series bandsaws, only guide bearing.:(

[Glenn de Souza]

Bob, here is my 2-cents, feel free to do with as you like:

-Ceramic is not expensive and neither is aluminum. As you pointed out, why should a set of guides cost almost $300?

-Being in the industry for as long as I have, I've seen it all as far as this or that vendor making claims about why you absolutely must have this or that system. It's just blade guides, not an internal combustion engine or computer.

-I've been working with bigger (greater than 1/2") blades on bandsaws for over a decade and never had a situation where the stock (Euro-style, in my case) could not give me the cut I wanted.

-For straightline cuts with blades wider than 1/2", I set the guides so that they never touch the blade during the cut. That gives the straightest cut possible.

Again, just what works for me.

Erik

Erik,
Does your opinion change when the blade is less than 1/2"?

I have standard euro guides right now, and it looks to me like the Space Age product uses the existing euro guide housing to basically create a ceramic rub block type situation, which is quite different than the Laguna ceramic guide system looks to be. I would like to hear from anyone who has converted from standard euro guides to the Space Age product and can explain what the performance benefits are.

I've had bigger priorities than changing the euro guides on my bandsaw, but there has always been a suspicion that I could do better than the euro guides for smaller blades and especially scroll cutting. But it's just a suspicion.
Thanks

[Erik Loza]

Glenn, it is possibly just me but I can't make blades 1/2" or less work with the Euro guides. Reason being that even at the correct blade tension, there is some much fore and aft movement of the blade that teeth clash with the guides, make sparks, etc. I think this is a by-product of the ridicuous resaw capacities on the modern Euro bandsaws, where the blade is really long and you have this great span between the flywheels. I don't use a 14" bandsaw but my guess is that if you put the same blade on a 14" machine and then an MM16 and tensioned it the same way, there would be a lot more fore and aft movement on the MM16. So, my solution is, for straightline cutting, always use a 3/4" or 1.0" blade on a Euro saw or if it's for curved work, where you actually want the guide blocks to pinch or to guide the blade, use a Carter Stabilizer, coolblocks, or something like that. Or, if you do a lot of work with thin blades, pick up an el-cheapo bandsaw just for that. Hope that all makes sense.

Erik

[Geoff Crimmins]

I hope I didn't imply that ceramic guides are the only good guides. I often cut green wood for turning blanks. Ball bearing guides tend to squish sawdust onto the blade, while guide blocks tend to scrape it off of the blade, so I prefer steel or ceramic guide blocks. That's why it's nice to have the option of replacing bearing guides with ceramic guide blocks. I also think ball bearing guides are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, but that's just my opinion. I've never used euro guides so I don't how they compare. I would expect them to be better than ball bearing guides.

--Geoff

[William Addison]

The Euro guides on my MM16 gave up the ghost a while back and when I checked w/MM I was given a price of $50 for each bearing for a total of $300 and I didn't like them that much. I looked around I found that Laguna was having a sale on their guides and I ordered them. They are not a drop in installation but I got it done and wrote a post about it here which the search engine can find.

Do they perform better than the Euros? Maybe, but not by any great margin, they are a little easier to set up and work well with blades from 1" to 3/8" with no problem. They spark some which I don't care for but no problem so far.

With wider blades guides aren't so important and they do control twist when cutting curves with narrower blades. I like them just fine but I wouldn't buy them as an upgrade over Euros unless I needed new bearings.

[Glenn de Souza]

Thank you for the feedback Erik. What you are saying makes some sense from a physics standpoint. I've been able to get by with narrow blades on my saw, but I may be the guy who thinks Saltines are great because he's never tasted a Ritz. Thanks again,

[Erik Loza]

The price of Euro guides, as a replacement item, are ridiculous. Doesn't seem to matter who the vendor is. I researched it, hoping to find a viable source for MM owners who needed to replace theirs, and couldn't. They can't be that expensive in Europe, so I am not sure why they cost so much over here. I agree that it could be cheaper to purchase ceramics than Euro-guides if you need replacements. That being said, Euro guides should last basically forever if they're set up right. The ones we had in the shop saw almost daily use for 10+ years and still worked great.

Erik

[Van Huskey]

http://myplace.frontier.com/~unix888/lagunaceramicguideinstallonminimaxmm20replacingthe originalbearingguides/

Link to Mike's install of Laguna ceramic guide on a MM20.

I really like Laguna guides BUT for me guides have as much to do with what saw and what you are cutting than anything else. I have the Euro guides on my MM20 but it is only used for resawing and frankly with proper tension on a wide carbide blade guides don't really matter much. Sam Blasco has demoed the Minimax saws with no guides resawing.


As for the Spaceage ceramic replacements I actually think they are money well spent, while expensive they don't fail like bearings. Using small bearings for guides is a fail on the bandsaw manufacturers part, they chased what the customers wanted not what was best. Large bearing guides like (good) Euro guides and the large Carter products et al are great but guides made from inline skate bearings are a poor choice, cheap simple block guides are better any day.