carter bandsaw guides..worth it?

[jerry kuceyeski]

i have a five year old 18 inch jet bandsaw. i was considering carter conversion kit upgrade for it. i am wondering .... will this make a noticeable difference in cutting accuracy and smoothness, as the company suggests? the saw cuts ok, i guess, but i have always had problems keeping the blade from wandering in resaw cuts. i think it is tensioned and adjusted properly and i have a sharp blade in it. anybody with first hand experience with refitting with the carter conversion kit? also, what about the blade stabilizer. does it improve small radius cutting?

[Mike OMelia]

How come Carter does not make guides for the Grizzly 19"?

Mike

[Cary Falk]

How come Carter does not make guides for the Grizzly 19"?

Mike

Probably because they already have bearing guides. I haven't turned my G0513x2 yet but I am used to cool blocks. IF the bearings don't work so well I am going to make some cool block holders.

[Ray Newman]

About a year ago, I bought the Carter guides & tires for my 14" Delta BS. Saw a demonstration @ wood show.

Prior to installing these 2 Carter products, the saw worked well, but exhibited too much drift when resawing & more often than not, left a rough cut. For sawing 3/4" or thinner stock & gentle curves it worked OK, but not great.

After installation, there was a dramatic improvement in the quality of the cuts -- even w/ a non premimum blade. I can resaw down to about 1/16" - 3/32" w/ no problem. Tight curves are easy to do. Smooth cuts -- straight, curved, resaw, etc.

I should have bought these 2 products years ago, but just thought that it was advertising hype.

I am now seriously considering Carter's quick release tension sytem as the next upgrade.

[Don Abele]

Jerry, like Ray I upgraded my bandsaw with a complete Carter makeover about a year and half ago. I have the Jet 14" with riser and use Timberwolf blades. When resawing I had terrible problems with drift. When I upgraded I changed out my tires and the tension spring and added the guides and the quick tension release. They made an absolutely incredible improvement in the performance of the saw. It was like working with a completely different saw. I can now resaw with my 3/4" blade very nicely with very little drift (managable). Resawing is very slow going (because of the saw, not the guides) so I'll be upgrading to a larger BS in the spring/summer. I'm keeping this one for all the other smaller work.

Ray, get the release - you'll love it!

Be well,

Doc

[Mike OMelia]

Probably because they already have bearing guides. I haven't turned my G0513x2 yet but I am used to cool blocks. IF the bearings don't work so well I am going to make some cool block holders.

Yes, the saws have bearing guides. But I though Carter Guides were an upgrade.

Mike

[David DeCristoforo]

In a word....yes. They are worth it.

[Brad Shipton]

I changed out the stock rollers on my 18" GI to a carter setup and have found it is a big improvement. Far easier to set, the bearing pair supports the blade much better and having a bearing rolling behind the blade in the direction of the blade rotation just makes more sense. One word of caution, make sure to figure out exactly how it mounts before ordering. The 14" kits seem to be a direct mount, but the kits for some of the larger machines do not fit without some extra parts. I ended up fabbing up some steel pieces to fit the new assemblies. I did find the various parts from Carter for mounting after a bit of searching and measuring.

Brad

[Pete Bradley]

There are a lot of things that can cause wandering resaws. Worn band, technique, insufficiently rigid fence, and insufficient tension are common culprits. If your guides are worn (any kind of guides) that can contribute, especially blocks with faces worn out of parallel.

For a data point, I make 1/32" resaws with steel blocks no problem. I'm not saying the Carters are bad, just that there may be cheaper solutions to your problem.

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebradlzz/bandsaw_mythbusters.jpg

Pete

[glenn bradley]

Pete has a valid point and I would exhaust less expensive solutions first. that being said my Dad's 1950's 14" Delta is like a new saw with Carter guides and blades, heavy spring and new tires.

My old 12" C-man did great with Cool Blocks for about $14. My current 1070's 10" Delta uses steel with a roller back. my 17" Griz is all rollers.

[Peter Quinn]

Th e carter guides work great, make adjustment and setup simple too. Worth every penny.

[Arnold E Schnitzer]

I put the Carter system on my 16" Jet and noticed little difference. After about a year the bearings became stiff and incredibly noisy.

[Bob Aquino]

I think it depends on the quality of the original guides. The guides on my first saw were the original delta guides from the fifties (14" wood/metal saw) and they were fine, even with the original metal blocks.

I replaced that saw with an 18" delta (not my smartest move) and found that the oem guides were garbage. Those were replaced with a carter conversion kit and it made all the difference in the world. Recently I picked up a 20" Rockwell saw and found out that I couldn't get the steel inserts that were used to build up the width for the wider blades. I could have tried to gin up some on my own but opted to go with a carter conversion kit for this saw as well. So far I am very happy with the tracking and resaw capability of this saw with these guides. The older guides may have worked well, but without extra inserts I wasn't going anywhere.

Old Guides:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/aquino.bob/SMm__f0KddI/AAAAAAAADj4/dn4Ge3qKHG8/s800/P1030335.JPG

Carter Guide conversion:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/aquino.bob/SNaPkYpTGVI/AAAAAAAAER4/YiFof6Zg2Hw/s800/P1030358.JPG