Laguna or Agazzani

[Dan O'Sullivan]

I've cut a lot of wood on the thing - so much that I've worn out four Resaw King blades and one Lennox CT carbide blade on it. Equipped with this kind of blade, the saw just cuts straight ahead. I never consider drift angle. I never measure it, and never adjust for it. I slice veneer with the OEM fence, or with a shop-built taller fence. So if I were you, I'd buy a Lennox CT or Trimaster blade instead of a Driftmaster fence. It will cost you less. JB

Hey Jamie
I was wondering? You have lots of time with the Resaw King and the Lenox blade. I have used the Tri Master a bunch and love it. I just bought a couple of Resaw Kings(1" blade) for resaw work. I've heard good things. I like the results from the RK blades so far. I have not used the Lenox CT and wondered how it performs compared to the TriM?

dan

[Chris Desautels]

I purchased a 20" Aggi about a year ago. I researched and agonized over my choices for about 6 months before committing. Other saws I considered were the Minimax 16 and 18", Laguna 18" and the Aggi 18".

In short, I'm thrilled with my choice. I LOVE this saw. It's fit an finish are excellent. It's performance is astonishing. Jesse at Eagle Tools was a pleasure to work with. No one crates a tool as well as they do. They could have parachuted the thing into my driveway and I don't think it would have been damaged.

It's difficult to buy a machine sight unseen, but here are some of the points that helped me decide.

First of all, I think the Aggi has a very competitive price point. Much better then the Laguna or Minimax 16"

Second, If you surf for long enough, you'll come across customer support horror stories for both Laguna and Minimax, but try as I might, I could not find one for Aggis.

Third, don't be impressed by bells and whistles. The primary reason to get a high end bandsaw is the performance that's possible with a solidly built well engineered machine.

I've heard some people complain about the guides. I'm not sure why, It comes with Euro guides and they work great for me. I'm resawing veneers with it. But if it really bugs you, you can always outfit it with whatever you want.

What finally did it for me is that Aggazani is one of the few companies left that still manufactures it's own machines. I thought that it would count for something and the saw that I received bore that out. The others all contract the manufacturing to other companies.

If you do go with an Aggi, I would suggest you consider the 20" over the 18". Their true industrial build specs begin at the 20", I'm sure the 18" is a great machine, but the 20 is one beefy machine. There is no piece of wood I could throw on this thing that would even come close to budging the table. It's has a 13.5" resaw height, So that's the limit I suppose. But honestly, If it did have the space and my shop we're big enough (and I had about 8 people to help me) I could probably drop a 3 foot wide log on the thing and it wouldn't even wince.

[ian maybury]

As some of you know i've just bought a slightly used 24in Agazzani after doing a lot of thinking about buying a locally available saw very similar to a 21in Grizzly. (not the re-saw model) Basically because the Agazzani (from feedback here and elsewhere) was more of a known quantity, and one came available at a very good price.

It's not in use yet as so far i've not had much luck in my search for a used phase converter of the right size. I've even got a 1in Lenox Woodmaster CT waiting to try out...

The bit i've not managed to figure out relates to the Driftmaster Fence. It's not exactly rocket science, and the other makers could easily offer something like it i imagine if they wanted.

Yet most (e.g. MM) seem to suggest re-sawing/cutting veneers between the blade and the stock fence - which setting isn't a big deal to adjust surely? It maybe requires (some say not) a quick pass of the face to the fence over a jointer before each cut, something that's not going to be practical if you are deep re-sawing and only have a narrow jointer. But there's the odd noise about that suggests the micro adjuster on the DM can be restrictive too.

Grandstanding aside, it suggests to me that it's possibly a bit of a toss up situation. That maybe the DM has some features that sound attractive, but that equally the real world advantage over a decent stock fence is possibly pretty minimal - especially with a good saw and blade where drift may be less of an issue. (pardon me for a moment while i put on my steel helmet )...

ian

[Van Huskey]

Chris, Mark did get an Agazzani. My plan was to get the B-24 but I waited long enough and found a MM-20 for a REALLY good deal. All of the big Italian three are great saws and there is really not that much difference between them, the horror stories are pretty proportional to the saws out there, there are not many Agazzanis since they are almost mythical when trying to get info on them. As for the Lagunas the CS and/or QC problems are very rare for their Italian saws, most center on their Asian products.