Any experience with new Laguna 14/12 bandsaw?

[Lester Sak]

Congratulations Augusto, my saw arrived last Friday. So far I can't imagine needing any more saw than this. I was concerned that running it on 110v. would be limiting what the saw could do, but so far so good. I've been able to resaw a regular 2x4 paper thin using a Laguna 3/8" blade. I also got the Laguna 5/8" for larger board resaws but haven't tried it yet.

The fit/finish of the saw is really first class, although I had a problem with the table. Tightening the table split clamp would not bring the front and back of the table into alignment. The front (infeed) portion of the table is lower than the rear causing wood to catch when being pushed into the blade. With a straight edge across the split, I was able to fit 3 sheets of paper (.012") in the gap.


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I called Woodwerks who sold me the saw and they suggested I contact Laguna directly and ask to speak to Jason (although anyone could help). I called and mentioned the pictures I took which Jason looked at and immediately said that the table would be replaced. I received a phone call back a short time later letting me know that Laguna needs to order the new table and will send me an email when it's shipped. It will include an RA to return the other table to them.

I was initially put off from reading so many negative reviews of Laguna's customer service, and was close to getting the Rikon so that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But Woodwerks assured me that all that has changed, and if I were to have any problems dealing with them, they would call on my behalf. I'm very satisfied with the way this was handled and have no hesitation is recommending both the saw and Woodwerks.

[Augusto Orosco]

Sorry to hear you had issues with the table, but happy to hear they are being responsive with CS. Upon reading your email I checked on the table and fortunately, mine is dead flat.

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I haven't been able to do much with the saw yet, and don't have experience with any other saws to compare it, too; but with those caveats, I am very pleased. As you mentioned the fit/finish is great, and everything went easily in place during assembly. The manual could be a little better, though, but it's not a big deal. I also bought the optional light, and although it is very nicely made, I find it's range of motion a little limited.

But I am really nitpicking here. I think it's a very fine machine. Time will tell how it holds up, but all the good signs are there!

Congratulations Augusto, my saw arrived last Friday. So far I can't imagine needing any more saw than this. I was concerned that running it on 110v. would be limiting what the saw could do, but so far so good. I've been able to resaw a regular 2x4 paper thin using a Laguna 3/8" blade. I also got the Laguna 5/8" for larger board resaws but haven't tried it yet.

The fit/finish of the saw is really first class, although I had a problem with the table. Tightening the table split clamp would not bring the front and back of the table into alignment. The front (infeed) portion of the table is lower than the rear causing wood to catch when being pushed into the blade. With a straight edge across the split, I was able to fit 3 sheets of paper (.012") in the gap.


IMGP9306.jpg IMGP9311.jpg

I called Woodwerks who sold me the saw and they suggested I contact Laguna directly and ask to speak to Jason (although anyone could help). I called and mentioned the pictures I took which Jason looked at and immediately said that the table would be replaced. I received a phone call back a short time later letting me know that Laguna needs to order the new table and will send me an email when it's shipped. It will include an RA to return the other table to them.

I was initially put off from reading so many negative reviews of Laguna's customer service, and was close to getting the Rikon so that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But Woodwerks assured me that all that has changed, and if I were to have any problems dealing with them, they would call on my behalf. I'm very satisfied with the way this was handled and have no hesitation is recommending both the saw and Woodwerks.

[Jay Radke]

I picked up one of these yesterday. Rockler has a sale on Laguna but only have floor models. Woodcraft had a boxed one and gave me the Rockler sale price. Rockler said I would have to have Laguna ship saw to my house. Problem is we aren't home during the day so it was easier to pick it up myself. It will remain in the box until I can stand to be in the garage again (temp wise) and have the time to spend on setting it up.

I have a question for both Lester and Augusto, what type of blades are you two using on it?

[Augusto Orosco]

I picked up one of these yesterday. Rockler has a sale on Laguna but only have floor models. Woodcraft had a boxed one and gave me the Rockler sale price. Rockler said I would have to have Laguna ship saw to my house. Problem is we aren't home during the day so it was easier to pick it up myself. It will remain in the box until I can stand to be in the garage again (temp wise) and have the time to spend on setting it up.

I have a question for both Lester and Augusto, what type of blades are you two using on it?

I am using a 1/2"W x 115"L WoodSlicer Resaw Bandsaw Blade from Highland ($29.99). Works pretty well for an all purpose saw. Eventually I will have to get something narrower for tight curves, etc; but so far, it works pretty well for what I am doing.

Congrats on the saw; it is a real beauty and a great performer!

[Lester Sak]

I got 2 Laguna blades - the 3/8" 4T PROFORCE and the 5/8" 4T SHEARFORCE.
Best of luck with the new toy!

[Jill Barnes]

At this stage of the game I would give the Laguna 14-12 bandsaw a miss. I have just taken delivery of my 240V unit, my first bandsaw, and here are the problems:

1. The 240 Volt auxiliary light was a real after thought, with the cable to be loosely draped along the frame attached by stick on cable clamps. Looks terrible and very unprofessional, and you have to be a hand contortionist to fit it, until I discovered you have to lower the upper blade guide holder. Some information in the manual would have been helpful. No shakeproof washers were supplied, so I expect it to work its way loose in time if I don't do something.
2. My new 3/4" bimetal blade with hook teeth won't track properly. It sits in the middle of the top flywheel, but on the bottom flywheel the points of the teeth extend past the outer rim.
3. Probably associated with the above problem, the blade is noisily rubbing against the plastic blanking block just under the table
4. The ceramic guides are very flimsy to adjust. You touch them each against the blade, as per the manual, tighten them up and find they have moved position. I find they have rotated in the horizontal plane, so that one ceramic block is jammed against the blade, and the other has moved well away from the blade.
5. There is no positive micro adjustment for adjusting the guides. On both the left and right side guides there are two ceramic guides, parallel upper and lower pieces. When you put the guides against the blade and tighten, with the guides at a point just below the gullet, the guide swivels in the vertical plane so that the end of the upper ceramic is touching the gullet and the lower ceramic is moved well back from the gullet.
6. the mobility kit front wheel is a real pain to fit. Needs a 150mm long 5mm T bar to reach the holding bolts located behind the wheel - an ordinary Allen key will just not reach
7. The poor quality casting ( to which the fence is bolted) that slides over the chrome fence guide will not travel the full length because numerous dags from the casting hit the fence guide support spacers. So you get a fence with very limited travel.
8. The chromed fence guide projects way past the table boundary, and is a constant source of bruising as you bump into it.
9. It is just about impossible to get the blade, the fence and the mitre slot all lined up, even after using the blade tracking knob. It just won't happen on this bandsaw, and I don't know what to do about it
10. The customer service response is consistent with its reputation - absolutely no response to my calls for help, so my new expensive bandsaw just sits there not being used until the blade tracking and rubbing problem is sorted, if ever

[Tai Fu]

If your blade is sitting at the edge of the lower wheel despite your tracking adjustment, you need to adjust the lower wheel. There should be a series of bolts that holds the lower wheel shaft (on Rikon or MM bandsaws) which can be adjusted to control the lower wheel tilt. This will also hopefully eliminate shaking and vibration as well.

[Augusto Orosco]

At this stage of the game I would give the Laguna 14-12 bandsaw a miss. I have just taken delivery of my 240V unit, my first bandsaw, and here are the problems:

1. The 240 Volt auxiliary light was a real after thought, with the cable to be loosely draped along the frame attached by stick on cable clamps. Looks terrible and very unprofessional, and you have to be a hand contortionist to fit it, until I discovered you have to lower the upper blade guide holder. Some information in the manual would have been helpful. No shakeproof washers were supplied, so I expect it to work its way loose in time if I don't do something.
2. My new 3/4" bimetal blade with hook teeth won't track properly. It sits in the middle of the top flywheel, but on the bottom flywheel the points of the teeth extend past the outer rim.
3. Probably associated with the above problem, the blade is noisily rubbing against the plastic blanking block just under the table
4. The ceramic guides are very flimsy to adjust. You touch them each against the blade, as per the manual, tighten them up and find they have moved position. I find they have rotated in the horizontal plane, so that one ceramic block is jammed against the blade, and the other has moved well away from the blade.
5. There is no positive micro adjustment for adjusting the guides. On both the left and right side guides there are two ceramic guides, parallel upper and lower pieces. When you put the guides against the blade and tighten, with the guides at a point just below the gullet, the guide swivels in the vertical plane so that the end of the upper ceramic is touching the gullet and the lower ceramic is moved well back from the gullet.
6. the mobility kit front wheel is a real pain to fit. Needs a 150mm long 5mm T bar to reach the holding bolts located behind the wheel - an ordinary Allen key will just not reach
7. The poor quality casting ( to which the fence is bolted) that slides over the chrome fence guide will not travel the full length because numerous dags from the casting hit the fence guide support spacers. So you get a fence with very limited travel.
8. The chromed fence guide projects way past the table boundary, and is a constant source of bruising as you bump into it.
9. It is just about impossible to get the blade, the fence and the mitre slot all lined up, even after using the blade tracking knob. It just won't happen on this bandsaw, and I don't know what to do about it
10. The customer service response is consistent with its reputation - absolutely no response to my calls for help, so my new expensive bandsaw just sits there not being used until the blade tracking and rubbing problem is sorted, if ever

Sorry you are not enjoying your Saw, Jill. As I mentioned before, I had not experience before with a bandsaw, so I can't really comment on how it compares, but for my limited skills, it has been performing flawlessly so far. I had no trouble aligning the blade and although I agree the ceramic guides are "sensitive" when adjusting them, I didn't experience your problems with them moving out of plane. Regarding the casting that holds the fence, I don't have that problem, mine travels well and clears the support spacers easily. Seems that you got unlucky with yours (or I got lucky with mine).

I also didn't have any trouble installing the light (although I am confused about your description of 240V; the one I got is the 12V/50W... did you mean that or are we talking about something else?); but I don't remember if had the upper blade guide holder lowered already. Also, the base (IIRC), has rubber padding, which I would hope would help with vibration and keeping the screws in place.

Anyway, I will try to refrain from defending the saw too much; by now I am probably biased because it's only human to try to defend ones purchase, particularly a large one. The bottom line is that you are not happy with it, which is very unfortunate; moreover when you are getting no help from Customer Service for things such as alignment issues. I hope you can make it work, it really hurts to spend that amount of dough and not be satisfied.

[Jill Barnes]

Hi Augusto, many thanks for this reply. My first bandsaw too. I am in Australia, so they have provided a 240 volt lamp. It should have come with shakeproof washers where it is fitted to the frame. There is no power outlet for this, so I received a lamp with a not so long cord and plug on the end of it.

I am a bit embarrassed about it, but the geared guide post was positioned right up in to the top of the frame on delivery, and I was trying to fit the little nuts to the lamp screws with it in the way. It was impossible. It was only after I dropped one of the washers into the guide assembly that I worked out how to lower the guide post in order to retrieve it, and all this space opened up so I could get at the 4 mounting holes at the top

Can you please tell me what size blade you are using, and where it is currently sitting on the upper and lower wheels? That will give me a starting point to have another go. Did you ever measure if the wheels were coplanar or not?

I don't think having coplanar wheels is a big issue (unless of course they are way out of alignment), just something that is nice to have as a starting point, which makes it much easier to track the blade by turning the tracking knob at the rear of the upper wheel just a minimal amount when adjusting to get zero drift. Of course, as soon as you do this, the wheels are no longer coplanar, which is normal

[Jill Barnes]

Today I started from scratch again. I removed the guides, removed the table, and untensioned the new 3/4" bimetal blade. Then fully tensioned the blade ( according to the tension gauge on the saw), and the adjusted for coplanar by using the tracking knob on the rear of the upper flywheel until both wheels were perfectly coplanar measured along the centreline of the two axles, and the blade was sitting nicely in the centre of the tyres. GREAT STARTING POINT !!!!

I then adjusted the guides and refitted the table (with great difficulty with the blade in position, much twisting and contortion needed). I then drew a pencil line across the table through the blade line parallel to the mitre slot. I then marked a straight line on a 400mm test piece and ripped along that line until the far side of the table was reached, and then stopped and held the test piece fixed on the table. NOW. THE. BAD. NEWS. With everything all nicely set up and coplanar at full tension, the test piece had veered way to the left by 10mm off the pencil line at the end of the table i.e., 10 mm in just 200mm. That is some drift !!! It indicated , according to Michael Fortune's articles that the blade on the upper flywheel is set too far back. So using the tracking wheel again, I moved the blade forward ( thereby losing any coplanar, but that is normal, coplanar to me is only a starting point), but was unable to get it so there was zero drift, without the blade points projecting beyond the outer rim of the flywheel.

Any suggestions as to what to try next, please? All I want to do is have zero drift and the fence, blade and mitre slot all parallel. surely this is not an unreasonable expectation for a Laguna bandsaw?

[Tai Fu]

Again, you need to adjust the tilt of the lower wheel, or remove/shim it to make it coplaner. If the blade is hanging off of the wheel on the lower wheel and centered on the upper wheel, then the lower wheel is improperly aligned. Either tilt it right or shim it if it can't be adjusted. Most steel spined bandsaw allows you to adjust the tilt on the lower wheel.

If you don't know how look at the back of the bandsaw where the lower wheel axle is. See if the axle is mounted to a separate plate or centered by 4 bolts. There should be set screws on the separate plate (as it was on my bandsaw) that you can manipulate to control lower wheel tilt, or in the case of Rikon/Grizzly bandsaws there are 4 bolts that centers the axle, and you loosen/tighten the bolts to tilt them.

[Jill Barnes]

Thanks for your comment, Tai fu, much appreciated. The current situation is a little different from before in that the blade is now sitting very nicely in the centre of the lower wheel, so I didn't think that there was any need to adjust it.

It is the top wheel where the blade is not centered anymore, even by tracking, with the points of the new 3/4" blade are level with the outer rim of the wheel

regards,
Jill

[Steve Keathley]

Not to drag up an old thread, but just got a 1412 this week. This is also my first real bandsaw. I had a table top Craftsman. I hesitate to even mention it.

I bought a Resaw King blade, and after going through the various setup, squaring and drift procedures (about 2 hours worth of effort), I cut my first ever piece of veneer off a 18" piece of an 8x8 cedar remnant.

It was so thin it only had one side. .031" to .036" thickness across the 8x18 piece. That's good od enough for me.

I can't believe I waited this long to get a real bandsaw. This thing is awesome.

[Steve Keathley]

Jill,

Honest question from a bandsaw newbie... Why is zero drift so important? I realize it is possible, but very difficult to achieve. It's very simple and accurate to adjust the fence for drift.

[Curt Harms]

Jill,

Honest question from a bandsaw newbie... Why is zero drift so important? I realize it is possible, but very difficult to achieve. It's very simple and accurate to adjust the fence for drift.

I guess it's a YMMV thing. I didn't find it difficult at all to adjust my Rikon 10-325 for zero drift. I centered the blade on the top wheel which by happy circumstance also centered the blade on the bottom wheel. Set the fence square to the table and that was about it. A good quality blade - from somebody like Lenox, Starrett or equivalent - goes without saying.