Help me choose a bandsaw size

[Van Huskey]

My own choice was a 20" Agazzani (with 1" carbide blade)

I mourn the loss of Agazzani, while they weren't my favorite of the Euro saws Jesse at Eagle provided the best most dependable new sales experience. He simply provided a first class experience that is near non-existent in hobby sized machines.

You can get some great deals on Italian saws if you are patient, vigilant and are willing to drive to pick them up. My MM20 was $2250 cole to being "like new" and it probably had $1000 of accessories and brand new blades with it. I did drive 700 miles round trip to get it though.

[Matthew Hills]

The MM saws let you adjust the guide to just under the table (very close) the 636 is much further away at the top and has a metal "blade guard" above the guides as well. The MM saws guides are tooless in contrast to the guides on the 636. If you are interested I can take a picture of the MM bottom guides, just let me know.

The guide on my S400 gets to within 7" of the table...
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I'd pretty much bought into the legend and hadn't worried about it too much.

Am curious whether people have problems tensioning the really narrow blades. I know it doesn't take terribly many turns to tension a 1/2" or 3/4" blade, so I'd be worried about breaking a 1/8"...

Matt

[Van Huskey]

The guide on my S400 gets to within 7" of the table...

That was in the arguably misguided Carter guide days, the guides are actually very nice with the proper perpendicular hardened guide bearing but they were poorly retrofit into the bottom guide area. This is a picture of the Euro guides, they are within 1/2" of the bottom of the table casting web

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Man I had no idea I had taken over 1500 pictures of odd bandsaw parts, I need to catalog them better, it took me forever to find that one!

Here is a much better stock image with the Euro guides

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I had one of my pictures of the G0636x lower guides but it really didn't give much of an indication of distance and it guides were covered with sawdust and the pic was dark so I looked for a better picture than mine. Didn't find a good one but the manual picture shows how the guides are below even the bottom of the trunnion.

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[John TenEyck]

I don't know why Grizzly put the guides so low on the G0636X, but it doesn't seem to matter when using 25K psi on a 3/4" or larger blade. It cuts beautifully straight. It wouldn't be hard to modify them to fit right up under the table, but I'd probably do what Jack Forsberg showed with a plate insert instead if I wanted to run a small blade occasionally. Fortunately, I have the 14" Delta for small work. Adjusting the guides on the Grizzly is not hard, FWIW. Grizzly even gives you the tools to do so.

Just to clear up an earlier comment. The G06363X has a large cross section double box beam spine and it is incredibly stiff. The upper guides stay aligned with the blade over the full range of motion up to at least 27K psi on a 1" blade, the highest I've run so far, which means there is very, very little frame deflection. Don't get me wrong, if the price difference to the MM16 (whatever they call it now) were less than $500 to my door, and I was interested in selling it someday, I'd buy that over the Grizzly. But when I bought mine the Grizzly was a lot cheaper, had a far superior fence and lock down, and I wasn't thinking about ever trading up. As for the tires wearing out, I doubt that will ever happen in my remaining woodworking years. Non-issue unless you are a 20 something and a heavy user.

I absolutely agree with several comments earlier, including yours IIRC, if I could have only one bandsaw it would most likely be a MM20. But I'd sure hate trying to run a 1/8" blade on it.

John

[David Kumm]

When you tension 1" blades at 25000 or so, the guides don't come into play much anymore. I've taken the upper guides off completely on my old Oliver 217 when I need an extra 2" or resaw and don't miss them when resawing 15" oak so I wouldn't sweat their location as long as they aren't in the way. I run the old Wright or Hanchett guides and like them but it is really only the back bearing that gets occasional use. Like Van, I never change blades although the Oliver will run small ones. I use a Yates Y20 for that purpose. Dave

[Van Huskey]

Guides are basically a non-issue during hand fed resawing, in one of Sam Blasco's videos he shows resawing with the guides completely backed off. The only reason to give it much weight at all is if you are going to use the saw as an all-rounder.

In the end Edwin should just get the bigger saw it is so rare to hear "I wish I had bought the smaller machine" unless it is a real estate issue. He can try guiding the small blades with some of the options presented in the thread and if he is unhappy with the tiny blade performance then he has a good excuse to buy a smaller saw.

[John Sanford]

Are the table heights the same? 'Cause you sure as heck don't want to be doing tight scroll type work on 3/4" stock on a table designed for resawing. Your back will express it's displeasure with the notion.

[Van Huskey]

Are the table heights the same? 'Cause you sure as heck don't want to be doing tight scroll type work on 3/4" stock on a table designed for resawing. Your back will express it's displeasure with the notion.

The MM16 and MM20 have the same table height ~35", the 24 is just a little taller (less than an inch) and starts to jump with the 28 as the wheel size begins to dictate table height. Just another reason to have a second saw.

[Edwin Santos]

Hello all,
I thought I would report back on my decision regarding bandsaw upgrade. I received some good recommendations in this thread and chose to follow them so I took delivery of a new SCM MM20/S500p last week. I have no regrets choosing it over the smaller MM16. Obviously I'm still getting acquainted with it, but after some minor tuning I installed a 1" Woodmaster CT and sliced an oak board with ease into 1/16 veneers. When laid out next to each other across a table in a slipmatch, I can feel almost no variations.

You might remember part of the dilemma was wanting to retain the ability to do intricate work with narrow blades. It's kind of obvious that a brute like this was designed for resawing and ripping. So I've kept my smaller Laguna/Meber saw, perched it up on a platform, and dedicated it to the finer contour work. It's a luxury to go back and forth between two bandsaws set up for different purposes.

By the way, I give SCM high marks for service, shipping, fit and finish of the machine.

Here are a couple of photos of the new saw, and the smaller one in the background. Thanks again for the input!
Regards,
Edwin

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[David Kumm]

Sweet. If you have the room, multiples make life good. Dave

[Jim Becker]

That's a darn good choice, Edwin! And yea....it's really nice you could keep the smaller saw for scrolling, etc. I wish I had the space for that when I moved up to my MM16 year ago, but alas, I did not.

[Van Huskey]

Glad you are happy with the saw and shipping was uneventful. Given I can see you have a nice amount of shop space you should be keeping an eye on Craig's List for a little saw to run those 3/16 and 1/8" blades on we discussed. Less of a compromise than changing out the Meber's guides and won't be a lot more money if you buy right. The thing my eye actually went to was not the saws but the bands (well the sticker of Bob on the Meber as well), nice to see you are ready for any type of war on wood that might break out!

[andy bessette]

Attaboy! You won't regret having both bandsaws.

[David Kumm]

I run the same guides on both my saws. They work for all size blades. Wright guides are still my favorites. DaveDSCN3606.jpgDSCN3605.jpgDSCN3604.jpg

[Edwin Santos]

Given I can see you have a nice amount of shop space you should be keeping an eye on Craig's List for a little saw to run those 3/16 and 1/8" blades on we discussed.

The crating from the last bandsaw is still outside my shop door and he casually suggests looking for the next one. This is how addictions start.
Next thing you know, bandsaws will start spontaneously appearing like Tribbles on the Enterprise.