Good morning all,

I am in the market for a 16-18" bandsaw and a 12 inch jointer/planer combo. I am a hobbiest with very little time for woodworking, but really enjoy quality products.

For the badsaw, I have been leaning towards either a MM16 or Bridgewood PBS440. But there are also Grizzly units (G513X and G514X) for much less. I have read at multiple places that the Bridgewood unit is also very high quality close to MM16. However, I have not found any reference to how Grizzly compares to Bridgewood and MM16 in terms of build quality, frame stiffness, ease of adjustment, etc. The resaw capacity, hp rating, etc are not really different enough for my intended use to sway my decision one way or the other.

For the jointer/planer I was pretty set on the Minimax unit, however, when I saw the Grizlly unit coming up which seems to have better features (i.e., carbide insert cutting head and seemingly better engineered fence mounting) at a lower price of $2500 (delivered) compared to the over $4000 (delivered with the current special) of MM unit. Now, I realize given that the Grizzly J/P combo has not really been released yet, but given your experiences with Grizzly do you think it is worth waiting for the release of it?

I have read that the Grizzly quality has improved in the recent years, but I would like to get feedback from people who has experience with lets say similar range products from MM and Grizzly to comment on build quality etc.

Looking forward to your feedback/suggestions.