no more Jet for me

Thank you John that is basically what I was trying to say. ;~) The fussier the saw the pickier the adjustment has to be.

And as for the blades though I found that any blade "so far" works well on the Laguna and not so much on a lesser saw. And that probably has to do with what you eloquently explained as adjustments not having to be just so.

Reply to
Leon
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Well actually the MiniMax rep swapped blades on the MM16, the demo saw that had no guides at all. All he had to do was retention the blade after changing it, and that was a single adjustment before he restarted the saw. Not totally unlike changing out a blade on a TS. Until you have actually worked with a saw of this caliber it is hard to understand how well they work. Sure you have to tension the blade but I use the built in gauge and that is good enough and you do have to adjust the guides to the width of the blade but tracking and blade tension is simply not a factor in the saw performing well. And while this is an adjustment it is a simple adjustment that requires no test cuts or tweaking.

Reply to
Leon

I've been around here for 25+ years... threads under this topic have definitely drifted way off topic into the world of transportation vehicles, engines, etc...

RE Jet tools, as I posted previously, I've got a bunch of them and they all have performed well. I do however recognize maintenance and consumable items on tools and I know when I personally screwed something up... the tools themselves have proven reliable, have met my performance expectations and have let me perform well... I've got a box full of woodworking ribbons including a "best of show" to show for it.

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

I don't know what others have experienced but my 18" Jet is not fussy... with some minor tweaking of the tracking when installing a new blade the drift is zero. It's been a pleasure to work with. If I ever get to it I can mill bolts and short logs on my 36" 5 HP Crescent... the funny thing is I haven't really needed that saw to date but it's cool! LOL

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

------------------------------------------------- wrote:

Right there with you, Ed. Couldn't agree more. When I started in the trades back in the early 70s, tools were good enough to rebuild. Using them all day, we simply wore out hand power tools and their parts. So we put in triggers, bearing, brushes, etc., as a regular part of the tool owning experience.

---------------------------------------------------- During the early '60s, I worked on devices that got mounted on the engines of military vehicles.

The performance specification was straight forward.

500 hours of performanc life with ZERO, ZIP failures.

If the device survived 500.001 hours and then died, that was acceptable.

The reason the performance spec was written as stated was simple.

Hit the beach with 100 new trucks and the enemy destroys

10-20 of them in the first 10 hours of battle, and renders another 50 of them inoperable without a rebuild facility to make repairs which is highly unlikely on the battlefield.

Turns out the lowest cost to the military is to have new spare devices available to be used when the opportunity presents itself.

It's a case starting with a 100% operating device and using it until it fails, then scrap the device and start with another new device.

No attempt is made to rebuild what is basically a throw away item.

Another example of a throw away device is the printed circuit board populated with poorest tolerance components as possible except for a single resistor and a capacitor which are the tightest tolerance devices available.

The populated boards are then tested to determine the resistor and capacitor values to classify the board assembly as a tight tolerance device.

From a manufacting point of view, it's the best of all worlds.

Low cost, wide tolerance components are used for at least 90% of the of the devices while high cost, tight tolerance devices allow a low cost, high performance boards to be delivered to the market.

There is no way to repair a board like this in the field which is why a replacement board assembly is routinely sold for about

60% of a new device along with the old board ass'y.

I'm afraid the days of being able to make repairs, even simple ones to rebuild a tool in the field are quickly becoming history from another era.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

If you read them you drifted off on to them. Not the other way round theres a difference

I won't be spending any more $$ on Jet ever

Reply to
Electric Comet

I went through this process over a decade ago, trying to decide between the MiniMax (MM16) and Laguna. At the time, the MM was the clear winner, better saw and better customer service. The Laguna saws at the time were playing catchup, less capacity, power, and poorer table finish.

I luv my MM! The only changes I made were to dump the Euro guides after they began seizing and replace then with a used set of Carter bearing guides. Being an import, I spent many hours removing the cosmoline, but this gave me the time to tweak every major adjustment and set up the dust collection hardware.

These saws are a step up from the typical Delta/Jet/Powermatic. Heavy cast iron wheels, flat (not crowned) tires, more resawing depth, can tension over 1" blades easily, rock solid steel guide post, 3.5 HP motor, etc. Key to me is the ability to align and then lock in all the critical adjustments, Do it right once and then forget about it.

If I was to purchase today, the Laguna would take the top spot. They have really come far with fixing the quality issues whereas MiniMax has stagnated.

I'd love to replace my Carters with the Laguna ceramics. The Carters are fussy to set up and the bearings load up with gunk which needs to be constantly cleaned out. Don't read me wrong, the Carters do an excellent job when things are clean, it is just my opinion that bandsaw guides really should be scrapers instead of rollers (a roller thrust bearing is perfect IMO).

My MM came with a generic 1" blade that many believed to be an "Olsen" brand. That blade died after resawing maybe 30 feet of 10" white oak. I bought several timber wolf blades as replacements and they also disappointed me with short lives. I then went with a Highland Hardware resaw king and it's been heaven ever since.

Since my purchase, both MM and Laguna have begun selling more 'entry' level models and the Delta/Jet/Powermatic group has begun selling more upscale models, nicely filling the gap between the hobbyist and industrial equipment markets.

-BR

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Reply to
Brewster

Agreed. I haven't touched the tracking adjustment on my MM16 since I first got it set correctly. After changing blades I just re-tension and set the guides (this is going between a 3/8" and 1").

All these tension gauges are simple spring compression meters, generally not very accurate. I set up my blades originally by measuring the blade stretch to calculate the proper tension. Once set, I made a new index mark on the saws tension gauge and just align to the mark when adjusting. On these saws the exact tension doesn't seem to be very critical, just ball-park it.

-BR

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Reply to
Brewster

You mean they haven't made any further improvements on the design? Or no new models or something else?

I think I have a couple of Olson blades.

Reply to
Electric Comet

Never had heard of felder or hammer they are together now and the products look similar

Laguna sells direct too A while ago I recall seeing laguna bandsaws on amazon but don't recall who the seller was. Might have been rockler

That's a lot of bandsaw

Reply to
Electric Comet

Jeez, Are you relatively new to wood working equipment? :-). I think the first time I heard of those two brands was back in the late 70's or early 80's. I think they are similar like Grizzly and Shop Fox and or some of Jet andPowermatic products.

When I bought about 8 years ago you still had to buy direct from Laguna. I would say that if you buy direct you might get a few more perks and or blades thrown in. Also if you get on Laguna's email list they will let you know when tools go on sale or have a demo sale.

Reply to
Leon

Laguna sells direct through Amazon. I've been looking. ;-)

Reply to
krw

how hard was/is felder and hammer stuff marketed some companies get out there better than others I guess I'm a marketing victim

the felder hammer stuff looks well made but marketing/distribution has to get better to get in front of people

am on the list but not ready to buy

I wonder how their moving sale went?

Reply to
Electric Comet

Much of the Felder and Hammer stuff I've seen was geared more towards commercial shops... European designs, big stuff, relatively expensive. Not that a well heeled hobbyist with lots of space wouldn't be interested... ;~) I like their sliding table saws, the big jointer/planners, and shapers. If I hit a big lottery of some sort I could see having a big shop full of the stuff.... ;~)

The first time I saw Felder tools in person Frank Klausz was manning the booth and playing with a jointer/planner...

John

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

In the older days they were at most the woodworking shows. Kiti, Laguna, Minimax, Felder, Hammer... etc

Later on they dropped off of the Houston shows but became more prominent in the commercial trades magazines and regular ww magazines. Laguna is not new but relative new compared to most of the brands that I have mentioned. The Owner of Laguna Is from the northern Europe area and came to live in California. He loved surfing at Laguna beach and apparently named the company accordingly. He wanted to introduce European machines to the USA lower end consumers, not just at comercial applications.

Well they probably would do better if they offered lowered quality in different categories. Laguna was not really well known to the general public until they started offering through retailers and offering Asian versions.

Reply to
Leon

It is a real treat to see the innovation and quality of the Euro machines. But they are geared to the committed and commercial applications. I was real close to going with the Laguna TSS with scoring blade. My Jet cabinet saw was only 13 years old but my wife indicated that she would not mind me upgrading to the Industrial SawStop after watching me perform an operation that made her a bit concerned. The Laguna would have offered a lot of extra perks but would have been about $1000 more expensive equally equipped. In the end the safety of the SawStop trumped the Laguna along with a familiar American style operational set up.

Reply to
Leon

I went to exactly 1 woodworking show and subscribed to exactly 0 woodworking magazines the show was ok, a guy was scared and turning a 5 foot bowl maybe from the club local to the venue and picked the short straw or better yet came up with the idea and volunteered simultaneously

and now you mention kiti another I haven't heard of.

I make choices quickly some times and not others. I think jet get out there in front of people

Seems to have been a good idea.

laguna has some high-end CNC stuff and I don't even remember how I heard about laguna, may have been amazon

Reply to
Electric Comet

If I move to a more southern state I may sell of the stuff I have, a Jet cabinet saw for one, and buy all new stuff... That is a thought I've had for the the past couple of years and those thoughts also include going Euro... I like things like the riving knives and sliding tables, the wide jointer/planer combo machines, Euro style bandsaws...

My needs have changed over time and having a large jointer and a stationary thickness planer doesn't make as much sense as it once did. This as I'm no longer trying to joint boards 12'+ long for architectural purposes that led me to move up to the big jointer in the first place. Now, having a wide jointer combined with an equal sized planer makes sense for furniture type projects.

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

Well there you have it. ;~) You typically don't see the upper end commercial grade machines in the typical ww store, there you mostly see consumer grade.

That one is scarce. I don't recall seeing that one in the last 30 or so years.

FWIW I haven't seen any of the heavy duty machines at the Houston WW shows in years. "The WoodWorking Shows" tour has sucked for the past

5~6 years. They pissed off most of the vendors when they moved from the centrally located Houston location, near the Astrodome, to the out laying small towns of Katy and Conroe. I have probably gone to my last show unless they go back to Houston. I swear the last show was held in a love stock shelter. 10 Plus years ago every brand you could think of was well represented.

Laguna absolutely has high end stuff. On their web site you look under the Industrial tab for the machines that are going to out last you. Under the Dealer Exclusive tab there are decent tools but on par with all the brands manufactured in Asia. Dealer exclusive is more geared towards the first time buyer of a particular type machine. Industrial is geared toward those that are tired of replacing machines.

Reply to
Leon

FWIW most all the new table saws now have riving knives. The one on my SawStop is very well thought out. Remove the insert, lift the riving knife/guard lock lever and lift out. Some brands require tools and that would be a royal PIA. Also Sawstop has recently introduced a sliding table that fits most everything that they make IIRC. BUT I still admire the Laguna TS and TSS series table saws. They are beasts. My top end SawStop is 700lbs but the Laguna TS is 970lbs. And I will never have to replace my Laguna BS.

I sell the vast majority of the work that I do and have also steered away from using a joiner, I sold mine that I seldom used a few years ago. I pretty much buy S4S lumber now as its price, compared to S2S, is not that much more considering the time savings and knowing exactly how much I can expect to get out of a standard sized board. If I buy for me I will consider S2S and planing it down to 3/4.

I do have a 22/44 drum sander that I use a lot. A lot of my furniture uses 1/4" thick wood for trim. I resaw 3/4" stock on the BS and then bring to final thickness with the sander. I am a little leery about using a 15" stationary planer for taking stock down to that thickness given it has rollers on the bed.

Reply to
Leon

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