Laguna bandsaw opinion

[Duane N]

I have a wish list of tools I want to start purchasing for my wood shop.  I know any tool is an investment and I only like doing things once.  I am in the market for a band saw and the information you read is overwhelming at times.  Does anybody on here have experience with Laguna band saws?  Good, bad or maybe something else/brand I should be looking at.  This will be mainly used for re-sawing wider boards.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/laguna-14-12-bandsaw

[EvilTwin]

I have a wish list of tools I want to start purchasing for my wood shop.  I know any tool is an investment and I only like doing things once.  I am in the market for a band saw and the information you read is overwhelming at times.  Does anybody on here have experience with Laguna band saws?  Good, bad or maybe something else/brand I should be looking at.  This will be mainly used for re-sawing wider boards.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/laguna-14-12-bandsaw

Decent looking saw, not an Italian machine though.   Woodcraft is showing an open base Rikon for 700 on sale right now.  And there is always Griz.  They have the Delta clone saws down in the 600 dollar range and a 17" steel frame for around a grand before shipping.  If you are going with an Asian sourced machine, then I would shop all the brands since features and price are more meaningful than who is selling it.  Griz does have a good rep for standing behind their products.

But buying new would not be my choice.  Bandsaws are one of those tools that havent really changed all that much over the years.  There are usually plenty of used machines for sale, depending on your location and willingness to travel a bit. And the truth about bandsaws is that even brand new, they may need quite a bit of tweaking to get running well.  Many folks want new because they think that means no adjustments or fiddling necessary.  Sooner or later, you will have to fiddle with it to correct things that go out of adjustment.  It's just their nature.

A good used 14" saw should be around 3-400 bucks, maybe less.  Not as fancy as the new ones, but serviceable.   Even the cast iron Delta clones can be fitted with riser blocks to saw 12".  Good luck and have fun.

[LongLook]

I have a wish list of tools I want to start purchasing for my wood shop.  I know any tool is an investment and I only like doing things once.  I am in the market for a band saw and the information you read is overwhelming at times.  Does anybody on here have experience with Laguna band saws?  Good, bad or maybe something else/brand I should be looking at.  This will be mainly used for re-sawing wider boards.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/laguna-14-12-bandsaw

I have the 1412 and find it an excellent piece of equipment for my uses.  I resaw up to 10" wood to 1/16" thickness routinely using a Laguna 1/2" resaw blade.  I find it easy to set up and while the ceramic guides work great, access to the lower ones requires some dexterity.  Dust collection through the single 4" port works well for me.  The fence works well although I get frustrated sometimes with the fact that the lower height is too low and the upper height is too high.  But that is easily solved with shop made fence.  

I had an older model 18" Rikon previously and IMHO the Laguna is a much better unit.  The Rikon suffered from a lot of quality problems that I don't find on the Laguna.

[jteneyck]

I have a wish list of tools I want to start purchasing for my wood shop.  I know any tool is an investment and I only like doing things once.  I am in the market for a band saw and the information you read is overwhelming at times.  Does anybody on here have experience with Laguna band saws?  Good, bad or maybe something else/brand I should be looking at.  This will be mainly used for re-sawing wider boards.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/laguna-14-12-bandsaw

If your motivation is mostly resawing I think you would be a lot happier with the 220V 14BX instead.  The motor is 2.5 HP and the frame is heavier so it will tension a blade better w/o distortion.  I think Dave Diaman used to have that saw and he showed a video resawing some mahogany about as fast as he could push the stock through the blade.  

I was faced with this dilemma a couple of years ago.  I had a 14" Delta with riser block on it; still have it.  I sawed a lot of 10" thick stock and veneer with it.  Even put a 1.5 HP motor on it to make it a little less painful.  The quality of what I could cut was fine, but it was pathetically slow.  You could measure the cut in inches per minute even with a new 3 tpi blade on it.  So I went way up in size/power and got the Grizzly G0636X; 17", 5 HP motor.  It is everything the little Delta isn't.  With a 1.3 tpi 1" carbide blade on it it saws as fast as I can push wood through it, without much attention on my part, and with better quality.  I know that's a lot more than you probably want to spend but my point is you have to decide what you want the saw to do and go where the data takes you.  I think the 14-12 is a good saw, but I wouldn't consider it if my motivation was primarily resawing. 

Another thing I found out along this journey is that small saws need constant attention to get them to cut well.  Well made big ones don't.  The Grizzly was near perfect when I got it, and I've never had to adjust anything in the two years I've had it.   

You did say you only want to do this once.  Good luck whatever you decide.

John

[peter-m]

I bought the Laguna 14 DX new.  I am very happy with it.  It is the first one I have ever own or used.  I guess it comes down to what you can afford.  I like new when I can.  I don’t need to deal with peoples hand me down. You never know what you’re buying.  Don’t get me wrong, I also bought a used Jet 1236 lathe for 500.  I am happy with that.  It is the first one I ever used too.  Ignorance is bliss?

[Duane N]

Thank you everyone for the advice.  I'm leaning towards the Rikon open based saw at the moment.