£250 bandsaw??? options

[rob39]

Hi all I've £250 to spend on a bandsaw and wonder what you all reccomend?? Looking for maximum cutting depth possible for this price. A few options below
http://www.recordpower.co.uk/product/premium-10-bandsaw
http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-ho ... 0n-bandsaw
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/prod ... ndsaw-230v

 

[Alexam]

HI Rob, the first two should give good service, but not so sure of the Fox machine. Both Record and Axminster will give you a good follow up service and guarantee. Record give a 5 year guarantee and I have the larger Record BS400, which is excellent.

How your machine performs will depend on the time you spend to 'tune' it to work well. Also the blades you use. The best blades are the ones from TuffSaw.

This video will give you an idea on how to tune your bandsaw, whichever one you eventually buy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbZqWac0jU

Good luck and have a great Christmas

Alex

 

[John15]

Hi Rob,

I have the Record BS250. After an initial problem with the belt slipping off the pulley wheel it has performed well, but due to it's small size it obviously has it's limitations. If you have room and can stretch your budget I would recommend a larger one.

John

 

[RogerP]

They're all essentially based on the same Chinanwese product but with variations on specification/colour/guarantee length.

I'd go for the Axminster as it has a useful cabinet and two speeds. Get a Tuffsaw blade.

 

[shed9]

I'd be tempted by the Record given the choices there. Fair few Record users on here with very few complaints. Also, the table looks a tad more robust comparative to the others.

Few more choices here;

http://www.poolewood.co.uk/acatalog/Band_Saws.html

but even then I'd still probably got the Record route.

 

[woodfarmer]

I would and will avoid Fox products like the plague. Despite the written guarantee they have NO after sales support whatsoever. You are essentially buying from one of Delboys mates I have a fox F28-194B bandsaw since last march and could never get any support for the saw from them from day one. Not even to speak to their "engineer". To get it running I had to replace four of the six bearing in the guides by buying them myself from online bearing suppliers. ( turns out they are used in the cheaper models of skateboards and I need to replace the last two now). The thing is relegated to cutting firewood kindling and I have reverted to using my chainsaw for trimming bowl blanks which was the primary reason to get it. Maybe one day I will get around to fixing it or maybe just make a new one myself. But has been a total waste of money.

 

[alan895]

I had the Fox 186 as my first bandsaw a few years back, the lack of motor power let down for me as I was only really using it for resawing as much as I could fit through the height capacity. I am too a Record Power owner (350S) now and I cant say enough good things about it or RP themselves - very good level of support when its needed.

 

[woodpig]

It's tricky setting a budget first. Most folks know, or think they know what depth of cut they need/want first then see how much it's going to cost. Have you worked out yet how much cut you can get for you budget yet?

 

[DiscoStu]

I've got the Axminster one. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, but I didn't realise how much I would use it when I bought it and if I was buying again I'd buy a bigger and more powerful model. Mine came with two blades and changing to the deeper blade made the saw considerably better. I got mine for £200 and they seem to sell it for that quite often.