Bandsaw

[woodborg]

Hi
I am in the process of looking to buy a bandsaw mainly for rounding wood blanks for my Lathe.
I have a budget of updo £250
What i would like is;
1hp motor
Good cutting height
A riser block attacement ( it would seem this is manly found on american machines)
Not bothered about style e.g bench mounted, open or closed base


The best i have come up with so far is a SIP 12" bandsaw 1hp cutting height 8 inches for £189, but what iamb looking for is a height of at least 10" ( when riser block is fitted) :?

I hope some one can surgest a better model or even where to import from, but includes shipping and taxes under £250
Looking forward to hearing from you
Mark

 

[trevtheturner]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the Forum.

I have looked at the SIP bandsaws and tried one. They seem well made, full of all the good features and excellent value for money.

But to get a 10" height of cut I'm afraid you will be looking at much more than £250. unless you are fortunate enough to pick up a decent one secondhand.

Cheers,

Trev.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Mark

Welcome to the forum. Good to have you onboard.

But to get a 10" height of cut I'm afraid you will be looking at much more than £250.

Oy you could do a Tony. :wink:

Cheers
Neil

 

[woodborg]

Hi

Its a shame that our British engineers\designers seem to work to a different spec than the USA models. Why do ours think that the machines arn't capable when clearly adding a riser block on a 1hp motor bandsaw will do the job nicely, you may have to go a bit slower but who cares.
No our lot just want you to part with more money to buy a bigger model :evil:

Has anyone imported a Bandsaw from the USA, how much did the shipping and taxes add on
Mark

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Mark

The link in my previous post does exactly what you are asking for, the only difference being that you have to do it yourself. :wink:

Cheers
Neil

 

[woodshavings]

Hi

Its a shame that our British engineers\designers seem to work to a different spec than the USA models.
Mark

Hi Mark,
I think you will find that there are no British Engineers or Designers who work on these...we have a few importers and sales companies though.

John

 

[pooka]

Has anyone imported a Bandsaw from the USA, how much did the shipping and taxes add on
Mark

A different situation, but: I got a quote from Laguna Tools to deliver a bandsaw from their factory (in Bulgaria as far as I can remember) earlier this year. They quoted about 850euro to deliver the saw to Dublin airport, which was just a little less than the cost of the saw itself at the time. In addition to this, I would have had to pay VAT of 21% and import duty on top of that (these charges are applied to the delivery charges as well as the saw itself)!

Although your source and destination countries would be different, and the UK import duty and VAT percentages are different from the Irish figures, I would expect that you would be looking at a very hefty charge for shipping something as heavy as a bandsaw.

As another vaguely relevant example, when I got some Bessey clamps (a set of 4 of them) shipped from the US a few months ago, delivery alone cost me about $100 because of the weight of the clamps.

Any decent online US retailer (e.g. www.woodcraft.com) should be able to quote you for delivery though, before you commit to an order. Remember too though to factor in the cost of a 115V transformer if the machine is not 240V.

 

[woodborg]

I would like to be able to buy from abroad, but like your post taking shipping, VAT and import duties make this out of the question.
After serval hours trawling through web sites the best cost/spec seems to be the SIP models.
The 12" model has a 7 1/4" cut depth and the 14" models cut depth is 8 1/4"
For another £50 i get 1 more inch of cut height and 0.3 more hp om the motor, but for cutting out bowl blanks i.e roughing round does anyone think i need the extra height?
Mark

 

[Scrit]

Why do ours think that the machines aren't capable when clearly adding a riser block on a 1hp motor bandsaw will do the job nicely, you may have to go a bit slower but who cares.

I think you'll find that the Delta saw was a 1940s (?) design where it was cheaper to make two smaller top/bottom castings than a single swan neck casting which was common at the time - like on the well-known Wadkin DR:

The Jet and other Chaiwanese clones just copied the style, so happy co-incidence, rather than specific design as the riser blocks weren't around until many years after the saw was first introduced. Here people like Startrite once built relatively low cost reliable bandsaws like the 352:

which were properly sized for the job at hand and had enough power.

Has anyone imported a Bandsaw from the USA, how much did the shipping and taxes add on

I have imported Porter-Cable power tools from the USA, but I've been careful to select ONLY those tools with a frequency rating which allows them to run on 50Hz power and universal motors - they don't slow down when running on a transformer. Try running a 60Hz induction motor on 50Hz power and it will run at 5/6s of its designed speed (induction motor speed is directly related to the power frequency) which means you'll lose a significant amount of fan cooling. If the motor runs hotter there is increased liklihood of the winding insulations breaking down leading to the motor dying - heat kills electrical motors. So don't do it! You may then find that a European motor won't fit because the shaft sizes here are ISO (metric). However, Delta and Powermatic will both supply a 50Hz motor on most of their respective ranges if you require it , but at extra cost. Importation costs are as follows (very roughly):

Handling fees (depending on the shipper) around £28 per item if sea freight (based on past imports of machine components)
Duty: 3.5 to 5.5% (ask HM Customs)
VAT: 17.5%

The duty is payable on the cost of the item plus its shipping charges, the VAT is payable on everything (including the duty), so unless you are making a substantial saving it's just not worth it

Scrit

 

[jasonB]

but for cutting out bowl blanks i.e roughing round does anyone think i need the extra height?
Mark

I've got a Rexon with 7" depth of cut which is more than enough for 95% of my wood turning, anything bigger can be rough cut with a chainsaw, just make sure your lathe is well bolted down as a large wet unbalanced blank can make it jump about a bit

Where the depth comes in more useful is if you are resawing logs and green wood or making your own veneers from dry wood.

Jason

 

[woodborg]

Hi
Thanks for all the advice and info about the bandsaw
Today i spent hard cash and finally went with the SIP 12" bandsaw. Its not quite the spec i wanted but as this is only a hobby and i've only just started i still need to buy a lot of other things, such as a vacuum cleaner for dust and chipping, some bowl gouges, scrapers etc :shock:
Mark