Opinions please?

[JayDub]

Has anyone experienced the Fox F28-186 Bandsaw, has it pins or bearings for the guides, is it a recommended purchase, should I go for the Basato 1 with 50mm less cutting height, or the charnwood w715 (is it a re-badged Fox?) all machines are within my £200 budget and my list of requirements.

 

[Fivetide]

Has anyone experienced the Fox F28-186 Bandsaw, has it pins or bearings for the guides, is it a recommended purchase, should I go for the Basato 1 with 50mm less cutting height, or the charnwood w715 (is it a re-badged Fox?) all machines are within my £200 budget and my list of requirements.

Just bought one , should be here in the morning, it had a good review ( cant find it now !) although it was a little underpowered if you are cutting the full depth, which I dont think I will be, but it also said with a better blade it had no problems with hard wood. I paid £173 no postage cost of ebay. I'll post my review when i get it going.

 

[JayDub]

I posted a similar question on another site and it was trashed, along with the Basato1 and Charnwood w715, and recomending bigger second hand Dewalt, Startrite etc, I'm not a professional user and I can't have such a large machine in my small workshop - somehow I can't help thinking that some people are just being elitist Thanks, I'll wait patiently for your report!

 

[Fivetide]

Got it to day Jay but wont get around to using it until next week, if the weight has anything to go by its a solid bit of kit ! Like you I’m limited for space and there won’t be a dedicated person using it 8 hours a day, in fact it’s probably more than I need. I bid on a dewalt on ebay and it went for silly money 2nd hand, I think what people worry about is the blade wavering on thick material, or even jamming, that’s down to lack of a good set up and experience with the feel of the cut. Besides I bought the hugely discounted under/over Sip off ebay so I add a couple of mills on and plane it straight.. no problem. I’ll let you know what happens.

 

[JakeS]

I posted a similar question on another site and it was trashed, along with the Basato1 and Charnwood w715, and recomending bigger second hand Dewalt, Startrite etc, I'm not a professional user and I can't have such a large machine in my small workshop - somehow I can't help thinking that some people are just being elitist

Speaking from the point of view of someone who owns one of these (which looks to have a very similar spec. to the Fox you're looking at, just a smaller cut height) and one of these supposedly large machines (I think I've seen two models from DeWalt, and this is the larger one), I can tell you:

- The difference in footprint really isn't that great. When I got the DeWalt I moved it onto the same table that I moved the SIP off of, the main difference is that it's a little bit taller. But not a huge amount. Unless you have incredibly low ceilings, I wouldn't have thought there'd be any real difference for even a small workshop.
- The difference in ability really is like night and day. I wasn't unhappy with my SIP, but the DeWalt breezes through things that it struggled on. The only thing I miss from the SIP is bearing blade guides.

For what it's worth, though, if you haven't found the information yourself by now: several retailers cite upper and lower bearing guides for the Fox.

 

[JayDub]

I posted a similar question on another site and it was trashed, along with the Basato1 and Charnwood w715, and recomending bigger second hand Dewalt, Startrite etc, I'm not a professional user and I can't have such a large machine in my small workshop - somehow I can't help thinking that some people are just being elitist

Speaking from the point of view of someone who owns one of these (which looks to have a very similar spec. to the Fox you're looking at, just a smaller cut height) and one of these supposedly large machines (I think I've seen two models from DeWalt, and this is the larger one), I can tell you:

- The difference in footprint really isn't that great. When I got the DeWalt I moved it onto the same table that I moved the SIP off of, the main difference is that it's a little bit taller. But not a huge amount. Unless you have incredibly low ceilings, I wouldn't have thought there'd be any real difference for even a small workshop.
- The difference in ability really is like night and day. I wasn't unhappy with my SIP, but the DeWalt breezes through things that it struggled on. The only thing I miss from the SIP is bearing blade guides.

For what it's worth, though, if you haven't found the information yourself by now: several retailers cite upper and lower bearing guides for the Fox.

Thanks Jake, just what I want... A helpful answer, I do have quite low headroom in my 'workbox' - 6'3" and I'm 5'11" - what is the advantage of bearings over solid guides apart from friction? I would go for a s/h one but private sellers are not usually willing to post, and there are not many for sale within a reasonable travelling distance.
And Fivetide, thanks for keeping me updated, the suspense is killing me - can't you take a day off work? :wink:

 

[JakeS]

I do have quite low headroom in my 'workbox' - 6'3" and I'm 5'11" - what is the advantage of bearings over solid guides apart from friction?

I'm 5'11" myself, and the DeWalt on its table (it's a low table, not a workbench or anything) is still shorter than I am, with the bandsaw's table at a workable height. That said, 6'3" is a very low ceiling! There's only the very top of the machine is the tension knob, anyway.

As to bearings - along with friction comes noise, so in my experience bearings are also less noisy than blocks. The other advantage, as I understand it, is that blocks restrict the width of blade you can put in the machine, unless you want to replace them with wooden ones. (There's a product called 'Cool blocks' which is a replacement made of some composite material that supposedly is OK for small blades, but I've not yet tried them.) Narrower blades are better for cutting curves, wider blades are better for cutting straight lines.

If you're not planning to cut thick slabs of hardwood, then the smaller bandsaw will likely be fine. I've not used a Fox so I can't comment specifically, but my SIP has been fine for timber up to about 5cm/2" thick once I got a decent blade in it. The main reason I bought the DeWalt (second-hand - I was lucky to find one very locally) was for re-sawing taller bits of wood.

 

[JayDub]

I mostly get by, but height is the real problem regarding a replacement bandsaw, most bigger/better ones are on a stand and these are unlikley to fit on my workbench when removed from the stand, I can't afford to lose storage space by cutting the end off the bench to fit one in on legs or making the bench lower.
This is why I am restricted to a bench mounted saw such as I have been researching, these seem to be the best available as most other bench mounted ones are 75-100mm cutting height, and really I don't need more than 100mm but its useful to have if needed, but I just want more reliability, precision and quality than the Ferm I am using - even with one of Ian's Tuffsaw blades I can't be sure its not going to throw another tyre or go off the line, it vibrates and it needs (fiddly) tuning quite a lot - it has started to leave a 'wavy' face when crosscutting (with different blades) but it was cheap and got me through. I mostly cut 1/2" - 1" hardwood, less often 1 1/2" - 2" Oak and some 3"-4" softwood for boxes, toys etc, I use the table saw for resawing, I think the Ferm is 300 watts and it has shown no lack of power unless pushed.