Last year at around this time my circular saw gave up the ghost and I had to buy a replacement despite not exactly swimming in money. I have put the tool through its paces this summer and it stood up well to all the tasks that I could throw at it, although some objections to the design remain, and some other flaws were made obvious in that time. Nevertheless, the tool appears to be durable and sturdy enough.
This year the demons haunting my shoppe struck again.
I have complained several times about my craparooni bandsaw. I went through the bands rather quickly. The last time I mentioned this, it was suggested that I might not be tensioning the bands enough. So after it snapped another band, I tried to increase the tension a bit. It resulted in the saw band stripping the rubber band covering the driving wheel. That was it, the last drop at which my patience with this cheapo piece of crap has reached its limit. I have moved it to the attic where it will await whether I think of some use for it. In the meantime, I have bought a new band saw from the same manufacturer as my table saw. I am not happy about the expenditure, but I need it and I cannot spend half my time repairing.
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I really hope the band won’t snap after just a few cuts. It is bigger and stronger than the previous one, so it cuts faster and there is a lesser risk of the band getting caught and stopped because the wood deforms during the cut a tiny bit.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
My shop vacuum did not fit into the dust collector exhaust but the problem was easily resolved with various pieces left over from previous vacuums etc. – I fixed a fitting tube directly to the exhaust and in the other end I glued in a reduction for my shop vacuum.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
Despite being bigger, its cut width is not bigger than on the previous one and I could make 2 mm veneers easily. Excellent.
There was, however, one big no-no with this delivery. There was a loose screw and a nut in the package and I was wondering what they are doing there since they were not on the schematics and list of parts. After some searching around I found that they are missing from the band tensioning mechanism and that the other screw in the pair is also loose and on the verge of falling out. That is not something that should happen, ever. Other than that, I have no big objections so far although I only tested it for about half an hour.
wtf with that screw? let us know when you know.
I see that this one has ball bearing blade guides, and that should help with blade longevity as well as precision, You can adjust them nice and close for resawing, and not have to keep adjusting for wear.
I’ve never actually owned or used any, but I’m under the impression that Metabo makes some pretty decent tools?
Hopefully the loose screw is due to shipping events or some such, and not something on the manufacturing end of things…
@GAS I tightened both screws properly and everything seems to work OK. How they became loose I shall never know.
@Mathew Curie this is the cheapest bandsaw with ball-bearing guides that I could find and indeed when I decided to buy a new one, ball-bearing guides were a must.
@lochaber the table saw is decent, although not top-notch. However, these screws should never have come loose, not even during transport. They both have spring washers and an M8 screw with a spring washer should not loosen during transport. They must have been sloppily tightened during manufacture. It is probably not a thing on which one could successfully apply warranty complaint.