I'm quite pleased with this bench top band saw. However, the thickest wood it's able to cut is 3 1/4". The owners manual has much to be desired, as there is no procedure for adjusting the upper and lower blade bearings. It simply says factory adjusted. Unfortunately, the bearings on the one I received were completely out of adjustment and I had to call for a repair tech to instruct me. Rockwell RK7453 9-Inch Band Saw
Item came in about the normal shipping. Open box and parts came dropping out. Read the instructions thoroughly and tried to set the blade up. Forget it. I have been using saws for 50+ years. I could not get the blade to stay on. Would not track!!! The upper wheel is made very poorly. Would not recommend this piece of junk to anybody!!! Pay a little more and get a "real" tool and not his poor excuse for a tool!!!
I bought the saw thinking it would be nice to have a work light attached, that is nice but I am having trouble keeping the blade from coming off the wheels , it keeps coming off when I cut a shape and cuts crooked when I want to cut a straight line. It might be me, but the blade dosen't seem to be very tight , even when I adjust it all the way.
The blade broke and the instructions say to turn a knob. I turned the knob lock to lock and the upper wheel never moved which would have allowed installation of the new blade. Wasted almost 2 hours getting bounced around customer service and nobody there had any answers and worse yet, they didn't know who to ask now. Very customer unfriendly, unless you want to buy a Rockwell.
I am quite pleased with this bandsaw. I did not personally have the blade-coming-off problem described by other reviewers, and it's true that you have to do a fair bit of adjustment to blade guides, etc to get the saw to work well. The adjustment is straightforward: watch the Wood Whisperer's guide to setting up a bandsaw, and you'll easily figure this one out. It even comes with the tools to do the adjustment!
However, I've now logged probably 10-20 hours of continuous sawing on the saw, and other than breaking a blade yesterday (my own fault), I have no complaints.
The work light is very nice. I put the bandsaw near my (also cheap) drill press and use the work light interchangeably.
I plan on replacing the table with a larger one at some point -- the existing table is just bolted on, so it looks like an easy replacement.
The miter gauge is worthless: throw it out. But that's always true at this level of tool.
In summary: if you want to spend very little on a small bandsaw, and you're willing to do some patient fiddling to get it to go, you might have luck with this saw. OTOH, maybe I just got lucky. :-) - Band Saws - Bandsaw - Rockwell - Woodworking'
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