I bought a new Laguna bandsaw maybe a year ago and have used it lightly. Most of what I was doing was making circular cuts in wood up to about an inch but then tried my hand at resawing. My first attempts were dismal and I quickly learned a few important lessons. One of   So here's the lodown. I bought a new Laguna bandsaw maybe a year ago and have used it lightly. Most of what I was doing was making circular cuts in wood up to about an inch but then tried my hand at resawing. My first attempts were dismal and I quickly learned a few important lessons. Laguna Bandsaw Review. By blkdiamond, January 29, in Power Tools. Share.  He also did a side-by-side comparison between the Laguna and a Rikon He said that the Rikon is one of his most popular bandsaws and that it is very well made, but there are a few things that made the Laguna, in his opinion, a little bit better. The trunions were clearly bigger on the Laguna, the Laguna table was thicker, and the overall fit-and-finish of the Laguna seemed just a little bit better than the Rikon. The Laguna Tools MBAND is the best benchtop band saw you can purchase. Why you ask? Read to find out why it stands above the rest.  The only thing which lets this bandsaw down is the compatible blade sizes, with the MBAND accepting ⅛” to ¾” blades. A wider blade would excel with this bandsaw given the impressive output the motor provides, yet once you’ve become accustomed to using blades within this range, it won’t become an issue. Cast Iron Table & Bevel Ability. It’s no use having a reliable bandsaw without a table that is able to support your projects. This is another area where Laguna have excelled in – with the MBAND boasting a cast iron table with the dimensions of 21 ½” X 16″. Any thoughts on Laguna BX? What beautiful beast! I have spoken to Wayne and his partner. Fortunately I had to mount laguna 1412 bandsaw review app saw on two by fours because my offcut table is a little taller than the saw. If all tools are kits, then they should come with decent directions. He admitted that at one point they bandsw some staffing problems but assured me it was in the past. I purchased a Luguna Bandsaw.

As we can see, there is no major flaw in the Laguna Tools MBAND 14 x 12 Bandsaw and it is cheaper than other bandsaws available in the market, we would definitely give it a positive recommendation. Being made out of some fine quality material, it is made to last for a long period of time without causing any issues.

It is worthy of the price and it is overall cheap as well. Modern tools and equipment have taken many different forms of shapes and sizes. There were once very big tools which used to give the very small amount of work and were inefficient in their work as well.

With revolution and modernization, we can see that bandsaws have been updated as well and now they are available in much smaller size as they were compared to an old time. Having a good bandsaw requires intensive research because they are usually very expensive in nature and a person feels worried before taking on a specific one. A flood light and a wheel kit can be attached for better visibility and easy transportability.

However, both of these items are not available with the package. Inside the store I walked up and down the aisles of machinery checking out the great selection of high-end machinery not found in most other local stores. I recognized co-owner Cole Moore and wandered over to introduce myself we are both active on the Canadian Woodworking forum. He admitted that getting parts from Laguna can sometimes take a while but promised to take care of any issues I might have.

I went back to look at the Laguna bandsaws and got talking to Benjamin Helshoj or Benny as his peers call him whom I had met at the Cloverdale Woodworking Show the month before.

I asked him how the Laguna saws compared to other brands such as Grizzly. He commented on how lightly constructed the Grizzly saws are when compared to his. Later, I left the store empty-handed but with much to ponder. Fast forward five months when I had some serious milling and resawing to do. After much research and deliberation I decided on the Laguna LT I will post a review of the saw later. Monday morning I picked up the saw and transported it home.

With the help of my friend, Mike, we carefully unloaded the saw into my garage; moving it down to the shop would have to wait for a dry day. We unpacked the saw and cleaned off most of the cosmoline.

I called Kevin at Canadian Woodworker and described the problem. I took this picture and e-mailed it to him. About ten minutes later, Kevin called me and told me that Benny was upset that it had made it past quality control and the service tech thought that it was just powder coating that could be removed with grit emery paper.

Despite my misgivings, I took some grit emery paper to the trunnion support. It was clearly not just powder coating and indeed only partially machined. I called Canadian Woodworker and ended up talking to Doug, the manager, as Kevin was on the road for a couple of days.

Doug agreed to let me swap out my trunnion with the one from the display model. The next day, I drove out to Canadian Woodworker and swapped the trunnion support. I pointed this out to Doug before I left and asked him to order another for me.

Then I returned to my shop and installed the parts on my saw as I guessed the replacement trunnion support would take at least a week or two to arrive. I set it on the tires and tensioned and tracked the blade. Then I noticed this: the blade barely cleared a metal flange next to the dust chute. And I mean barely.

You could not slip a piece of note paper between the blade and chute. Not good. I decided to try calling Laguna Tools on their toll-free number. It was late in the afternoon and I immediately got through to Tim. He understood my problem and put me on hold to try to figure out a solution. I patiently waited for several minutes before he came back on the line.

Ultimately, Tim offered to check with the technical support staff tomorrow morning and call me back then. I talked with him for another few minutes, asking him some more general bandsaw questions and talking about my experience so far. He sounded like an experienced bandsaw user, listened to my comments and answered other questions to my satisfaction. Thursday morning I answered my phone, expecting to hear Tim from Laguna Tools on the other end.

To my surprise, it was Kevin from Canadian Woodworker. He explained that he and Doug had removed the trunnion support from another saw that appeared well-machined and he wanted to come and swap it out for me. I was grateful for his offer but told him that I was waiting for a call from Laguna as well and asked him to hold off until I had heard from Tim. About little later, I received a phone call from Brian at Laguna Tools. Apparently, a batch of saws had arrived with that piece protruding too far.

We talked on the phone for a bit longer and he talked me through the issues I was experiencing with the saw and patiently answered all my questions. After my conversation with Brian, I called Kevin and asked if he could come over to swap out the trunnion support. I asked Kevin to bring a replacement.

When he arrived, he helped me remove the table and replace the trunnion support. Otherwise, I would have had to spend my mornings sitting on the curb waiting for the mailman to arrive with parts and it would have taken longer to get the saw fully operational.

The customer service I received from both Laguna Tools and Canadian Woodworker was prompt, helpful, friendly, and courteous. I felt like they were there to help me. Has Laguna listened to customer feedback and put their questionable customer service issues behind them? At least for now. It still give me pause that you had that many things anything really wrong with a tool that is priced that far above the competition.

I helped him put it together, and everything went smoothly with no parts modifications necessary. Maybe my standards are really high, but I still expect more precise machining on tools.

Things like perfectly flush insert plates in the table top should be a primary goal of any tool manufacturer, and anything else affecting the wood machining precision.

This saw, coupled with the Resaw King blade and DriftMaster fence make resawing an absolute breeze. If you are only looking for a saw to cut joinery and curves, this 3 hp saw is overkill. My friend Mike was really happy with his until I got mine kidding about that last part.

I think that I made a good decision to buy the saw locally through Canadian Woodworker. Buyer beware. I purchased the Laguna 10 inch dovetail table saw. The elevation function is finiky at best. It has to be cleaned on a very regular basis. THE California people are off No use what so ever. Lots of competition that will do right by you. This thread was started almost a decade ago and has ZERO relevance as to where Laguna and many other tool companies are today.

Just my opinion. Thanks for the post Chris. You certainly should not have to go through this sort of thing with a so called high end item. You were not the first to experience this. I was disappointed to have to deal with the issues. Does it really make a difference? When I described the problem with the metal flange next to the dust chute to Brian at Laguna, he told me that a batch had arrived like that and I should just to file it down.

Having worked directly at Laguna Tools I can tell you with utmost certainty, the people at Laguna simply are not qualified to conduct business in this country or anywhere else. They have no clue about what customer service is, and the owners are of the mind that yes, YOU the customer…should fix little things like welded parts of machines out of place or any number of issues. That IS the way Laguna does business.

Wally is a current customer and you are an ex-employee? Laguna tools uses what is called reputation management techniques where they or some 3rd party post favorable comments which are purposely designed to appear online above any negative post. The most posts win a high ranking. Its utter bull shit and so are all the people that work at Laguna Tools. Its the very same core group that have been there forever. Its the same losers that have been there for many years and the Helshoj family.

Buy your woodworking machinery elsewhere. Much of the machines the public thinks is made by Laguna is not. It is Chinese just like some you see at Grizzly.

Only you get real service at Grizzly. Laguna has a deceitful company platform and absolutely incredulous group of employees that whine and piss and moan whenever one of their customers has the gall to complain about a defective piece of shit. It really is like that. Trust me…buy elsewhere!

All the positive post you see anywhere online are coaxed, polished and downright fake! My bandsaw from them could never start.

The first two replacement switch parts were clearly defective, discovered after an hour total of installing. The new pieces were worst than the initial defective ones which I had to put back so that they could run diagnostics on the entire electrical system, via phone calls.

I left my job physician for a total of 6 hours so they could talk me thru electrical diagnostics, over 6 weeks, parts coming and going and wrong parts sent.

I offered to buy the piece at cost and do my own wiring and starter switch without the fancy power cutoff gizmos and they refuse to tell me the cost price — they now give me a new blade which is only useful if i one day repair or replace their crap. Even if i get their crap running — doubt if I have patience when any of their fussy, complex mechanical stuff fails. Back to basics.

At the last Cloverdale Woodworking show I looked at all the bandsaws and decided that when I made the financial comittment it would be with Laguna, I would be buying my first and last bandsaw. I probably would not have recognized the blade clearance issue and blown up my Resaw King that would be my buying decision too.

After the second blade broke, maybe someone would figure out there was a problem. I imagine it taking me months to actually get the tool to perform as designed. With these kind of problems in mind, does this indicate I should buy a General because I have a KMS 45min from my shop? I would be interested to hear the response from Laguna to these questions. If the tool IS ready to use out of the box, great — but I will still check it over so that I know it is ready.

I allow a few days to set up new machinery. However, if parts need to be shipped, the timeline suddenly stretches to a week or more. In your case, you might consider making the 5-hour drive to your nearest Laguna dealer and spending a couple hours thoroughly inspecting the actual saw you would be buying. For thirty years I have been telling fellow woodworkers that every tool is just a kit. My best tools are Laguna. After a wonderful visit with them in Irvine, I came to understand the root of their customer challenges.

Company dynamics aside, problems still lie on both sides of the customer-supplier relationship in this market. But the customer is always right. We have a presumptive expectation. I cautiously submit a hard-to-defend concept: if you buy a Mustang GT, you have higher reliability expectations than if you buy a Lamborghini for 5 times more money.

One of the biggest differences in my opinion between the Laguna and every other model that I looked at is the guide blocks. I have found the ceramic guide blocks on the Laguna to be very easy to set up.

Essentially the ceramic guides are intended to touch the blade, so the guides are set by adjusting the guides so that it just touches the blade without applying any pressure. The upper guides are very easy to set, the lower guides are more difficult since they are under the table.

Be aware that the Laguna does not come with a blade, which from what I have read is a good thing since stock blades are all garbage. Set-up was relatively straight forward. Install the table, blade, fence and you are good-to-go. I will say that the instructions were lacking on detail when it came to installing the mobile base kit, but I did finally figure out how to get everything put together, which took me about 2 hours.

The next day I spent about an hour tuning the saw up, using the step-by-step instructions from the demo. Once everything was set up I did some simple test-cuts just to see how that saw was running. The only time I had an issue was when I forgot to open the blast gate for the bandsaw.

Blade changes are straight-forward, especially with the quick-release blade tension lever. The only tool needed to change the blade is a screwdriver to remove the throat-plate. The tracking adjustments are straight-forward and easy to accomplish through the window.

There is also another window that displays the blade tension. When I first set up the band saw I did need to shim the fence to get it square to the table which was easily done with a single strip of electrical tape.

There are two bolts that can be loosened using the supplied allen wrench to square the fence to the blade. The fence slides smoothly side to side and locks down securely. There are a few items that I am less than enthused about, but are not deal breakers. First are the small knobs used to adjust the guide blocks. Maybe I will be surprised, but they just seem out of place on an otherwise high quality saw.

Second is the lack of storage in the stand. Now the stand is incredibly well made and is very heavy duty, but it would have been nice to have an open shelf or a door available for storage. Overall I have no regrets purchasing the Laguna and I expect that it will last for many years. Good review.

I think the knobs will be fine, today's plastics or resins are much stronger. Are you saying that both sides of the base are solid plates? I have a Jet with the inclosed base. It has a door but I don't use it for storage, it's just too low. I was surprised at the price with it being a Laguna.

That seems like a lot of quality for the price.

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