I had an older aluminum frame Craftsman 12in bandsaw that finally gave up on me so I needed (read wanted) a new saw. I done a lot of research and found alot of saws I wanted but could not justify. I went to Sears and took a long hard look at the 22401 and was impressed but still not sold. I read all the reviews I could find and again was impressed but not sold. I went back to Sears and decided to go ahead and order the saw. The clerk gave me a number of discounts that brought the final cost of the saw to $482.00 after taxes, now I am sold.

I got the saw home last Saturday but due to all the Christmas hustle I had not really had time to play with it until this last weekend and here are my thoughts.

I was a little concerned about the re-saw capacity at only 8 inches with no ability to increase if needed in the future but my jointer is only six inches so decided I can live with that.

The one horse motor was another possible concern but decided that coupled with a good blade and the fact that the re-saw is only 8 inches it would suffice.

The fence seemed like it might be suspect but at the cost I could afford to add a Kreg fence and still have a pretty in-expensibe yet nicely equipted saw.

I set the tension on the 1/4 6TPI blade that came with the saw. Fired it up and was thrilled with the absence of vibration or blade flutter.

I went to work setting up the roller bearing guides and found this to be a very easy task. Once the guides were set I set the fence to the drift of the blade. As I thought the fence is a little less than ideal with no real way to set drift other than shims but this is ok because it works fine once it is set. I grab a pine 2x4 and started to saw nice thin strips of vaneer of at about 3/32 of an inch. Not bad for a stock blade.

I had a peice of Ceder log about 18 inches long and 8 inches in diameter. I cut a flat spot on the bottom then started to make wood out of this log. The first cut after I peeled the side off was about 1 inch thick and not bad. I reset my fence to 9/16 inch and pared the log down cuttin 8 slab off. I measured each slab in the centers and on the corners with a digital caliper. All measured from .504 to .509. I couldn't measure the middle of each slab.

I ran them all through my planer taking as little as possible until I had a nice useable board. When this was done I again measured each board and found the final useable thickness to be from .460 to .476.

Keep in mind this is all done with the stock blade. I just received my shippment of Timberwolf blades and am excited to try this on some Maple I have.

The documentation leaves something to be desired but there is alot of information about setting up and dialing in a bandsaw so I was not to detered.

Overall I am very happy with this saw. I think for the money spent it is alot of saw. While I would love the re-saw of the Rikon I can really appreciate the near $500.00 left in my pocket.

Time will tell what the final thought is on this saw but I am not to concerned because of all the possitive reviews I have read.

Jeepman