Craftsman 21400 10" BS $99

[mpc]

Thanks to you guys I grabbed on of these for myself at the $99 price. My local Sears had a sealed box sitting below the display model so I didn't have to order it or ask the sales kiddies "got any in the back?"

Assembled fairly easily; the instructions weren't the greatest but it's fairly intuitive anyway. I've never used a bandsaw before either. One change I did make: I tensioned the blade and adjusted the lower blade guides BEFORE putting the table on based on the comments made previously on this forum. Once put together, it ran smoothly and quietly. I didn't notice any blade issues like TKsDust described fortunately.

Gave it a try: grabbed a two foot long piece of softwood 1x2 and tried to slice off a quarter inch of it. Worked fine on the first try - and remember, this is the first time I've ever used a bandsaw. I was pleasantly surprised... bandsaws have always been one of those tools that I feared since it seemed easy/likely for a blade to bust and then fly out horizontally from the table. Just looked too dangerous.

I did run into 3 minor problems with mine though:
* one missing lockwasher. Big deal.
* The bolts that hold the thing together are not particularly strong; I sheared one of the stubby carriage bolts that holds the table support to the body of the saw... and no, I wasn't using impact/air tools... just my 6" quarter-inch drive socket wrench. The bolts on this thing are standard metric pitch so I just grabbed a bolt from my junkyard Toyota collection. Fit the original nut perfectly.
* The aluminum fence is a thin-metal box... the sides of mine weren't straight. The edges that the workpiece rides against were bowed outwards a bit. I took the whole fence apart (trivially easy) and used hardwood slipped through the fence to "drive" it against the flat workbench. After a few tries I got it quite flat and still square. It'd be easy to screw this up though.

For $99+tax though I knew I wasn't getting a Laguna or anything like that... but then I don't need anything like fine anyway given my (lack of) woodworking skills/experience. Given how easily/cleanly this bandsaw resawed that 1x2 stick I'm quite satisfied - especially with the stock "barely adequate" blade. Now I have one more nice pretty tool in my collection. One day I'll use 'em to make something.

Oh, the dust collection: I didn't bother hooking up the shop vac for my simple test... sawdust flew out the dust port anyway, all over my open toolbag. Hardly any dust remained inside the saw amazingly enough. Know how many small tools come with dust collection bags that are more jokes than collection devices? One of those would actually WORK on this thing! Hooked up to some sort of vacuum I expect the dust collection to be nothing short of amazing.

Again, thanks guys for pointing this little gem out to me.

mpc

[calec]

"Temporaily out of stock..." (I wonder - New model coming?)

Sears website posted that notice yesterday afternoon. Glad I bought mine.
I'm wondering if a model change is in the works?

[goslin23]

1st post here.

After reading the commensts, I decided to pick one up at the Sears Hardware store in Katy, TX. They had one left NIB and the display model (I bought the boxed one obviously). I also purchased a stand to go along with it.

1st impressions, for $99 it's a pretty nice piece of equipment. It's the 1st BS that I have owned and I haven't used one since highschool shop class 24 years ago! I set it up over the course of a couple hours and so far have only made a few test cuts on a scrap piece of 2x4. I may need to make a few more adjustments, but it appears to be a good saw and a great value.

[tohellwithuga]

Well, mine finally arrived this morning, despite the "Billing Info Received" UPS message. Unfortunately, I don't expect to be able to try it out for a couple weeks, as I'm working on pouring a patio and extending my deck.

I would like to at least make sure all the parts are there, though, especially if this thing is being closed out. Hopefully I can find time for that.

Thanks again for posting, OP!

[barryvabeach]

Mods to saw

Since I gon my saw a few months back, I have been thinking about mods. The 12 and 14 inch versions have knobs that are used to adjust the bearings and I decided to try to recreate it. I had some limited sucess. The bearings slide on a post or rod that gets locked down when you tighten the bearing. There is a little tab on some of the posts and based on the bigger saws I thought it would be easy to cut off the tab, drill a shallow hole, tap it and inset a short length of all thread and loctite it in place like so.



I then tapped and knurled a short length of rod to act as the adjuster - this shows the rear thrust bearing adjuster from behind



While those two work fine, the right side presents a problem in that the guide doesn't appear to allow any room for a knurled rod



Underneath, the right side should work fine, I will probably have to cut the front of the door to allow the adjuster for the lower thrust bearing, and I have no idea how to do the left bearing in that a nut blocks that side. Hope someone here comes up with a good idea. BTW, I found out that if you want no do this you may need to trim the post or rod so that when it is flush with the outside there is clearance at the bearing - that way as you loosen the adjuster moves towards the blade and as you tighten it it moves away. On the upper left side, w/o trimming, it could not be tigthened to clear the blade. Sorry about the pics, when I tried to crop them they got fuzzy

[dtam]

I got one today for $55. Even though it's a returned item (there is a little sawdust inside, and the box was marked "used"), for $55 it's still a good deal.

If anyone can still find one, and needs a copy of the receipt to pricematch, I can post it.

David