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Much of it boils down to overall stiffness of the "chassis." Both cast iron "Delta" style saws and Euro frame saws can be good or bad. With the cast iron versions the joint itself can be a trouble spot depending on how it is built and the way the fasteners clamp the pieces together. Also, cast iron saws, if they are ever overloaded, dropped, or whatever and develop cracks in the main central column area are almost impossible to repair. The Euro frame saws however can have "doubler" panels welded (or even bolted/rivited) across cracks... similar to how aircraft skin cracks are repaired.
As Loring noted, with the Euro frame style, resaw capacity is forever fixed; with the cast iron versions a riser kit can increase the resaw capacity.
There are a LOT of other considerations that have more import on how well the saw functions than the frame style, in my opinion. Guides for example: blocks versus bearings, which is better? Bearings have less friction but blocks can be positioned closer to the actual workpiece: The attachment shows a diagram I created recently as part of a bandsaw write-up I'm making for a couple friends of mine just starting out in woodworking.
Bearings contact the sides of the blade at 1/2 their diameter while blocks are limited by the thickness of their mounting structure. Both styles have years of experience on different brands and both work well when properly adjusted. Laguna uses ceramic blocks on their well-respected bandsaws. Other brands - Agazzani and SCM - use bearings mounted sideways to grip the blade; the adjustment mechanisms are fine threaded shafts you turn by hand - similar to the Ryobi microadjuster for the BT's rip fence. They are really easy to use, not cheap, but really don't work well with the smallest bandsaw blades.
Size and stiffness of the table matter. Part of the table stiffness is how rigid the trunnion assembly is. When you examine bandsaw tables, you will see some have the blade changing slot coming out the front of the table, others have it exiting the right side. Why the difference? On tables with the forward slot, the trunnion has to support the table from behind the blade only - it cannot extend to the front half of the table or else you would not be able to change the blade. The Rikon saws are this way. On tables with the lateral slot, the trunnion can be a wider "U" shape supporting both the front and rear of the table... which sounds "better" but, again, the actual design and implementation can make the forward slot designs plenty rigid. The wide "U" trunnions are still bolted to the top of the lower wheelhouse which is a rather narrow footprint; often that area flexes which negates the advantages of the wide "U" platform. Trunnions for forward facing slots also bolt to the lower wheelhouse but generally attach to the side of it as well, not just the top. Since the lower wheelhouse sheet metal is part of the saw structure, rather than being a bolted-on piece as on the cast iron saws, this area tends to be quite rigid. Blade slots coming forward make it easier to change the blade typically; lateral slots require you to twist the blade and finagle it around the trunnion, the hand knobs on the trunnion's forward saddle (the knob that locks the table tilt angle in the trunnion), etc. Forward slots though may force you to finagle the blade around the fence mounting bar. In some cases, especially on smaller or lower price saws, the fence mounting bar must be removed to change blades. Yuck.
Another consideration is how accessible are the lower guides? Some older model saws actually required removing the table to adjust the lower guide bearings - not something you want to do every time you change the blade! Others had access through the round opening the blade passes through in the table - you got to play "dentist" on your saw. More recent designs make this area reasonably accessible from below though none make it trivially easy. The recent Rikon saws, with the "tool free" blade changes, have ~1 inch knobs on the bearings and those ratcheting levers (same type as you find on lathe tool rests and banjos) so you don't have to finagle fingers + tools into that cramped area. For whatever reason though, once you tighten the knobs gently, they seem to require a lot more oomph to loosen on the next blade change as Capncarl noted. A bit of PVC pipe, with notches cut into the end, could make a cheap extension handle.
From the last two paragraphs, you can tell a big difference in various bandsaws is how easy/difficult it is to change blades. Table saws suffer similar issues: blade guards and insert plates to change blades... Ornery designs for table saws and bandsaws make you change blades less often than you should. Other detail differences to consider: how do you adjust the table to be square to the blade - when viewed from the side of the bandsaw. You want the blade perfectly perpendicular to the table. Some bandsaws make you remove the table and add/remove shims and test again, others (including Rikon) have small setscrews in the trunnion mount that make this adjustment quick and easy. The other critical adjustment is the upper guide support column: does it move perfectly vertically with the blade? If not, every time you adjust the upper guide assembly (to match the workpiece height) there will be a small lateral shift in the guides... you'll have to re-adjust the guide blocks or guide bearings. VERY annoying. Or you end up getting into the bad habit of adjusting them further away from the blade than you should so they'll "always clear no matter the height of the guide post." On the Euro frame saws, the rack-and-pinion gear assembly that moves the column up/down can usually be shimmed or adjusted via setscrews; on many cast iron saws the column moves inside part of the cast iron chassis and thus may not be adjustable at all... if the factory didn't machine that hole properly you're stuck.
Dust collection: most bandsaws today put a dust port at the bottom of the lower wheelhouse. But bandsaws really need dust collection just below the table to get the fine stuff before it has a chance to gum-up the thrust bearings (all saws) and guide bearings on saws using guide bearings rather than guide blocks. This is one area where Rikon dropped the ball on their 14 inch bandsaws; I ended up adding a "Y" to my dust hose with a 2 1/2 inch branch going to a flex hose that wedges under the table. Made a big difference. The 4 inch port of the "Y" extracts from the lower wheelhouse through a blast gate which is about 80% closed to force most of the vacuuming to go to the 2 1/2 hose instead.
Overall, I'm quite happy with my Rikon 10-325 that I've upgraded with the 10-326 style tool-free guide bearing set. My 10-325 was one of the early models, built long before Rikon re-designed the guide assemblies. Rikon sells an upgrade kit which I bought. I went through the calibration process for the wheel axles - to get the wheels coplanar - when I first got the bandsaw. With that done, I have no "drift" to deal with when making most rip cuts so I rarely use the resaw post that attaches to the stock rip fence. I went back and did the same adjustments to my older Craftsman 10 inch model which is also a Euro frame style (it looks similar to Rikon's 10-305) and the cut quality improved.
mpc
As Loring noted, with the Euro frame style, resaw capacity is forever fixed; with the cast iron versions a riser kit can increase the resaw capacity.
There are a LOT of other considerations that have more import on how well the saw functions than the frame style, in my opinion. Guides for example: blocks versus bearings, which is better? Bearings have less friction but blocks can be positioned closer to the actual workpiece: The attachment shows a diagram I created recently as part of a bandsaw write-up I'm making for a couple friends of mine just starting out in woodworking.
Bearings contact the sides of the blade at 1/2 their diameter while blocks are limited by the thickness of their mounting structure. Both styles have years of experience on different brands and both work well when properly adjusted. Laguna uses ceramic blocks on their well-respected bandsaws. Other brands - Agazzani and SCM - use bearings mounted sideways to grip the blade; the adjustment mechanisms are fine threaded shafts you turn by hand - similar to the Ryobi microadjuster for the BT's rip fence. They are really easy to use, not cheap, but really don't work well with the smallest bandsaw blades.
Size and stiffness of the table matter. Part of the table stiffness is how rigid the trunnion assembly is. When you examine bandsaw tables, you will see some have the blade changing slot coming out the front of the table, others have it exiting the right side. Why the difference? On tables with the forward slot, the trunnion has to support the table from behind the blade only - it cannot extend to the front half of the table or else you would not be able to change the blade. The Rikon saws are this way. On tables with the lateral slot, the trunnion can be a wider "U" shape supporting both the front and rear of the table... which sounds "better" but, again, the actual design and implementation can make the forward slot designs plenty rigid. The wide "U" trunnions are still bolted to the top of the lower wheelhouse which is a rather narrow footprint; often that area flexes which negates the advantages of the wide "U" platform. Trunnions for forward facing slots also bolt to the lower wheelhouse but generally attach to the side of it as well, not just the top. Since the lower wheelhouse sheet metal is part of the saw structure, rather than being a bolted-on piece as on the cast iron saws, this area tends to be quite rigid. Blade slots coming forward make it easier to change the blade typically; lateral slots require you to twist the blade and finagle it around the trunnion, the hand knobs on the trunnion's forward saddle (the knob that locks the table tilt angle in the trunnion), etc. Forward slots though may force you to finagle the blade around the fence mounting bar. In some cases, especially on smaller or lower price saws, the fence mounting bar must be removed to change blades. Yuck.
Another consideration is how accessible are the lower guides? Some older model saws actually required removing the table to adjust the lower guide bearings - not something you want to do every time you change the blade! Others had access through the round opening the blade passes through in the table - you got to play "dentist" on your saw. More recent designs make this area reasonably accessible from below though none make it trivially easy. The recent Rikon saws, with the "tool free" blade changes, have ~1 inch knobs on the bearings and those ratcheting levers (same type as you find on lathe tool rests and banjos) so you don't have to finagle fingers + tools into that cramped area. For whatever reason though, once you tighten the knobs gently, they seem to require a lot more oomph to loosen on the next blade change as Capncarl noted. A bit of PVC pipe, with notches cut into the end, could make a cheap extension handle.
From the last two paragraphs, you can tell a big difference in various bandsaws is how easy/difficult it is to change blades. Table saws suffer similar issues: blade guards and insert plates to change blades... Ornery designs for table saws and bandsaws make you change blades less often than you should. Other detail differences to consider: how do you adjust the table to be square to the blade - when viewed from the side of the bandsaw. You want the blade perfectly perpendicular to the table. Some bandsaws make you remove the table and add/remove shims and test again, others (including Rikon) have small setscrews in the trunnion mount that make this adjustment quick and easy. The other critical adjustment is the upper guide support column: does it move perfectly vertically with the blade? If not, every time you adjust the upper guide assembly (to match the workpiece height) there will be a small lateral shift in the guides... you'll have to re-adjust the guide blocks or guide bearings. VERY annoying. Or you end up getting into the bad habit of adjusting them further away from the blade than you should so they'll "always clear no matter the height of the guide post." On the Euro frame saws, the rack-and-pinion gear assembly that moves the column up/down can usually be shimmed or adjusted via setscrews; on many cast iron saws the column moves inside part of the cast iron chassis and thus may not be adjustable at all... if the factory didn't machine that hole properly you're stuck.
Dust collection: most bandsaws today put a dust port at the bottom of the lower wheelhouse. But bandsaws really need dust collection just below the table to get the fine stuff before it has a chance to gum-up the thrust bearings (all saws) and guide bearings on saws using guide bearings rather than guide blocks. This is one area where Rikon dropped the ball on their 14 inch bandsaws; I ended up adding a "Y" to my dust hose with a 2 1/2 inch branch going to a flex hose that wedges under the table. Made a big difference. The 4 inch port of the "Y" extracts from the lower wheelhouse through a blast gate which is about 80% closed to force most of the vacuuming to go to the 2 1/2 hose instead.
Overall, I'm quite happy with my Rikon 10-325 that I've upgraded with the 10-326 style tool-free guide bearing set. My 10-325 was one of the early models, built long before Rikon re-designed the guide assemblies. Rikon sells an upgrade kit which I bought. I went through the calibration process for the wheel axles - to get the wheels coplanar - when I first got the bandsaw. With that done, I have no "drift" to deal with when making most rip cuts so I rarely use the resaw post that attaches to the stock rip fence. I went back and did the same adjustments to my older Craftsman 10 inch model which is also a Euro frame style (it looks similar to Rikon's 10-305) and the cut quality improved.
mpc
Loring in Katy, TX USA
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