Portable Band Saw Review

3RRL · Oct 30, 2007

A little over a year ago while shopping at Harbor Freight, they had a portable bandsaw on sale for $49.95 I figured for that price I couldn't go wrong. This last weekend at the property, I found out I was right. It was the first time I opened the box! I also bought several other items such as a chain saw chain sharpener (still in the box never opened) and a couple other tools like that.

Anyway, I had some sawing to do so I got it out of the box. First thing I did was check the roller guides out and saw they were out of adjustment a lot. I took the bottom of the saw off and noticed there was no adjustment for the guides? I wish I took a photo of it like that, but I didn't.

You can see that the tapped holes were way too low for the roller guides with the bottom tapped hole nearly off the casting. Their jig must have been off on that side because the other side was good. It supported the blade properly. To fix it, I drilled a clearance hole in the guide and turned it into a slot. I put the first screw in and tightened it into position. Then drilled through the guide into the casting and screwed in a self tapping screw. When I put the blade back on, the roller guides now supported the bandsaw blade correctly....sideways and the bottom of it. It only took me a few minutes to fix.

Here is the link to it. I see it's gone up in price a little now.
Portable Band Saw

3RRL · Oct 31, 2007

Once that was done, I was able to cut with it. I was very surprised at the power of the motor. It ran very smooth and was powerful, even at the slowest setting. The trigger has a variable speed selector on it. First thing I did was set up a home made milling/grinding vise and clamped it to my work table at camp. then cut off the ends of the 1/4" wall tubing for my rotary cutter project.
Man was I surprised. It cut through them like butter! Big grin on my face by now.

3RRL · Oct 31, 2007

I also needed to cut some clearance where these tubes lay across some 1/4" thick angle iron, so the rest of it would lie flat on the rotary cutter body. I had already made a horizontal cut for the notch. I repositioned my vise and used furniture clamps this time to hold it to my work bench. Then clamped up the steel tubes vertically and cut off a 1/4" to leave a "notch" in the tubes. I used the squareness guide to help me keep it steady and it cut all these pieces off pretty quickly.
Here are a couple photos of the set up and results.

So on to the rating...
I had never used a portable band saw before so I thought it was pretty cool. It runs off 110v (I used a Coleman 3500w generator). The motor is very strong even at the slowest setting I used. The blade seemed pretty good considering there was no coolant for it. And the squareness guide allowed me to easily keep it square and parallel to my work piece. Aside from the one roller guide being in the wrong location, I give the saw an excellent rating on performance and cutting ability. The overall finish, screws, frame and plastic housing were about average. So only the guide problem, which I thought was an easy fix for me, was the only drawback. I would have tweaked the roller guides on any bandsaw I bought, to be sure they were perfect, so having to fix this one was no big deal to me. Over all considering everything, I think it was a good value with very good performance, especially for the price I paid.
It sure beats the heck out of a hacksaw.

Rara Avis · Oct 31, 2007

Congrats on your saw...
Your posts are why I bought a reconditioned Milwaukee Portable Bandsaw...It costs more, but I didn't have to mess with it and it has a 5 year warranty...

Milwaukee Factory-Reconditioned Band Saws

ragkar · Oct 31, 2007

paul christenson - thanks for the link

I've bought lots of things from harbor freight and they always were 'seconds' But they're cheap.
I've resigned myself to accepting this if it is only for a seldom used job. things like gasket punches, leather punches, etc. but I would never buy somethings like drill bits or larger machines from them.
HF ships quickly but they must use the worlds slowest shipper. I've found they're customer service to be pretty good though.
Amazon has some pretty good buy's on milwaukee v28 cordless tools and some pretty bad ones. I went looling this morning and found prices for the Lion battery that ranged from $90 to $300.
The trick for getting a low price from HF is to look for the price from the web and also multiple HF catalogs. The same item may have prices ranging fro $10 to $60 depending where you look. And if you order the $60 version, the order taker won't tell you of the cheaper stock number.

EddieWalker · Oct 31, 2007

Paul,

Thanks for the link. I just ordered a 5 inch orbital sander from there.

Eddie

scott_vt · Oct 31, 2007

Mornin Rob,
Good post and evaluation ! I would consider the buying the saw to save $200 over other brands. I will mill slots in roller guides all day for that kind of savings !

Of course I have been called thrifty by some worse by others !

GeneD14 · Nov 2, 2007

Thanks for the review. I bought a portable bandsaw a few years ago and it is great. It is a used Porter-Cable off of ebay. I use it alot for little jobs and hard to get to cuts. My old hacksaws rarely see any use.

George2615 · Nov 2, 2007

3RRL,
I bought the same saw about 2 years ago. I also bought a pkg. of 3 extra blades with it. I've cut tons of steel with it like butter and it leaves a nice smooth edge. Just broke the original blade last week and that was my own fault. I let the saw twist on me and the blade bent and snapped. It only took about 3 minutes to change the blade. It took longer to find where I put the box of spare blades.
I also bought one of their 4 1/2" grinders about 4 years ago. Last year I figured the old one was going to die on me so I bought another. It's still in the box ready to go. I know they are made in China but for the price they have served me well.

SPYDERLK · Nov 2, 2007

3RRL said:
So on to the rating...
I had never used a portable band saw before so I thought it was pretty cool. It runs off 110v (I used a Coleman 3500w generator). The motor is very strong even at the slowest setting I used. The blade seemed pretty good considering there was no coolant for it. And the squareness guide allowed me to easily keep it square and parallel to my work piece. Aside from the one roller guide being in the wrong location, I give the saw an excellent rating on performance and cutting ability. The overall finish, screws, frame and plastic housing were about average. So only the guide problem, which I thought was an easy fix for me, was the only drawback. I would have tweaked the roller guides on any bandsaw I bought, to be sure they were perfect, so having to fix this one was no big deal to me. Over all considering everything, I think it was a good value with very good performance, especially for the price I paid.
It sure beats the heck out of a hacksaw.

I have the same HF saw and had similar issues corrected much the same. I also found out it is important to store the saw with the blade loose to keep from deforming the rubber on the drive wheels. A very capable tool.
larry