Craftsmanship in Wood

If you pick up the accessory blade guide set for the saw, be forewarned that they may not allow for table tilt. I had to modify mine a little on the milling machine, and unfortunately did not discover the issue until after I had tried to tilt the table one time. It's possible that the smaller blade guides do work with a certain year of manufacture, however on my saw they were not quite an ideal fit.

Chris Hall wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 19, 2017 5:54 pm

If you pick up the accessory blade guide set for the saw, be forewarned that they may not allow for table tilt. I had to modify mine a little on the milling machine, and unfortunately did not discover the issue until after I had tried to tilt the table one time. It's possible that the smaller blade guides do work with a certain year of manufacture, however on my saw they were not quite an ideal fit.

Thanks for the info Chris.

Fastenal was much faster than I had anticipated. Arrived today and it's now backed into my shop, still palleted since had to pick it up over lunch. Can't wait to offload it and begin going through the saw. Good news is there were no signs of mishandling/abuse of the pallet.

Pics to follow.

Alright, unloaded with some good and bad:



The bad: previous owners swapped out the motor for a Dayton 2 hp 3450 rpm:



Luckily I have a restored 3 HP, 3 ph motor that should work very well for this. Will probably have to find a new pulley for it.

The good:

Along with the blade it shipped with, there were two additional blades that appear to have original wrapping/boxes:







That helps take out the sting of needing to purchase yet another VFD but I won the saw for a very fare price so I'm still very pleased with the purchase thus far.

Chris, can you confirm these look like original packaging on the blades? Also, do you send out your blades to be sharpened? I'd prefer to send them to someone who understands the geometry.

Another nit but nothing terrible. It appears someone may have dropped the guides because it looks like welds underneath the inserts:

Those are definitely factory blades in original wrapping. Are they stellite tipped or not? Hitachi makes both blades, but the stellite ones are more desirable.

Sharpening is a bit a hassle where I am. East Coast and 'big band mills' do not combine these days, so finding a sharpening shop to handle wide band blades has proven difficult. I have sent out to a place in Maine and they do an okay job at best. The Hitachi blades have such tiny stellite tips that there isn't a lot of meat to work with. I am thinking that I need to find a sharpening place somewhere out west that is more used to dealing with wider bandsaw blades.

If you decide you wand to replace the upper guide, let me know and I'll contact my supplier.

Chris Hall wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:40 pm

Those are definitely factory blades in original wrapping. Are they stellite tipped or not? Hitachi makes both blades, but the stellite ones are more desirable.

Sharpening is a bit a hassle where I am. East Coast and 'big band mills' do not combine these days, so finding a sharpening shop to handle wide band blades has proven difficult. I have sent out to a place in Maine and they do an okay job at best. The Hitachi blades have such tiny stellite tips that there isn't a lot of meat to work with. I am thinking that I need to find a sharpening place somewhere out west that is more used to dealing with wider bandsaw blades.

If you decide you wand to replace the upper guide, let me know and I'll contact my supplier.

Thanks Chris, the boxes say stellite-tipped so that is some good news amidst a few of the disappointments. Are there any drawbacks to the fixed upper guide? It looks like it should still work just fine since the guides can still be moved in/out. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get a price quote on replacement if it's not too much of a bother. Price will dictate whether or not I jump.

As to the motor swap, what are your thoughts on a 3hp 1725 RPM motor powering it? I know you don't use yours for resawing but mine will definitely be acting as a resaw to start. I've seen no shortage of posts that claimed the original gear reduction motor was underpowered so I was hoping the bump up to 3 HP and the lower RPM would give enough torque to eat through anything under the guide.

It may pull double duty down the line when I purchase the guides for smaller blades but no immediate plans.

I can't comment too much on the motor swap. The bandsaw, as Hitachi designed it, seems configured mostly to resaw softwood, and with a sharp blade the machine is adequately powered. Could it stand more power? Sure. As you note I don't resaw with mine, using the CB100FA for that, but I don't find motor power an issue. Rather, it is the sound of the gear reduction that is not my cup of tea, and for me that would be the biggest reason to change to a 3-phase motor. Weigh the complaints that you read about against the fact that the vast majority of woodworkers are reluctant to sharpen things and seemingly prefer to run dull tooling rather than pop in a sharp blade. Hitachi resaw blades are not inexpensive, so the incentive to keep running a dull blade is clear enough I suppose. Couple a dull blade with a modest power input on the drive side, and it is easy to see why many would simply blame the motor for being underpowered.

As for sourcing parts, rumor has it that Hitachi is looking to sell off their power tool division, and they've already discontinued production of some of their larger woodworking machines (including the CB100FA bandsaw) in the past year or so, so the paranoid in me suggests that obtaining parts while they can be readily had makes a certain amount of sense....

Thanks Chris,

Then I'm definitely interested in a replacement. Are there any other heavy wear items you'd suggest replacing?

No real heavy-wear items on the machine that come to mind - mine has never needed parts or repairs. The tires can possibly get a bit chewed up from smaller blades, that's about it.