Customer Reviews

DELTA 28-475X X5 14-Inch 1-1/2-Horsepower Woodworking Bandsaw, 115/230-Volt 1-Phase

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After a great deal of studying, reading, looking and touching, I finally bought this saw. I hope this review is of some help to others in the market, the purchase caused me a great number of "sleepless" nights... I highly recommend reading "The Bandsaw Book" by Lonnie Bird (at Amazon for about $14) - it was a great resource and one of the better woodworking books on tools I've purchased.

Overall I think this is an excellent saw. I don't agree with the two gentlemen who only gave it one star. I've only had it a few days but am so far very happy. NO vibration. Runs smoothly and quietly. Switch is fine. I really have no idea how much it weighs; I didn't put it on a scale. I do have some negative comments (below) and will make my final assessment later.

I found the choice boiled down to two saws for me: the Delta X5 and the new Powermatic (made by Jet essentially). I looked at the European saws from Minimax and Laguna but found them to be out of my price range. They are both beautiful saws and if I had the money, I would have looked more seriously at one of them before buying. However, they are both $500+ more than the 14" saws. It also appeared that these saws were better suited for resawing than any scroll work and my intent was more of the latter than the former.

A short comparison:

- Delta claims this saw is the only one "made in the USA." I don't know if that's true or not but don't really care. I buy cars based on quality, not where they're made. It wasn't a selling point for me.

- The PM saw has far more "bells and whistles" than the Delta does out of the box for about the same money.

- I found the casting is clearly beefier on the Delta. The casting on the PM is the same as the other Jet saws.

- I thought the table and trunion mechanism was also beefier on the Delta.

- PM seems to have a better rip fence.

- PM has cast iron wheels, Delta's are aluminum. I'm skeptical about the wheels on the PM providing any "flywheel" effect as the salesman said as they are ribbed and not very beefy (neither are). Delta's are "computer balanced" - a plus for the vibration issue.

- Stand on the Delta has cheap plastic hinges and catch. PM's is metal and nicer (a minor issue).

- PM uses Carter (or Carter style) guides and tension mechanism, which I like better than the new Delta system

The saw:

Assembly was fairly easy and only took a few hours. As with all tools with a motor/belt, the alignment of these is a pain. I think they should come up with a better solution - it can't be that expensive! I ended up having to move the upper pulley out a bit to make it line up with the lower one (which I had pushed as far onto the motor shaft as I could).

Detla claims 100% American and American made - bearings are made it Taiwan. I'm inclined to believe other parts are too. Not a problem for me, I just don't like being lied to as I was by the Delta rep.

Bought the riser block so I needed 105" blades. The "free" platinum pro blade in the box went immediately into the trash. In hindsight, I probably should have used the saw with that blade and then when I wore it out, attached the riser block. A minor thing.

Trunion bolts were missing! This is my biggest complaint. How can they let something so grossly wrong leave their factory unnoticed?? I had to go the local hardware store and buy two bolts. Again, a minor thing but poor quality control as far as I'm concerned.

Upper wheel bearing is bent out of shape but works fine.

Extended blade guard is a poor design and should be re-done. It gets in the way of the upper door and doesn't adjust very easily. I had to bend my door out a little to shut past it. It was a simple thing that only took a second and it works fine now.

NOTE IF YOU BUY THE RISER BLOCK: When you remove the rod that holds the bearings and guides, etc. there's a small ball bearing in the casting that keeps the rod from crashing down on the table when it's loosened. Delta forgets to tell you to catch this ball bearing as it FALLS out of the casting when you remove the rod. I heard it bounce and then spent 20 minutes crawling around on the floor looking for it!

I bought cool blocks and Timberwolf low tension blades from PS Machinery. Both great buys.

Good luck.....

Shipped in one 280 lb box on a small pallet, so be aware that you may need to ask for lift gate service since the cheapest delivery does not include offloading of items this heavy. Inside the box, the upper assembly is the heaviest piece and will take at least two to lift it safely onto the base cabinet. Despite one review to the contrary, it does weight in at over 260 lb. If you are planning to use a mobile base, put it together first and assemble the saw on it because there are no good handholds to lift this monster.

Assembly and calibration took a few hours. It is quiet and one of the few tools that I can run in the basement that can not be heard on the second floor. The saw did not have any significant vibration and cut very smoothly with the 1/4" blade it shipped with.

Having read the only review online of this saw, I was a bit reluctant to order. I ordered anyway to keep my shop "pure Delta."

I had the saw shipped 3-day Fedex so that it would be delivered by a truck with a lift gate. Total shipping weight was 280 lbs. Take away the 20 lbs of pallet and cardboard, and what's left is 260 lbs of saw, far more than the other review said it was.

My other concern from reading the sole review was the flatness of the cast iron table (how can cast iron be out of flat unless it was machined that way or run over by a truck?). My table was as flat as I can measure with my machinist's rule. . . . in no place can I even slide a piece of paper under the edge.

Now I'm waiting for the free mobile base to arrive before I assemble the saw, or it will never be moved again. I look forward to completing this review with sawing details once I get sawing!

This is the first band saw I've used, and there were a couple of problems, but so far it's been mostly good.

The first problem was with assembly and the riser block. Once you install the riser block, the cord no longer reaches the motor. The riser instructions mention removing a strap to make it reach, but it doesn't help. This really strikes me as bad planing since many folks will install the riser, skimping on the cord length is just silly. I had to drill a couple of new holes and move the switch down a bit.

The second problem was that the top wheel was not aligned with the bottom and was too close to the cover, it would scrape if the blade was tracked correctly. A quick call to delta and they sent a couple of washers to get it into place. I've always been very happy with delta's service. This probably would have solved many of the problems for the 300 lb. coat rack titled reviewer.

Outside of those two issues the build quality seems pretty good. The table is flat, everything fits well and there is no vibration even when pushing large chunks of wood through it. One of the blocks on the bottom guide is kind of pain to get to, but not terribly so. The vertical blade guard is held in place by a bolt and a screw so changing a blade takes two tools, I'm not sure why they didn't do a pair of thumbscrews or at least use the same tool at the head (they are the same thread and length). That would have made changing the blade quicker. The thumbscrew to adjust the wheel tracking can also be hard to turn under heavy tension. A bigger thumbscrew would have helped.

I've done very little fine stuff on it so far so can't really comment there. I was mostly looking for resaws and veneers. All the books say a 14" saw can't tension a 3/4" blade, to use a 1/2" blade for resaws. I tried that with 1/2" woodslicer blade and couldn't get a straight cut for the life of me. The 3/4" blade worked great though, don't believe the books. So far I've used it to cut veneers from 6" maple and mill some really wet 8" pine logs, no problems.

I also replaced the standard steel blocks with cool blocks. This made it run a bit quieter and let me push the blocks closer to the blade which helped straighten out the cuts.

I don't really have any other saw to compare it to, but so far this seems to me to be a great prosumer level saw for the weekend wood worker. As a first time band saw user, the only thing that was hard to get used to was the amazing amount of tweaking that must take place when changing a blade. It only takes a couple of minutes, but compared to the table saw world I was previously used to it's just not what I expected.

The 28-475X I have replaced an older Craftsman. When I first turned it on and ran a test piece through, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It is a nice running machine. Handles resaws without a problem in maple, ash, walnut and cherry. Assembly is straight forward if you follow the instructions step by step. If you are going to do resaw, spend the extra dough and get the riser. I looked long and hard at the Powermatic when buying this, but in the end the "Made in the USA" label, the lower guide arrangement and the fact that most of my shop is Delta made the difference.

I researched quite extensively before my purchase. I owned a craftsman and wanted to upgrade. My choices narrowed to the new powermatic, which is pretty and taiwanese, the delta USA or the Laguna European, all 14in band saws. I went to my local supplier and read tool reviews. They all passed with flying colors. I actually leaned slightly towards the powermatic because it was 50 dollars cheaper and came with more accessories. I then saw the machines next to each other (except laguna),there was no comparison. The delta looked far superior from castings to table to thumb screws, a better machine. I bought one. The only problem I encountered was with the carriage bolts, chrome and black.(Use chrome to put motor mounting bars on, save black for cabinet) I put it together alone, the main saw component is heavy but managed the lift solo.
P.S I got a video from Laguna Tools a week after my purchase. I ordered it when researching. Its very interesting their bandsaws are European and of or what appeared exceptional quality worth checking out. I may have bought too soon!!Get back to you on that.

I bought this bandsaw and hauled it to my basement shop. It was well packaged so there wasn't a scratch on it. Assembly was straightforward. I bought a mobile base with it so it was assembled directly into the base. I could lift all of the pieces myself although the upper assembly is heavy and you need to be careful. The saw runs smooth and I have cut thick maple for furniture legs and resawed several log pieces without a problem. Blade tracks fine. I put on the after-market ceramic guide blocks since their advertising seemed to make sense about running cooler with tighter tolerances to the blade. A fine product all-in-all. If you're like me and have wanted a bandsaw for years, you'll be happy with this one.

I've had this machine a year now. Arrived with no problems. Checked tolerances on all aspects and all was okay. Start with the fact that band saws are cantankerous machines -- need a lot of TLC. If you are not familiar with them, beware that it takes time to learn how to set it up right. That said, this machine is an antique and belongs in a museum as they haven't improved a thing in 50 years. OTOH, it is amazing that this could be sold for around $1,000, so that is my perspective. This is the best of the low end machines, fine for hobbyists but not so fine for pros.

Wheels are balanced and track well. Note that vibration is usually the result of poor set up. After six months of learning how to tune it right, mine now runs perfectly smooth. Cheap blades and bad guide adjustment will make a terrible noise and vibration. I'd take the vibration complaints with a grain of salt. The problem is likely the operator and not the machine. I still use the old steel blocks that work well once you figure out how to adjust them properly.

On the postive side, all components are heavy duty stamped steel and cast iron. My machine got knocked over with a horrible crash onto concrete floor and suffered only minor damage to motor housing. The mobile base is nice, but makes it more likely to fall over.

A major negative are the lower guide controls that have "pencil" knobs and require the use of pliers to adjust them because they are very stiff. I haven't noticed other low end machines with anything better. The Jet seems an exact copy.

The blade guides are crummy but serviceable. Not sure ball bearing guides are worth the cost. Once I got used to adjusting them, it's not a big deal. You can spend a lot of money upgrading with aftermarket parts but by the time you're done you might just as well have bought a better saw from the get go.

My tension adjuster crapped out after 6 months. The standard threads couldn't handle the stress. I bought the machine wheel upgrade from Highland Hardware which is a 6" wheel (not a finger-breaking 2" knob) with Acme threads. I highly recommend it. Worth every penny of $60. I also bought the Kreg fence which, with these two items makes it a decent machine at additional cost of about $200.00. Another $200 for bearing guides and this'd be a fine machine. It's probably no coincidence that all the negatives are upgradable!!!

Set up right, it performs reasonably well. I routinely saw 1/16 x 6" wide veneers accurately with little strain on the motor. Using the right feed rate and sharp blades is critical. If you buy this machine be prepared to spend some time learning to adjust and use it right and it will perform well for you. If you think you can just start jamming pieces of wood thru it without knowledge, you'll be disappointed and end up writing nasty reviews.

This is a fantastic saw. It's built on a time-honored and proven design (which has been copied by others extensively), and has now been improved upon by the inclusion of the tension release and the better resaw fence included in this model.

The manufacturer's comments say it all, but it's important to take notice of the lower guides on this saw. Having these guides close to the underside of the bottom of the table allows for tight turns and better tracking on straight cuts. The competition doesn't have this type of guide -- only Delta. This is extremely important when the going gets rough (in a tough piece of wood or in a tight turn).

Also, this saw has a super-heavy trunnion underneath it -- heavier than the "you know who's" saw with it's aluminum trunnion.

If you are interested in doing some resawing, get the riser kit (even if you don't do a lot of resawing, the extra capacity is nice). Then, pair the saw up with some of those low-tension Swedish steel blades that are so popular and you can run a 3/4" blade on it with no problem. I don't think the saw would properly tension a 3/4" blade unless you seek out these low tension blades, however. With the riser kit and these blades, this is a fantastic saw for resawing, and it's made even better by the super-adjustable features of the fence that's included.

I've done a lot of cutting on my saw, and I'm extremely pleased with it. Unless you're prepared to spend nearly twice as much, I don't think you'll beat it!

If it were not for the assembly problems, I would give this bandsaw a five star rating.

I find the procedure for tensioning the blade a bit cumbersome, however effective. The doors on the stand, as well as the guard doors, are a bit flimsy.

I encountered several assembly problems. The manual and assembly instructions downloaded from the Amazon Web site had small differences than that shipped with the bandsaw. The downloaded manual did not have as many errors and the instructions were more accurate.

The cord from the switch to the motor is too short. I was barely able to make the connection between the motor and the switch, by loosening the motor mounting bolts and sliding the motor a small amount on the mounting rails. Then after making the connection, the mounting bolts were retightened and the motor pulley was realigned.

When removing the guidepost to assemble the height attachment, a small ball bearing fell out. I barely heard it hit the floor; did not know what it was; thought it may have been a small set screw. A small steel ball bearing can roll, undetected, in any direction. I spent over two hours searching for it. There is nothing in the assembly manual to warn you. On reassembly, I packed the cavity with white lithium grease to prevent the bearing from falling while reinserting the guidepost.

The 24" saw rip fence accessory provided another assembly problem. The rear rail had mounting holes drilled at the wrong end of the rail. In order to mount the fence as depicted in the instructions, I had to drill new holes. Since the 24" rails stick out so far, I also ordered the 12" rails, and will only attached the 24" rails when occassionaly needed.

If it were not for these assembly problems, I would give this bandsaw a five star rating. Once these problems were resolved, I became very pleased with the performance of this machine.