Customer Reviews

Jet JWBS-10OS 10-Inch Band Saw with Stand

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have a Jet JWBS 10OS that works great. The only problem is related to the use I have for the saw. I use it, primarily, for cutting pen blanks. I want to cut some of the blanks at various angles, using different sleds, which are guided by the miter gauge slot, but the miter gauge rides in a narrow "T" slot, not the conventional 3/8" x 3/4". I then found that there are no other miter gauges or bars available for the narrow "T" slot. I went online with Jet to look for parts for the saw, yet they do not include the JWBS-10OS in their parts listing. I emailed Jet 4 days ago to inquire about purchasing an additional Miter Gauge(s) (to use the bar for the sled), but I have received no response. I realize its early in production, but the issue of spare and replacement parts should have been included in the original production plans. Other than that, from a mechanical point, it works quite well.

I'm an amateur woodworker, and I bought this tool for small-medium sized projects. The throat and depth-of-cut limitations of this saw are adequate for me. However, anyone buying this saw should realize that both the throat and depth-of-cut dimensions for this model are a slightly smaller than some saws in the $300-$400 price range, and this will limit the size of projects you can use the JWBS-10OS for.

I bought mine from a store, so there was no shipment issue. The packaging seemed adequate to me, but since mine never went through a residential delivery service, I can't really tell if it would have survived the journey or not. The box for my saw was strong and in-tact, and the Styrofoam padding seems also strong and nothing was broken or out of order inside the box.

I appreciate the way the saw was mostly assembled in the box. There was some minor assembly required, mostly the base, but not much. And nothing requiring very much skill or effort. With a little tweaking and measuring, I was able to get the table flat enough and true enough to the blade to satisfy me.

The only real problem I had with the saw was the tire on the bottom wheel. It seemed to be stretched out or something, so it wouldn't stay on the wheel. It wasn't terribly stretched out, and I couldn't tell that it wasn't right until the saw had been running for a minute or two. It slowly got looser and looser until it pulled the blade off. It was pretty easy to fix though, with just a couple of dots of contact cement. Now it runs fine. Though I would prefer a brand new saw not require contact cement on the tires.

Overall, I think the saw is very good, and I am absolutely happy I bought it. But there are some obvious cut corners. Which I think is to be expected in a budget-level saw.

Every knob on the saw is made of plastic, and every one of the plastic knobs has a plastic cap that fits on the end of it. Every single plastic cap on every knob on my saw has fallen off. I'm not sure how it was ever supposed to work to begin with. They just fall off. They don't screw on or click into place, they just sit on the end until they fall off. I had to super glue them all back on. Which wasn't much work, though I would prefer to not have to do it. The caps are just for appearances anyway, and serve no purpose other than making the knobs look nice and rounded on the end.

The clip on the fence that holds it to the back of the table was slightly bent so that it wouldn't engage. So I had to bend it a little bit by tapping it with a hammer. Again, not a problem, it was two minutes of work, though I would prefer that I didn't have to do it when the saw is right out of the box.

I found the table to be of good, solid construction. It feels heavy and adjusts easily.


The fence is adequate, though not great. It engages to create a solid connection for guiding your work pieces. You can make minor adjustments to it with a hex wrench in order to true it up with the blade. However, it does not slide easily from one position to the next. I don't consider this to be a problem on a $300 saw. When I need to move the fence I just take it off and put it back on in the new position.

The housing of the saw is very good. The doors are of thicker, heavier material than I expected. The door latches are clever and solid, though made of plastic. I appreciate the dial for tracking adjustment, as my last bandsaw required me to keep up with a particular hex wrench in order to make tracking adjustments.

The tension adjustment mechanism is adequate. There is a tension gauge inside of the housing which is supposed to tell you when your saw is tensioned correctly based on the width of your blade. The gauge looks cheap and gimmicky though, and I seriously doubt that it is more than vaguely accurate.

The depth adjustment knob works smoothly. The guide assembly has a lot of adjustment knobs, and they all work well. It is kind of difficult to see the adjustments for the bottom guide assembly, because the housing is in the way. I was able to make all of the adjustments I needed to, though. So it wasn't prohibitive.

The stand is very solid, though the rubber feet on the bottom are too soft and have already started to wear through after me moving the assembled saw just a few times.

The miter gauge works, though it is hard to imagine a cheaper adjustable miter gauge. It is made of light plastic. It does fit relatively tightly into the miter slot, though. So it works.

The adjustable light is a single LED on the end of a plastic snake. It creates a small focused circle of blue light that you can point anywhere. I would prefer a small lamp to illuminate the whole table.

The saw runs very smoothly, and it "feels" stronger than I expect a saw this size to be. The motor is quiet, although the guide bearings do make a surprisingly loud ringing/vibrating sound when the saw runs.

This is probably the nicest 10" bandsaw I have ever seen. I am under the impression that Jet cut obvious corners in order to make the core saw very good at a particular price point. So, you wind up with a very good saw with some cheap knobs and accessories. I would recommend this saw to a friend, and if it was stolen, I would replace it with the same saw.

As was the case with several other reviewers, this saw arrived in a carton that was in dreadful shape. I weigh just slightly more than the saw itself, so it was quite an ordeal to hoist it up to my assembly table, assemble it, and then lift it back down to the floor. So just imagine my dismay when, after all that work, I found the upper blade guard assembly was broken.

However, the return/replacement process with Amazon was remarkably easy and uncomplicated. I simply logged on to Amazon, clicked a few buttons and within seconds had printed out a return shipping form. I was not charged for the return shipping and a UPS driver arrived the next day to pick it up. A few days after that a replacement saw arrived. The shipping carton for the second saw was in slightly better shape but I checked most of the moving parts before taking it out of the box and would recommend others to do the same. But even so, the plastic guard over the motor housing was crushed and the plastic end cap for the fence was broken off.

Since I didn't think these things would affect the performance of the saw, I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised. The saw almost effortlessly resawed a rough piece of 2X4 into a nice 3/4 inch thick board, with minimal saw marks. It also maneuvered around some rather tight turns. I think I will keep this one.

I previously owned a Craftsman Bandsaw which I had for over 25 years. The bandsaw worked ok for what I did, but replacement parts and blades became to costly to keep. This new jet meets my needs for my small shop. The bandsaw is quiet, easy to use and has a dust collecter (which is not noted in the discription. Looking at what was on the market when I purchased this, I think I made a wise purchase.

Although this saw was made in China it is a pretty good value for the price. There are a few manufacturing defects that had to be corrected before it could be set up accurately. Adjustment screws are in tapped holes in aluminum brackets and one was cross threaded. Some work with a tap was required to get the guides aligned but once fixed, the saw worked pretty well. These screws will have to be adjusted from time to time but paing attention to the should keep the saw running well. This is y forst bandsaw and I will probably have to upgrade it in a couple of years but for now it does the job

I just purchased this saw, and have made a few cuts with it. It arrived in decent shape from the shipper unlike some of the other reviewers have reported. One corner of the shipping carton was a bit smushed, but the styrofoam in the box protected the saw. After a lot of effort, the saw is now making decent and square cuts, but is a tad underpowered. I didn't expect a lot more for the money.

My issues started when I went to change away from the 3/8 inch blade that came with the saw. I installed a 1/4 inch blade that was better for the type of woodworking I do. I found that the bottom blade guide assembly was positioned about 3/32 of an inch too far to the left to be adjusted. Worse, there is no way to make a coarse horizontal adjustment. There is a vertical steel tab welded to the back of the saw casing to which the lower blade guide is attached; And, of course, the tab is also not perfectly vertical on my saw. The blade guide has a rectangular protrusion that fits into a slot on the tab so you can move the blade guide forwards and backwards, but not side to side. In the short term, I ended up creating a set of aluminum shims to shim the blade guide over far enough for it to work properly. In the long run, I intend to borrow the use of a cutoff tool, cut the whole tab off the saw, and build myself an adjustable bracket. Given that it would only increase the price of the saw a few dollars to make this adjustable, and given the lack of accuracy in their manufacturing processes, it seems they should have made it adjustable - this is the reason for only three stars.

In the process of working on the shims, further inspection revealed that two of the four bolts that hold the trunnion to the saw were completely loose. I put some thread locker on them and tightened them back up.

The the upper blade guide assembly does have coarse adjustments both horizontally and vertically, so it is less of an issue. My problem with it is the retractable slide for the guides is not perfectly aligned with the blade, so a slight adjustment of the guides is sometimes needed when you move the upper guide.

The bottom line:
1) You should be prepared to tinker with it to make it work well, and if you are not handy with tools this might not be the saw for you.
2) Be sure to do a full inspection of the saw's components to make sure everything is assembled correctly. Take the blade out (wearing appropriate protective gear) and reinstall it or another to see what effort it is before you use the saw. Pay particular attention to blade tracking and the blade guides.

If you do buy it and manage to get it tuned up, I think you'll be relatively happy with it.

I also don't understand why Amazon has it under review, mine was what I requested. Maybe it is because of the shipping problems others have had. The box weighs over 80lbs, so it is rough on the shippers.

Ordered and received the band saw promptly. The packaging was damaged by UPS and I pointed it out to the UPS delivery man; he just said make a note of it and if the saw is damaged notify the sender!! Fortunately the saw was not damaged and it was easy to assemble, using the accompanying instructions.
The saw works very well, with adequate power, so there was no lugging down problems. This is not my first band saw, but it is probably the best one. I took 4 years of woodwork shop in high school, where I learned to use a very large band saw. Since then I've had over 40 yrs. experience of woodworking.
It would have been nice to have a larger work table, but the ones with larger tables (other brands) cost too much more for me to want to pay.
Overall I am very pleased with my purchase.

As others have observed the packaging is truly horrible. My box was beat up but not too bad. Once inside, what a disaster. The styrofoam packaging which is the thinnest I have seen on such products had disintegrated into little parts. Everything was loose in the box. One of the leg braces was missing. The LED light was broken. The strain protector on the cord was broken. The fence was bent. I would have returned it but after reading reviews I knew the next one might be worse. So I called the factory in Illinois. They were very responsive and sent me the leg brace, a fence assembly, and the LED light kit. The strain protector is on order.
Then came the assembly. I had to basically rebuild the top of the saw to route the light kit. The table would not level front to back because the housing for the tilt table is not level with the base. So I dismantled it and added shims to the bottom bolts to level the thing up. Finally, I was ready to use it.

The operation is good for a small saw and suits my purposes well. I use it mostly on small projects. The motor runs smoothly and quietly.

Word to JET. Get your act together on packaging.

I used it only sparingly for the first month or 2 and it never seemed to work right. Then, I had a good size project that came up and decided to take a closer look at it. The upper tire was hanging half off the wheel! I finally got a hold of Jet customer service and they told me they had been having trouble with those tires and they said they would send me some as soon as they got them!! That was a month ago... and I am still waiting....

Delivered prior to estimate delivery date. Easy setup (under 1 hr)I'm a new bandsaw user but this will definetly meet my needs. Heavy enough to be stable when cutting and light enough to move around shop. My only complaint would be shipping carton. When it was delivered all the tape on box looked stretched out. I was also concerned when I found the styrafoam that the saw was packed in split apart in seveal places. Nothing was damaged so I guess packing did its job. Excellent finish on base and saw. Instructions for small amount of assemble required where good. Detailed list of whats in carton and pictures of assemble process.