Laguna 14 Twelve bandsaw


rodger.

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Long story short, I bought this band saw last year and it never made it to my shop.  I ended up cancelling the order and getting a Kapex instead, which I love.

Anyway, my small shop has been reorganized and I may be able to get this band saw in the space now.  Was looking for any reviews or opinions on this saw, or even the Laguna in general.

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I have two Laguna bandsaws and I love both. One is the 1412. I dont ask very much of it as I use it for curves and small stuff but it is a nice machine. Only real negative is dust collection is no good but that is true of most bandsaws. 

I had terrible experience with a Laguna bandsaw but they took it back and gave me nothing but amazing service. That is why I stuck with them and bought two more of their saws. 

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FWIW, I'm very happy with my 1412.  It's my first bandsaw, so I don't have much to compare it to, but it's capably done everything I've asked it to.

I've seen ads for the new BX, which looks like a 1412 with a disc brake - if the prices were close, that might be worth the upgrade.

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I have the 1412 and like it.  It was my first bandsaw, and as such the ceramic guides are not particularly intuitive.  

I did have to call regarding one of the cast wheels.  as it was not polished after being stamped, or whatever it is they do.  Sent a photo and a new wheel showed up 2 days later. 

Skip the light, get the mobile base  

 

 

Edited by vinnyjojo
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I have the 1412 and like it.  It was my first bandsaw, and as such the ceramic guides are not particularly intuitive.  

I did have to call regarding one of the cast wheels.  as it was not polished after being stamped, or whatever it is they do.  Sent a photo and a new wheel showed up 2 days later. 

Skip the light, get the mobile base  

 

 

I agree! skip the light and get the base!

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I love my 1412. There are a couple downsides that I wish were better but for the most part does a very good job. I resaw 6 - 8" all the time. easy to use, blade change is easy, fence is solid. To me the one thing I wish, would be to go back to bearings instead of the nylon guides!

You prefer bearings over the ceramic guides?? I think the ceramic guides are part of what makes the Laguna saws so good. What dont you like about them? Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
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I have had a 1412 for almost 2 years and I have no regrets.  I normally run a 1/2" Woodslicer, but I have also used a 1/4" for tight curves and 3/4" Resaw King for resawing and the saw has never had any issues.  I have found the dust collection to be very good considering the 4" dust port is right below the table.  I have the mobility kit, which I would recommend, I didn't get the light because it is located in an awkward place where it is very easy to hit your head on it.  I haven't had any issues with the ceramic guides, which makes the saw much faster to set-up (in-my-opinion).  I can normally swap a blade in less than 5 minutes.  Great saw at a great value!

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You prefer bearings over the ceramic guides?? I think the ceramic guides are part of what makes the Laguna saws so good. What dont you like about them? Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk




I like the ceramic guides.  Screw the base, get the light.  A brake would be nice.

And Pug...c'mon man...stop waffling.

Do it.

They work fine its just that I'm old school and not used to them. They are growing on me. I think that getting them adjusted correctly is not as easy and the biggest thing is trying to get my mind around the idea that something that small and light can stand up to the use/abuse like steel could. Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
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 biggest thing is trying to get my mind around the idea that something that small and light can stand up to the use/abuse like steel could. Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

think ceramic breaks. It takes a Long time of  very intense heat and pressure to ware the brakes down.  Where as steel gets softer when heated be friction,  ceramic hardens.

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I have had the 1412 for almost a year now.  It is my first bandsaw so I can't really compare but I am really happy with it.  Watching the video on their website about the assembly and set up really helped over the manual, I think it was about an hour.

 

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Vinny, if you go to their home page, http://www.lagunatools.com  scan all the way to the bottom of that page, in the column on the left it says videos.  It's in the same column as "about us" and "contact us" is in.  Click on Videos, then when you get to that page if you scan down you will start to see a whole library of videos they offer, the ones for the 1412 are first on the list.  you can watch it all in one or in segments.

 

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I've had 3 different 14 inch bandsaws. The 1412 is the best of the 3 I've had. I had the Rikon 10-325, a Grizzly G1108. There are some nitpick items with 1412. I recently got the chance to dive into the setup and tuning of a Laguna 14SUV. It is a massive pain in the ass to make adjustments and overall I'm not impressed with the ability to make any changes on that saw with any sort of ease. 

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I've had 3 different 14 inch bandsaws. The 1412 is the best of the 3 I've had. I had the Rikon 10-325, a Grizzly G1108. There are some nitpick items with 1412. I recently got the chance to dive into the setup and tuning of a Laguna 14SUV. It is a massive pain in the ass to make adjustments and overall I'm not impressed with the ability to make any changes on that saw with any sort of ease. 

This was one of the reasons I went with the PM1500 over the Laguna SUV (was looking at 3HP models).  Seemed like the reviews were very iffy on the SUV, and a lot of people specifically referenced the difficulty of tuning and setup.  Granted I haven't even gotten my PM1500 off the damn pallet yet, but it seems like setup will be pretty straightforward.

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They are doing ok. I certainly think that bearings would be better but the ceramic guides are not bad. 

Ive owned bandsaws with both. Ceramic hands down is better. Easy to set up, doesnt get hot so you can keep them almost touching the blade which is awesome. Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
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