Howard Ferstler

Note: while this review is of the BS1400 model, the owner's manual calls it the BS14002. I do not know if the addition of the number 2 signifies an upgrade or is just the full number not listed correctly in the catalog. The earlier "gray" version might have been the plain, old BS1400. In any case, the one being reviewed here is the orange version seen easily at any Home Depot store, usually selling for about $350.

OK, this is a pretty basic band saw in the old style. It came with the standard metal guide blocks and the usual, right-angle positioned bearing behind the blade. The frame is cast iron, as is the work table. The wheels appear to be cast (not machined) iron, but they seem decently round, and the offset, 3/4-HP induction motor is attached to the lower wheel by means of an automotive type V-belt, shielded by a metal housing. The blade guard and upper guide assembly can be raised or lowered for a maximum cut of 6 inches by means of a single release knob. Ridgid offers a 6-inch extender for those who want the saw to resaw really large boards.

The saw can be wired for either 120- or 240-volt operation. It came configured for the former, and that is where I left things. The manual offers rewireing instructions for a 240-volt hookup. The manual itself is better written than some of the other tool manuals I have seen.

The saw comes with a stand that is decently stiff, with an additional metal sheet under the top surface to stiffen it up a bit. The motor is rubber mounted. Assembling the stand and saw was a relative snap.

I do most of my woodworking out on a deck adjacent to my small shop (I am in north Florida, where this is possible 9 months of the year, with the summer months being just too hot), so I built a wooden platform under the stand, bolted them together, and installed 2.5-inch pivoting wheels on the bottom. This allows me to move the 200 pound assembly easily onto the deck.

OK, now let's get down to the details.

First, the saw vibrated too much out of the box. I discovered that the main offenders were the V-belt and the cast wheels. The belt was, well, junk, with a twist to it and too damned much stiffness. I went to an automotive parts shop and had the clerk (you need a clerk with a good attitude) go into the back and locate a flexible, segmented belt the same length. That solved much of the saw's vibration problem. I have the belt's stock/size number written down somewhere if anybody wants it.

I also installed little clip-on weights to each wheel. To do this accurately you need to remove the blade and V-belt and let gravity swing the wheels down to where the heavy sections are at the bottom. (This operation also allowed one to assess the condition of the wheel bearings.) You then clip the weight on at the top and check again to see if gravity pulls the wheels in any direction after releasing them at different positions. If they do not move they are balanced enough. If things are still off you need larger weights, a second weight, or a smaller weight. I was lucky, and I hit the mark on the first try. This modification solved nearly all of the remaining vibration problem.

I topped off the anti-vibration mods by solidly mounting the motor. Yep, I removed the rubber mounts (which looked like afterthought jokes) and replaced them with a small sheet of properly drilled out 3/4-inch MDF. I also added additional stiffness to the stand's mounting plate by installing an additional and larger sheet of drilled-oout 3/4-inch MDF under the metal surface. Doing this mandated longer mounting screws and large washers below, needless to say. This series of modifications allowed the saw to be butter smooth in its operation. The rubber belts already installed on the wheels were no problem, although I did purchase two spares for future use.

I also replaced the metal guide blocks with some fiber-material "cool blocks" that Ridgid was offering for sale at the time via their phone-order service. In addition, I removed the lower blade guard from the unit, because it appeared to not be needed at all and mainly functioned as a barrier to easily adjusting the lower guide blocks and bearing.

While side-mounted rubbing blocks seem outdated compared to newer-design saws that use bearings in those locations, I believe that the blocks might have one advantage over bearings: they scrape the blade clean as it runs. Bearings might just compress built-up sludge on the blade surface as it runs and gradually pinch it too hard. This is just a theory, of course, with some woods possibly causing more problems than others.

The upper and lower sections of the saw's cast-iron frame are held together by a large nut and bolt, plus large washers. There was space at that junction point for an additional smaller nut and bolt (and rectangular washers that I cut myself), and I installed them to make damned sure that the two sections locked together with little chance of the cast iron being overstressed.

Finally, I expanded the size of the table by adding a wooden frame made out of 2x4 sections around its back edge, right-side, and front edge. The left-side edge got a narrower piece of wood so that the table could still tilt a few degrees in that direction. This wooden frame around the cast-iron table is screwed together and is held in place by additional screws running into the pre-drilled holes in the front and back of the table. The wooden section is kept in cosmetic shape by regular applications of lemon oil. The notch for blade removal in the cast-iron table is continued through the wooden extension section on the right side, with the groove in the wooden pieces held together with a stiff, quick-release crosspiece below. The overall table is now 20 x 18 inches in size, with lines scribed into the wooden extensions to help keep things aligned when doing freehand or fence cuts.

A review I read about the saw said that the optional fence Ridgid offers is not all that good. This is one reason I was not afraid to do the wooden extension modification, since doing it would make it impossible to use the Ridgid fence. I made a fence of my own out of lumber, and if I need a fence I simply hold it in place with clamps, making sure that it is parallel to the lines scribed into the wooden extension sections. Most of my cutting is done freehand, however.

The wooden table expansion does two things. First, it offers a larger work surface. Second, it keeps the edge of the cast-iron table from marring any work pieces.

I removed the 3/8 inch blade that came with the saw and replaced it with a 1/2 incher for better straight-line cutting. For curved cuts that do not involve workpieces that are too large I use a small Ryobi 9-inch model with a 1/4-inch blade. Some of the mods I did on the larger Ridgid model were also done on the smaller Ryobi unit: wood-edged table enlarging and wheel balancing. The little Ryobi is a good saw for craftsman type jobs.

Overall, I think the 14-inch, Ridigid BS14002 model is a good saw, particularly for the $350 that I paid. Yes, I had to work on it a bit to get it up to snuff, but the result is an item that I can use for decently precise work.

Howard Ferstler

Corndog

I have the older grey one and I found that when covered in stickers is a MUCH better saw!!!
I really need to get some Cool Blocks for it though.

Howard Ferstler

Oh, man, those stickers. Wow! How did you get so much sawdust piled up above and below the on/off switch?

One mod I did not mention in my review involved putting a small sheet-metal skirt around the entrance to the dust-collecting port under the table. It helped the DC machine pull more dust away from the table. Still, I cannot see now so much dust would get piled up above and below the on/off switch, even with no DC system at all.

I tried recently to get some additional cool blocks from Ridgid and they said they no longer sell them. They were aftermarket items, and not made by Ridgid or even sold under the Ridgid name.

Howard Ferstler

Corndog

You know, I have NO idea how the dust piled up there!!!
Best go brush it off, huh???

Corndog

Instead of Cool Blocks I've been using Dri-Cote. Werks great.

kknight128

I had to replace the tires on my saw. They got streched out and kept coming off. I picked up some urathane tires they work much better. The rubber mount let my motor slip so when i was cutting it would stall. I jammed a piece of wood between motor and saw casting for now. just something to keep in mind. Other than that it is a good saw.

affyx

Thanks for the review - great ideas on the mods! Does the Ridgid have a brush to clean the wheels? I need to add brushes to my Grizzly 14" and am looking for ideas.

My saw came with bearings and I wish I could swap them out for coolblocks - for the reason you stated, but mainly because it allows you to trap a tiny 1/8" blade for scroll work - the bearings are too big for any blade below 1/4"

Good luck with your saw - I've had mine for about 3 weeks and can't imagine not having a bandsaw in the shop now!

Thanks:
JC

__________________
Thanks:
JC

Please check out my blog at http://www.affyx.com

Howard Ferstler

It has a stiff brush for the lower wheel, but not the upper one. Even so, I like to manually clean the tires after a while.

A bandsaw is kind of a gentleman's saw: far less noisy and dangerous than a table saw, with a degree of class that is unmatched. Still, it cannot crosscut longer boards like a table saw. Come to think of it, I do my crosscutting with a miter saw.

I may have mentioned before that I actually have two bandsaws. The Ridgid does the larger scale work, but I have a small Ryob 9 incher on hand, too, that is used for smaller stuff that is still too large for my scroll saw. (Admittedly, the Ryobi is almost a toy, but it really works quite well.) Both bandsaws are mounted on mobile bases that I can move out onto my work deck. Like the Ridgid, the Ryobi has a wooden extension installed around the standard table.

Although my Ridgid unit has standard blocks, I can see the advantages of bearings, but your point about the standard-type blocks and a small band size is well taken. Normally, I keep a half inch band on the saw, with the Ryobi having a 1/4 incher most of the time. My scroll saw can handle really fine blades, of course.

One thing that continues to fascinate me is the location of the rear bearing behind the blade. One would think that the normal way to do the arrangement would be to have the bearing rotating in parallel with the blade for maximum smoothness. However, the vast bulk of band saws have the bearing turning perpendicular to the blade axis, with the bearing edge handling the pressure. Go figure.

Howard Ferstler

Howard Ferstler

In a private message a correspondent asked me what kind of weights I used to balance the wheels. They sent the message to me via the site's personal message function.

When I tried to reply via the site my computer would not let me compose my message in the reply window. Ironically, I blocked and copied his question with the intension of dropping it here to give everybody an idea of what he asked, specifically. Unfortunately, I could not drop the copy here, either. Well, his question was not complex and involved my technique for installing weights onto the band wheels.

I used small metal clips that had originally been used on the bottom edges of a hi-fi equipment cabinet to serve as cosmetic guides for wheels that had pins that were inserted into holes drilled in the bottom edges of the cabinet side panels. They were ordinary shiny metal that was easy to bend.

I first removed the blade and rubber belt so that the wheels (which have very good bearings) could let gravity settle them out with the heavy section at the bottom of their rotation movements. I then tried the clips and, lo and behold, they were exactly the weights needed to give the wheels neutral balance. If they had not worked I would have tried something else.

The fabricated clips were inserted on the inside edges of the rim webbing after being "crimped" just enough with a large pair of pliers to slide into position very tightly. So far, they have stayed in place just fine, and because they are crimped on the inside webbing edges of each wheel I see no reason why they should ever shift position or come loose.

The correspondent mentioned that some people drill the wheel rims to lighten the heavy part. This would work, but of course there is no way to easily "undrill" a whole.

Whoops, actually, there is. With my small Ryobi band saw (used for smaller scale cutting) I did the balance trick using small nut/bolt combinations temporarily pinched onto the wheel rim (after again removing the blade and drive belt). Once I determined which nut/bolt combination would work I drilled a small hole in the aluminum wheel webbing and installed the bolt. Worked fine. This saw only needed one of the two wheels balanced, interestingly. The other wheel was perfect.

Those with cast-iron wheels might have a bit more of a chore to drill such a hole, of course. I hope the person who contacted me via the personal message function of this site manages to find this reply.

Howard Ferstler

Howard Ferstler

As I noted in my review, the rubber motor mounts make no sense at all. The screws can compress the rubber, but the motor still can move way too much for decent stability. As I noted, I installed a rectangular piece of 3/4-inch MDF in place of the rubber pads and also installed a larger rectangular 3/4-inch MDF piece under the sheet-metal top of the stand (in addition to the separate piece of sheet metal already under there), and the result was a really stiff top section and solidly mounted motor. Needless to say, I had to replace the stock mounting bolts with much longer versions for both the motor and the saw's base.

My guess is that the rubber mounts are there to compensate for the junk belt that comes with the unit. Opting for a good, automotive-grade replacement belt eliminates the need for a rubber-mounted motor.

I did purchase a spare set of tires from Ridgid for future use when the originals wear out. The ones on the saw now seem just fine, however. I suppose that QC issues explain why some people have more trouble with the stock tires than others. Another thing to take into consideration is the tension of the blade, which might impact tire integrity. There are all sorts of techniques printed in woodworking magazines about how to properly tension the blade. However, I find that if you loosen it to the point where it starts to not cut true or acts funny and then tighten it a bit things work out just fine. With my particular unit I have the thing tightened to the 3/8 inch mark on the blade-tension scale, even though I am using a 1/2 inch blade.

So far, so good.

PS: One other point. As I recall when installing the replacement belt, the drive wheel on the motor is held in place on the motor shaft by a small screw. I think one needs to be careful to not overtighten that screw when fooing with the wheel. The threads might strip. And one might need to fool with the wheel when getting it aligned with the other belt wheel attached to the blade wheel inside of the cabinet. If it is out of alignment that might account for some of the vibration some users get when using the saw.

Howard Ferstler

Marko

Here's a link to a tire brush

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=5321

affyx

Thanks Marko!

__________________
Thanks:
JC

Please check out my blog at http://www.affyx.com

pdiesel

I know this is an old thread and review, but I want to give my experience with the Ridgid Bandsaw. I did NOT find any vibration after assembly. My saw has worked flawless right out of the box. I did not have to modify mine. I did put mine on wheels to make it more mobile, but that is it. If you are looking for a very capable bandsaw at an affordable price, you could do a lot worse than this saw!

Howard Ferstler

Yes, I would imagine that there are variations from sample to sample, and you lucked out and got one that needed no work. There are probably scads of other woodworkers who lucked out like you did. It is a good saw.

I have attached a photo of the one I reviewed, showing the worktable mod that made the surface bigger. The wooden rim also reduces the chance of the cast iron table edge dinging a fragile workpiece. You can kiind of see that the motor is bolted to a solid piece of (painted) mdf to give the drive train more stability. The undercariage also has a thick piece of mdf underneath to stiffen up the entire mounting platform. Of course, doing all of this required using longer machine screws.

Howard Ferstler

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