G0555

This is my second bandsaw. The first was an older craftsman that was noisy with a plastic housing but worked okay. This G0555 is much improved over what I had. Package arrived on time, I picked it up myself at the fedex warehouse. It's 200 pounds in one big box. I unpacked it in the back of my truck and took it out piece by piece. The frame and motor are heavy, but not too too bad. Most other reviews cover pretty well the setup of the machine. I didn't order the 6 inch riser. I don't resaw much, plus I have friends with larger BS if needed. Don't even instal the blade that comes with the saw. Buy something better, Grizzly seems to ship a free timberwolf 1/2 blade with the saw. My timberwolf blade arrived after the saw, but you should really buy a decent blade. Now for a review of the saws function. I like the motor on the outside of the saw, easy to access. When I set this saw up the wheels were not coplanar and the lower wheel was slighly warped. I called grizzly and after a few minutes of explanation to the tech I had a replacement on the way. I arrived in a couple of days and was easy to instal. I shimmed out the bottom wheel a bit to make the blade square to the table in both dirrections. I forgot who said it first but getting wheels "coplanar" is not nessasary. As long as your blade tracks good in the center of the upper wheel and the blade is square to the table, coplanar (to a degree) doesn't matter. The new lower wheel was good and the saw no ran with little to no vibration. Guide bearings both upper and lower are easy to adjust and so far have stayed put. I added some urethane tires and vibration went to zero. I also added a Y fitting to the rear dust port to add some 2 inch pipe for dust collection under the table. Next to my planer and jointer the bandsaw creates a lot of dust. Add some sort of wheel brush. Bent tooth brushes work good. After these minor tweaks, I think the saw runs great. Grizzly customer service is good. Strange that most of the wheels need to be shimmed slightly, but it's not tough to do. I built a small baby gate for some stairs using 8/4 and 1 inch poplar recently. Design called for 20 3/4 x 5/8 slats that I cut on the BS using the fence. All cuts were very accurate. If you get your blade tracking proper with the right tension there should be no drift. I've never once had to draw a line on a board and adjust the fence for drift. My conclusion is that this is a good saw and great for the price. It seems few tools are perfect out of the box, so make a few tweaks yourself and this saw can really run nice.

My saw arrived quickly at my local UPS freight outlet and was very well packaged. I was immediately impressed by the build quality of this saw. The stand is heavy, powder-coated steel. The instructions were easy to follow and clearly written. Setup does take some time, about three hours but the steps are easy to follow. Everything about this saw has a high quality feel. The main body castings are massive, heavy and solid. The on/off switch is industrial quality and has a very nice click feel to it. Once set up, the saw is incredibly quiet and smooth with almost NO vibration. The induction motor is very powerful and can be wired for 220v operation. The included fence is very solid and has a good lock-down feature. There really is nothing bad to say about this bandsaw. I am very happy with it. I can't wait to put it to hard use. I also have a Grizzly drill press, and I'm extremely happy with it as well. Grizzly's customer service and support is outstanding. There is ABSOLUTELY no comparison between the G0555 and the $200 10" Ryobi bandsaw that I had been using for the past four years (in complete misery). As countless people have explained, it is always worth it to spend a little more and get a good quality tool rather than waste your time with a home improvement store "mass market" piece of junk.

I did a lot of research on 14 inch saws and decided to go with this one. The cost of shipping (around [..]) plus the unexpected [..] that I had to add to that to get the lift gate option on the freight truck stung a bit. For the extra [..] dollars I could have gotten some nice accessories. Can't believe that grizzly can't work up some kind of deal with a national chain so I could just run to one of them and pick one up locally. I also bought the suggested mobile wheel stand and the 6-inch riser block kit. Setting up the stand and the saw was pretty straightforward. Watch out for the stand braces they are UNDER the main (and heavy) package and NOT packed with the three main stand pieces, so be careful to take everything out of the box before starting. Once the stand was up I have to mount the saw on it. The directions suggested getting a friend to help but, really, if you are a reasonably strong person and the stand is level you really can do it yourself. I also installed the 6 inch riser block. I dreaded doing it because I thought it would be a real pain but surprisingly it was also very easy. I DID need a friend to hold the top of the saw in place while I tightened the top of the saw back to it but that only took a mere five minutes of help. The rest was very easy. The ONLY pain was that once the riser was assembled I could not put the new 105 inch blade on it. The top wheel had to be adjusted about and inch lower that it was originally set. This was a pain because the instructions tell you just about everyting you need to know about the saw EXCEPT how to take of and install the blade !!!! Installing the blade is easy but understanding the tensioning system was not. Although I got my blade back on and centered my tensioning mark is all screwed up as a result of my efforts to get more space for the new blade. It would really help if Grizzly had a few pages of instructions on actually changing the blade, especially in respect to the tensioning system !!!! It is unbelievable that they would not document this simple set of steps. When you are new to band saws you don't want to guess at anything you want to KNOW how the procedure is done. In my opinion this is a very glaring whole in their documentation. As for the saw and its performance: Smooth, quite...beautiful. The fence that comes with it is very nice as is the meter guide. A very well-made machine. I'm very happy with it ! It was well worth the shipping cost and effort to put it together ! Suggestions: 1. Add detailed directions to installing and removing new blades and how to deal with the tensioning system in the back. 2. Add spokes to the tensioning wheel. For the 3/8 blade that came with the machine you really need it tensioned well. That is hard to do with the "bumpy" hand wheel. Spokes would be much better and I'd pay a little extra for them. 3. You've got holes at the bottom of the stand for leveling pegs why not design it to take wheels with brakes so we don't have to buy and assemble a hole stand ?

I read virtually all the reviews on Amazon about this saw (and also Jet and Delta) I had no doubt the saw was a good value, but was skeptical due to some reviewers stating that there were problems not being able to get the wheels paralles and coplanar - must be an old problem. I ordered the saw and the 6" riser. Unbelievable deal at $500 (plus $80 shipping) I was expecting issues with the block alignment pins being wrong on the riser, having to grind them off etc - I'm happy to report everything lines up perfect - Setup was a cakewalk. This saw does not have a full cabinet stand, but the legset that comes with it is super sturdy. Fit and finish are excellent. Really nice having ball bearing guides, a fairly nice rip fence, a basic but functional miter guage, quick release blade tensioner - Nice heavy cast iron table with a good grind. Other than maybe upgrading to urethane tires and buying a decent blade or two - you will be left needing nothing Great deal on a nice entry level 14" Saw. This is a must buy!

This is a great saw for the price. It arrived within the specified time frame. It was very well packaged but rough handling by the shipper resulted in a broken tension control knob. I sent an email to Amazon who forwarded it to Grizzly who replied the next day asking for date of manufacture and SN. Got a phone call the next day and 3 days later had the replacement part. I was very pleased. I have been using the saw for 2 weeks now and I am very happy with it. The owners manual is well written and easy to understand which helped with fine tuning the adjustments which is important with band saws. Only time will tell how it will hold up but my feeling is that it is well made and will last a long time.

I had a craftsman bandsaw for many years. It was a poor performer but I tolerated it because most of the other saws in my price range ($450 - $700)didn't seem much better. Finally I decided to make a change. I did hours of online research and checked all the floor models in the stores. Nothing really wowed me but I kept reading the rave reviews about the Grizzly G0555. I even saw one article that ranked it number one among over 200 saws. I decided that a saw that gets so many great reviews has to be a great buy...so I ordered one. Now that the buying experience is over and I'm using the saw, I have to say that the Grizzly is O.K. but doesn't come close to meeting the expectations I had based on the reviews. I use the saw primarily for curve cutting (mostly arched and cathedral raised panel doors), mitering thin stock and resawing. Here are the pros and cons based on my experience: Delivery: My saw (just shy of 200 pounds) shipped directly from Grizzly via UPS freight. Before it shipped, I received an email from Grizzly saying that the hefty freight charge I paid would not get the saw to my door because UPS wouldn't provide lift gate services for that price. Grizzly recommended that I drive to the UPS depot and have them load the saw onto my truck or pay Grizzly more money to get lift gate service. They also said I would have to acknowledge receipt of this message and make a decision on the extra charge before they would ship the order. Well that was a lot of BS! UPS was very helpful and provided lift gate service that delivered the saw into my workshop at no additional charge. The saw arrived in good shape and well packaged. 1 star for Grizzly, 5 stars for UPS. General quality: Very beefy stand, better than expected. Saw itself is ruggedly built and has a very good finish on all pieces and parts. Table has a nice polish and is well protected from rust during shipment. Fence and rails are adequate but the miter is cheezy and loose in the slot with no adjustments to tighten it. General quality gets 5 stars. Assembly and Documentation: Compared to all the other power tools I have purchased, the user manual and setup guide are pretty good. (Since everything is made in Asia these days, you're lucky if it's even readable but this one ain't bad.) It's full of warnings that recommend a 2-man assembly team but I did mine alone just fine. I assembled the stand and fastened the saw while everything was laying on its side. Then I just tilted it to the upright position. The G0555 comes wired for 110V operation. I have my saw wired for 220V. If you have 220V power, I recommend this for power and efficiency. No big deal to make the change. You'll have to cut the plug off and install a 220V plug and rewire the motor. Manual provides clear instructions. Assembly and documentation gets 4 stars. Setup: This is where the Grizzly failed to live up to the hype. The biggest problem is the lack of critical adjustments on the trunnion base and riser. Both of these items are cast with solid alignment keys that prevent adjustments to achieve parallel co-planar wheels and a level table. The manual says that the wheels are set to be coplanar at the factory and don't need adjustment...not so. My wheels aligned on the left edge but not on the right edge. My table was level side-to-side (set by the positive stop adjustment) but not front-to-back (set by the trunnion base). To fix these problems requires a lengthy trial and error process using washers for shims. It's very imprecise and time consuming because each trial involves a lot of disassembly work to get to the shims. There are also some problems with the blade guides. The threads on the adjustments aren't fine enough so one little nudge of the adjusting knob moves the guide a mile. The lock knob on the upper guide assembly has slop in it so each time you raise or lower the upper guide assembly, the bearing clearances change. Adjustment knobs for the lower bearings are a little hard to get at with my fat fingers. There is a section in the manual that describes fine tuning of the blade tension that I found to be worthless. The only way to fine tune the tension is to start at the prescribed setting on the spring assembly and then adjust for straight rips on a 3/4" board (also known as eliminating blade lead). Assembly and alignment of the mitre and fence are pretty straight forward. Setup gets 1 1/2 stars. Operation: Once set up properly, the Grizzly performs nicely. Quiet, no vibrations and good cuts. Stable stance and adequate dust collection. Even using the cheap blade provided with the unit, cuts were smooth and fast, even in oak and maple. I haven't gone to max resaw capacity yet but it works fine on the 1X4" boards I've tried so far and doesn't bog down or lose speed. (This is where the 220V power and efficiency comes in.) Blade changes are very quick but due to the problems described in the setup section, it's not easy to "dial" everything back in. If you plan to do miter cuts, you'll find the miter guage inadequate since it is loose in the slot and lacks positive stops. Just a nit but I would expect a worklight to be included in this price range. I would also expect a magnetic switch but the G0555 switch is mechanical. This can be a safety hazard if you lose power while the saw is on. If you forget to press the off switch, the saw will restart when power is restored. Operation gets 4 stars. Conclusion: This saw is working well for me but I expected more based on all the rave reviews. Maybe there's just a lot of junky saws on the market these days making this one stand out. Since I don't own those other saws, I can't say. I will say this...if you're willing to take your time during setup, and put up with some minor operational inconveniences, you'll get good precise cuts. The Grizzly is a rugged, attractive shop tool that gives good performance for the money.

What a great little bandsaw. I needed something serious enough to resaw wider wood, but not so serious as to be a real estate eater in my garage and this guy does the trick nicely. The packaging was pretty beat up when it arrived via freight, but everything was in there and I can't say I had any trouble putting it together. Assembly took a few hours with simple hand tools, mostly small wrenches and hex keys. I had no trouble with true up either, centering the tire, adjusting the guides or adjusting the table and fence. All went smoothly and came out quite good. In use I find the tensioning knob tedious, I'll replace that with a weighted wheel. The accuracy is quite good with a decent blade and almost right out of the gate I was getting smooth 1/8" slices off of a 6" wide cocobolo board. I put a mobile base on it and it is easy peasy to wheel outside, take a cut and wheel right back in. I find I use it more than I thought I would. I was worried that it would become a garage decoration bought in a pipe dreaming moment, but I find I'll stop at it fairly often to make a quick crosscut or tenon. For what I need, this was a pleasant surprise.

I wanted to upgrade from an inexpensive 12" inch band saw I have had for some time to a 14 inch bandsaw mainly to resaw boards. Having researched 14 inch band saws for several months I decided on a Delta bandsaw. However, the shipment was delayed several times extending for over 4 months for some unknown reason. I cancelled the order and purchased the Grizzly Ultimate Band Saw and the extension kit based on advertised features and reviews. The saw so far performs well for resawing boards. Two minor problems I had with the saw were that I replaced the wing nut on the tracking mechanism with a more substantial hex nut after the wing nut cracked, but that was partly my fault for using too much pressure on the pliers. Also, the band saw blade that came with the saw extension kit was defective, and I replaced it with a low tension 3/4 inch (Swedish Silicon Steel)Timber Wolf blade. Contrary to what some band saw books say about using 3/4 inch blades on low end 14 inch band saws, I had no trouble correctly tensioning the Timber Wolf 3/4 inch blade so that it tracks accurately on the Grizzly. It did take me a little bit of time, however, to learn how to correctly tension the blade since the tensioning process was not clearly explained, at least to my satifaction, in the manual.

excellent and good price

Haven't had this long but working great

The bandsaw itself arrived in perfect condition. I wish I could say the components of it were perfect but they are FAAAAAAARRR from. Any so called precision parts were garbage. The blade is about as cheap as they come, within about 3 cuts it was burning my wood so badly that it had to be replaced. The bearing blade guide is also insanely cheaply made. Replaced in the first two days. I was planning on filling my shop with Grizzly tools but after this have decided against that. Seeing as its cost me an extra 400 dollars just to make it usable, do yourself a favor and save the extra money needed to buy something better. Money I wish I could get back.