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7X12 swivel cutting bandsaw
- Thread starter CalgaryPT
- Start date
I've heard good things about the 7x12 Craftex too. Hey, despite all the bad comments about the Asia stuff, my old 4x6 Craftex that I just sold yesterday ran like a top for ten years...and it had originally fallen off the shipping truck so I got it at a discount when I bought it. There are so many great links and tips for maintaining these machines, I find if I follow a good maintenance schedule, change bearings as needed, use good blades and coolant, keep it clean, they work fine for me....
I just think those old power hacksaws are fun to watch....it's like someone tried to duplicate the exact function of the human arm. Very cool.....
Tom Kitta
Ultra Member
I have a King 4x6. Main complaint is rather "loose" base. I guess at some point I make my own. Chinese stuff is frequently acceptable if accuracy is not of a big concern or strength or keeping a cutting edge etc. I.e. drill press vice made in China is a good deal. Precision milling vice made in China so far never actually had "precision" in it. Most drill bits made in China have issues through some carbide tile drills from China are excellent. Not like all tools made in US/ EU are great - some are making a mistake to try to compete on price vs. China.
Agreed. All good points.
I'm pretty sure the saw is supposed to lift between passes, mine doesn't because it's seals are done but im almost 100% sure it's supposed to. Does yours? Does anyone else's?
Nope, no mechanism to lift. It's literally just a wheel with a push arm attached.
I heard it's better to have the lift for saw life, but not required apparently.
Sent from my iPhone.
Hi Everyone….since many of you endured all my anal research on 7x12’s, I thought I’d update members with my purchase decision and initial impressions in a review of my thoughts (to date). For the record, this is a personal review only…I have received no compensation for any comments in this review. There is an overall recommendation at end of post.
I’ll try to stay away from anything that could have been gleaned from the spec sheets, pictures, videos, salesperson pitches, or tech manuals downloadable online. As well, I’ll stay away from common and to-be-expected features such as vise extensions and stop-blocks.
Post-Research Note: I did get a chance to test drive a used Ellis 1600. It was great, and I drooled over it a bit. But the guy who owned it said without coolant it went through blades quickly and he eventually resorted to a manual coolant bottle and/or slower speeds than he preferred to run. Hummm…..he wanted $4500 for it, which was too rich for my bank account anyways.
I decided to go with the King Industrial 7x12 Dual Swivel. It arrived last week as a special order through KMS. KMS Calgary (Jay) was actually great at the special order itself, and worked with the King rep in Quebec to answer a bunch of questions before I purchased. Tragically the order arrived ahead of the two week timeframe they quoted me, but it just ended up sitting in their commercial picking area in Calgary instead of the residential area before it was discovered. This happened to me before on some JD Squared tubing dies, so no big deal—just some KMS disorganization I had hoped they resolved years ago. Nonetheless, their hotshot guy (Coyote Courier) had the order to me the next day at 0830 hrs, so I was happy. (Great courier BTW…professional and friendly).
The saw was well packaged and properly secured to the pallet with 3” lag bolts…none of that “oh dear…has this been damaged due to poor packaging feeling?” Very little effort was involved in its assembly, and first impressions were all good.
I am still dialing it in as far as auto-shut off (always a pain), level, squareness, etc. But here are my DISLIKES and LIKES after a week or so of operation.
DISLIKES
1) The axles are slightly shorter than they should be - the wheels on the base seem very solid (UHMWPE I think), but the axle lengths are about 1/4” overall (0.125"/wheel) shy if you want to install the washers (as indicated in the parts manual) before the cotter pins that go through the end of the shafts. I just installed the cotter pins for now, but they might cut through the solid plastic wheels with repeated use. Looking at older manuals and comparing to the wheels I got with my saw, I think King Industrial may have re-engineering the wheels recently, but forgot to account for the older washer thickness (just my theory).
Solution: I will either machine down the wheel centres or find some thiner washers. Probably the latter.
Update (2016 Oct 1): OK, a couple of space/thrust washers solved the problem for a few cents.
2) I would have preferred one set of pivoting wheels (saw has four fixed axle wheels) as it would be easier to move around my small shop. Technically, I can’t complain as I knew about this ahead of time—but my old 4x6 was so much lighter I could either shimmy it into place, or pivot it easily. It’s a tougher task with a 300+ lbs machine, and I hadn’t thought about this despite all my research. Probably not a issue for a school or small industrial shop with more real estate than me, but that’s life I guess.
Solution: This will be a fun modification and I will add two pivoting wheels latter.
3) The protective sheet metal drive wheel door on the back of the saw doesn’t fit snuggly enough. This caused an initial problem and a broken blade on day two…see below.*
Solution: I will either tap an additional guard screw into the saw casing, or remove the guard and bend it enough to make it flush with the saw. Alternatively, I could leave it and do nothing, but this has already resulted in one damaged blade (see below).
4) Coolant tank discharge hose should have been better attached to drain flange—not just loosely snugged on. This wasn’t a huge problem, just an “oh-oh” moment as I could envision a big wet mess given how much my saw will be moved around—eventually the hose would slip off the flange.
Solution: one 79 cent hose clamp.
5) Despite knowing the overall height of the saw prior to ordering, I am always disappointed when I need to bend over to access machines. OK, I’m 6’1”, but that isn’t super-tall. Just a few more inches of saw height would mean comfort (like the Ellis 1600). Understandably, without the footprint of a Hydmech, there could be centre of gravity issues here if the saw was much higher, so I get it. On a related note, coolant pools in the corner opposite the drain screen in the chip tray due to the slope of my garage. This isn’t a design flaw, although a tapered chip try could have solved the problem.
Solution: I can address this minor height issue together with the fixed wheel and coolant drain concern (see IMPROVEMENTS bellow) and solve three small pet peeves at once.
6) The Auto Shut-Off Switch seems oddly placed underneath the motor. This is more of an observation than a dislike as I’ve seen many ways of doing this. But the plastic rocker switch on this King Industrial model seems under-robust at first glance. I suppose this will prove out over time. At least the sensitivity adjustment appears adequate (maybe too much so). Every bandsaw auto-shut off switch I have ever seen seems finicky until you get this figured out...so I know I will fine-tune it eventually. I actually like the Ellis approach the best (see Kevin Caron) Maybe the King Industrial design is better, but the switch is also in the direct path of coolant drip (when the saw is tipped upright). Having said this, King Industrial obviously recognized this and sealed the switch with proper CSA weather-proof fittings/grommets, O-rings, a rubber drip cover, etc., as well as drain canals that channel coolant to the tank. But still….
7) The machining on the blade wheel closest to the motor seems...well…“off a tad." I could be wrong here—it’s likely cast after all, then machined. But when you watch it through the protective sheet metal guard it’s clear that some of the relief holes in the wheels are not uniform. This makes the wheel appear to wobble or drift as it rotates (it doesn’t actually). Granted, this is not a big issue given that the wheel turns at such a slow speed. But it just annoys me to such an extent that at some point I will probably put a dial indicator on it. In all fairness, I think I read on one of the Asian forums that it is common to cast these, and then die grind relief hole(s) to balance them at low speed (<1000 RPM)—kind of the opposite of adding lead weights to car rims when balancing. The technique wouldn't work for high speed RPMs obviously, but most of you guys on this forum know more about this than me. Either way, nothing sounds or feels unbalanced, and the diameter on the wheels are within a few hundredths, so it likely isn’t an issue. I’m just trying to cut tubing here after all.
LIKES
1) The Wheels on the Base are Large (4” in fact) - much more so than my old 4x6. Thus, they go over metal chips, Cheetos, beer caps, etc., on my shop floor without grinding to a halt.
2) A MAN Sized Drip Tray For A Change - I WAY love this. All chips and off-cuts fall into it, instead of on the floor or in the small catch tray I had to build for my old 4x6 that looked like a feeding trough for the Tin Man. Also, the drip tray itself on this new saw is at least 16 (and maybe even 14) gauge, so it's nicely solid to the touch. The sides are angled at about 35 degrees, so any flying chips, residual coolant spray, or off-cuts that catch air fall back into place. After a week of operation the area underneath the saw has no chip fallout or coolant stains—unlike my old saw. This is nice because when I need to move the saw in or out of place, there is no mess to clean up.
3) Some Thought Went into Coolant Management - they may have even tested it properly, believe it or not! By this I mean—aside from what other manufacturers have figured out—King Industrial built channels and troughs to account for when the saw is lifted up and excess coolant needs to drained from around the blade wheels in the saw case and back to the drip tray. I notice this was either absent or poorly executed in the Princess Auto and other models. Sure, some manufacturers condidered coolant management when cutting, but not everyone thought of it when the saw was turned off or the saw was lifted up, turned off, and all that leftover coolant in the case and around the blade wheels needed to go somewhere. (The Busy Bee model put some thought into this too, and I still like this model, especially the gear driven version.) I observed a few minor drips around the case furthest from the motor that fortunately/accidentally found their way into the drip tray. With the addition of a small piece of vinyl stripping, the re-direction of any accidental drips back to the tray could be assured. But overall, coolant management was engineered better than I expected.
Having said all this, if a perfectly clean chip and coolant free work environment is your goal, you’re on the wrong forum anyways.
4) Chip Brush is Brass. This is REALLY petty, but an industrial machine rep once told me any company that sells bandsaws with steel chip brushes either doesn't know what they are doing, or just wants to sell you more consumables. I don't know if that’s true, or if it seems as minor as I think it could be be, but it seems to me that your chip brush should be a softer material than your blade, unless you WANT to dull your blades prematurely.
5) Hydraulic Down feed is SMOOOOOTH…. The King Industrial down-feed is great. Access to hydraulic controls (Ball Value On/Off, as well as Needle Valve Bleeder) is fine. I have not yet tested for hydraulic leakage in the cylinder, but I suppose I could at some point the future. I don’t know why anyone would care, and I know I wouldn’t, even though I’ve seen spreadsheets of people who measure this stuff and have webcams watching it in real time (seriously). Personally, “leakage" has never been as big of an issue as it seems to be to other "hydraulic down feed enthusiasts." I do not care if the blade drops to base from top-centre overnight. Nor do I understand why people measure this.
6) Blade Guards are Solid…not cheap 22 gauge sheet metal that needs to be re-formed every time you change a blade and reattach the guard.
7) "Tru-Lock" Vise System - Nice. Really nice in fact. I never appreciated this until I tried it, and to be honest, it sounded a tad gimmicky on the King Industrial spec sheet. But the vise, after initial “snugging” allows for repetitive gripping of similar sized pieces with one solid down-push on a lever. This is a real time saver, and a great compromise for those of us that long for a hydraulic auto-closing vise on a Hydmech or higher-end industrial dream machines. You can insert similar sized stock and cut over and over quickly with one lever push on the vise. This is a really nice feature I hadn’t anticipated. It was a shock, especially for someone moving from a small 4x6 machine to more of a light commercial/industrial tool. A great feature…my favourite surprize overall.
8) Documentation - I’m biased here as I worked for many years as a technical writer. The King Industrial documentation includes both a reasonable user manual as well as a detailed parts manual. This is especially relevant as I have previously mentioned that King Industrial stocks all of its parts in its Quebec warehouse. As minor as it may seem, their documentation has only a few spelling and grammatical errors (far fewer than other manuals). The King Industrial manual is understandable compared to many other Asian manuals that baffle me with their twisted English, odd illustrations, and bizarre syntax that tells me to “insert screw for under complete-ness with danger” (whatever the heck that means?). Bottom line is that, for documentation junkies such as myself, fewer technical writing errors make us think they care a little more about QA/QC in the manufacturing process as well. As most technical documentation is written post-production, I’m likely wrong, but stupidly optimistic.
8) The Dual Swivel Feature is Great - it operates smoothly, and the spring loaded ratchet mechanism locks in angles (aside from the positive stops). It feels robust enough for a saw of this caliber. Best of all, the three positive stops for 90, 45, and 90 degrees are all adjustable and easy to bypass by simply pivoting the stop itself (all solid cast pieces). I could write a entire column on swivel abilities alone. But the ability to swivel the saw—as opposed to the vise—is largely why I chose the King Industrial model in the first place. I love this feature and can’t recommend it enough for a small shop with limited workspace. Also, I have owned several swivel saws before (such as the Craftex 4x6), and recall thinking that being able to swivel just one direction was adequate (because you could always just flip the stock for the mirror angle.) However….. swivelling in both (dual) directions would be a dream. Consider a power mitre saw such as a Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, etc., for doing trim. Then imagine it can only swivel/pivot one direction...and you get the picture. Oh, yeah…now imagine it takes ten times as long because instead of spruce or MDF your material is metal, and you see the advantage of a swivelling saw instead of a pivoting vise in a small shop.
9) The Saw Feels Solid - I love that very few parts feel cheap or poorly built (as a whole). This is different for everyone, but for me it means, heavy, dense, little slop, rigid, and that cuts are repeatable. Yes, there are a few parts that I would have preferred to have tighter tolerances, or a more expensive feel/look (such as the On/Off magnetic switch), or the sheet metal wheel guards, but all in all, all I’m happy with the “solid factor.”
10) Blade Bearing Adjustment - this is easier here than some other saws as the lateral movement is made through a screwhead—once the bolts holding the bearings are backed off. In some saws you simply loosen the bearing bolts and move the entire bearings, but the Kind Industrial model features a screw that allows for finer play, which is much easier.
11) Power - the motor on this is 220V / 6 Amp—which I like. It seems to have more kick to it than the 110V/11 Amp models (PA and Harbor Freight) which I have measured on a Kill-a-Watt Meter at less that than 1000 Watts (????). Bottom line is that on even a devoted 110V circuit in a residential garage (required for a car heater by Canadian Electrical Code), you may still dim lights. For something this big I like 220V to be safe.
12) Big Surprise, the paint job is top quality! Seriously.
SOME THINGS I AM NOT SURE ABOUT
1) This saw is belt, not gear driven, and I notice that the V belt seems smaller than I recall on my old 4x6 (in terms of thickness). Perhaps belts are of better quality now (?)…or maybe this is not a issue. It just seemed odd for a 220V 6 Amp motor that the belt was as thin as it was.
2) I prefer a gear box with visual access to the worm drive so I can watch the oil level without opening it up…in other words, a sight bubble. But maybe this isn’t a necessity. There is an access hole to check gear oil level at least. Either way it is an easy mod to add a bubble if needed. I had written on my old 4x6 crankcase “Worm Gear Drive - Check Often,” but in ten years I never checked it and it ran like a clock the whole time.
IMPROVEMENTS I INTEND TO MAKE
1) Coolant Management- I think all coolant systems should have a ceramic or neodymium (rare earth) magnet in the reservoir or somewhere in the plumbing. It catches small particles and prolongs pump life. I’ll be spending $2.00 at Princess Auto or Lee Valley to address this concern on Saturday.
2) Adjustable Drainage - King Industrial should pay me massive residuals for this idea, but I’ve yet to see a shop or garage that is perfectly level. For this reason I would make the drip tray adjustable using some type of stair gauge device so as to allow the coolant to flow back (properly) into the tank instead of pooling with off cuts in the tray like some kind of metalic Love Canal. I intend to combine this improvement with the pivoting wheel mod to ensure that coolant drains back to the tank, instead of sitting in the tray.
* Day Two Mishap (see pic) - After playing with the saw for a day I tried to dial in the Auto-Stop setting. At some point the machine failed to fully sever a 1/4” sliver of 3/16” wall 2x2 tubing. I stupidly re-started the saw after freeing the blade, BUT without removing the off-cut which the saw promptly kicked out. Because the protective sheet metal pulley door was not a snug fit, the off-cut flew back into the wheel housing through the gap (see tragic pic below) and jammed between the blade wheel and the housing. In addition to a horrific sound it stopped the blade from rotating, bent back a tooth severely, and displaced the blade from the wheel seat grove significantly. Even after reseating everything, the damage to the blade was so severe that the blade jumped and jammed on every cut until it stalled. Once I figured out the problem, I installed a new blade and all was fine.
Solution: Close the gap on the cover. Duh….
FINAL OBSERVATION
I give the King Industrial 7x12 Dual Swivel an 8 out of 10, with a caveat that this could change, positive or negative, after 6 months or so. My experience has been that if something epic is going to fail it will do so in the first six months. I know an Ellis or a Hydmech would beat this saw hands down in terms of quality and the minor QA/QC issues I have identified. But I guess my point is for the higher end "residential shop user,” such as myself, who is willing to accept small fit-up issues, I am very happy and would buy it again. This saw was about as large as I could get without going full on industrial, and was as high as I was willing to pay for a home shop.
I’ll try to stay away from anything that could have been gleaned from the spec sheets, pictures, videos, salesperson pitches, or tech manuals downloadable online. As well, I’ll stay away from common and to-be-expected features such as vise extensions and stop-blocks.
Post-Research Note: I did get a chance to test drive a used Ellis 1600. It was great, and I drooled over it a bit. But the guy who owned it said without coolant it went through blades quickly and he eventually resorted to a manual coolant bottle and/or slower speeds than he preferred to run. Hummm…..he wanted $4500 for it, which was too rich for my bank account anyways.
I decided to go with the King Industrial 7x12 Dual Swivel. It arrived last week as a special order through KMS. KMS Calgary (Jay) was actually great at the special order itself, and worked with the King rep in Quebec to answer a bunch of questions before I purchased. Tragically the order arrived ahead of the two week timeframe they quoted me, but it just ended up sitting in their commercial picking area in Calgary instead of the residential area before it was discovered. This happened to me before on some JD Squared tubing dies, so no big deal—just some KMS disorganization I had hoped they resolved years ago. Nonetheless, their hotshot guy (Coyote Courier) had the order to me the next day at 0830 hrs, so I was happy. (Great courier BTW…professional and friendly).
The saw was well packaged and properly secured to the pallet with 3” lag bolts…none of that “oh dear…has this been damaged due to poor packaging feeling?” Very little effort was involved in its assembly, and first impressions were all good.
I am still dialing it in as far as auto-shut off (always a pain), level, squareness, etc. But here are my DISLIKES and LIKES after a week or so of operation.
DISLIKES
1) The axles are slightly shorter than they should be - the wheels on the base seem very solid (UHMWPE I think), but the axle lengths are about 1/4” overall (0.125"/wheel) shy if you want to install the washers (as indicated in the parts manual) before the cotter pins that go through the end of the shafts. I just installed the cotter pins for now, but they might cut through the solid plastic wheels with repeated use. Looking at older manuals and comparing to the wheels I got with my saw, I think King Industrial may have re-engineering the wheels recently, but forgot to account for the older washer thickness (just my theory).
Solution: I will either machine down the wheel centres or find some thiner washers. Probably the latter.
Update (2016 Oct 1): OK, a couple of space/thrust washers solved the problem for a few cents.
2) I would have preferred one set of pivoting wheels (saw has four fixed axle wheels) as it would be easier to move around my small shop. Technically, I can’t complain as I knew about this ahead of time—but my old 4x6 was so much lighter I could either shimmy it into place, or pivot it easily. It’s a tougher task with a 300+ lbs machine, and I hadn’t thought about this despite all my research. Probably not a issue for a school or small industrial shop with more real estate than me, but that’s life I guess.
Solution: This will be a fun modification and I will add two pivoting wheels latter.
3) The protective sheet metal drive wheel door on the back of the saw doesn’t fit snuggly enough. This caused an initial problem and a broken blade on day two…see below.*
Solution: I will either tap an additional guard screw into the saw casing, or remove the guard and bend it enough to make it flush with the saw. Alternatively, I could leave it and do nothing, but this has already resulted in one damaged blade (see below).
4) Coolant tank discharge hose should have been better attached to drain flange—not just loosely snugged on. This wasn’t a huge problem, just an “oh-oh” moment as I could envision a big wet mess given how much my saw will be moved around—eventually the hose would slip off the flange.
Solution: one 79 cent hose clamp.
5) Despite knowing the overall height of the saw prior to ordering, I am always disappointed when I need to bend over to access machines. OK, I’m 6’1”, but that isn’t super-tall. Just a few more inches of saw height would mean comfort (like the Ellis 1600). Understandably, without the footprint of a Hydmech, there could be centre of gravity issues here if the saw was much higher, so I get it. On a related note, coolant pools in the corner opposite the drain screen in the chip tray due to the slope of my garage. This isn’t a design flaw, although a tapered chip try could have solved the problem.
Solution: I can address this minor height issue together with the fixed wheel and coolant drain concern (see IMPROVEMENTS bellow) and solve three small pet peeves at once.
6) The Auto Shut-Off Switch seems oddly placed underneath the motor. This is more of an observation than a dislike as I’ve seen many ways of doing this. But the plastic rocker switch on this King Industrial model seems under-robust at first glance. I suppose this will prove out over time. At least the sensitivity adjustment appears adequate (maybe too much so). Every bandsaw auto-shut off switch I have ever seen seems finicky until you get this figured out...so I know I will fine-tune it eventually. I actually like the Ellis approach the best (see Kevin Caron) Maybe the King Industrial design is better, but the switch is also in the direct path of coolant drip (when the saw is tipped upright). Having said this, King Industrial obviously recognized this and sealed the switch with proper CSA weather-proof fittings/grommets, O-rings, a rubber drip cover, etc., as well as drain canals that channel coolant to the tank. But still….
7) The machining on the blade wheel closest to the motor seems...well…“off a tad." I could be wrong here—it’s likely cast after all, then machined. But when you watch it through the protective sheet metal guard it’s clear that some of the relief holes in the wheels are not uniform. This makes the wheel appear to wobble or drift as it rotates (it doesn’t actually). Granted, this is not a big issue given that the wheel turns at such a slow speed. But it just annoys me to such an extent that at some point I will probably put a dial indicator on it. In all fairness, I think I read on one of the Asian forums that it is common to cast these, and then die grind relief hole(s) to balance them at low speed (<1000 RPM)—kind of the opposite of adding lead weights to car rims when balancing. The technique wouldn't work for high speed RPMs obviously, but most of you guys on this forum know more about this than me. Either way, nothing sounds or feels unbalanced, and the diameter on the wheels are within a few hundredths, so it likely isn’t an issue. I’m just trying to cut tubing here after all.
LIKES
1) The Wheels on the Base are Large (4” in fact) - much more so than my old 4x6. Thus, they go over metal chips, Cheetos, beer caps, etc., on my shop floor without grinding to a halt.
2) A MAN Sized Drip Tray For A Change - I WAY love this. All chips and off-cuts fall into it, instead of on the floor or in the small catch tray I had to build for my old 4x6 that looked like a feeding trough for the Tin Man. Also, the drip tray itself on this new saw is at least 16 (and maybe even 14) gauge, so it's nicely solid to the touch. The sides are angled at about 35 degrees, so any flying chips, residual coolant spray, or off-cuts that catch air fall back into place. After a week of operation the area underneath the saw has no chip fallout or coolant stains—unlike my old saw. This is nice because when I need to move the saw in or out of place, there is no mess to clean up.
3) Some Thought Went into Coolant Management - they may have even tested it properly, believe it or not! By this I mean—aside from what other manufacturers have figured out—King Industrial built channels and troughs to account for when the saw is lifted up and excess coolant needs to drained from around the blade wheels in the saw case and back to the drip tray. I notice this was either absent or poorly executed in the Princess Auto and other models. Sure, some manufacturers condidered coolant management when cutting, but not everyone thought of it when the saw was turned off or the saw was lifted up, turned off, and all that leftover coolant in the case and around the blade wheels needed to go somewhere. (The Busy Bee model put some thought into this too, and I still like this model, especially the gear driven version.) I observed a few minor drips around the case furthest from the motor that fortunately/accidentally found their way into the drip tray. With the addition of a small piece of vinyl stripping, the re-direction of any accidental drips back to the tray could be assured. But overall, coolant management was engineered better than I expected.
Having said all this, if a perfectly clean chip and coolant free work environment is your goal, you’re on the wrong forum anyways.
4) Chip Brush is Brass. This is REALLY petty, but an industrial machine rep once told me any company that sells bandsaws with steel chip brushes either doesn't know what they are doing, or just wants to sell you more consumables. I don't know if that’s true, or if it seems as minor as I think it could be be, but it seems to me that your chip brush should be a softer material than your blade, unless you WANT to dull your blades prematurely.
5) Hydraulic Down feed is SMOOOOOTH…. The King Industrial down-feed is great. Access to hydraulic controls (Ball Value On/Off, as well as Needle Valve Bleeder) is fine. I have not yet tested for hydraulic leakage in the cylinder, but I suppose I could at some point the future. I don’t know why anyone would care, and I know I wouldn’t, even though I’ve seen spreadsheets of people who measure this stuff and have webcams watching it in real time (seriously). Personally, “leakage" has never been as big of an issue as it seems to be to other "hydraulic down feed enthusiasts." I do not care if the blade drops to base from top-centre overnight. Nor do I understand why people measure this.
6) Blade Guards are Solid…not cheap 22 gauge sheet metal that needs to be re-formed every time you change a blade and reattach the guard.
7) "Tru-Lock" Vise System - Nice. Really nice in fact. I never appreciated this until I tried it, and to be honest, it sounded a tad gimmicky on the King Industrial spec sheet. But the vise, after initial “snugging” allows for repetitive gripping of similar sized pieces with one solid down-push on a lever. This is a real time saver, and a great compromise for those of us that long for a hydraulic auto-closing vise on a Hydmech or higher-end industrial dream machines. You can insert similar sized stock and cut over and over quickly with one lever push on the vise. This is a really nice feature I hadn’t anticipated. It was a shock, especially for someone moving from a small 4x6 machine to more of a light commercial/industrial tool. A great feature…my favourite surprize overall.
8) Documentation - I’m biased here as I worked for many years as a technical writer. The King Industrial documentation includes both a reasonable user manual as well as a detailed parts manual. This is especially relevant as I have previously mentioned that King Industrial stocks all of its parts in its Quebec warehouse. As minor as it may seem, their documentation has only a few spelling and grammatical errors (far fewer than other manuals). The King Industrial manual is understandable compared to many other Asian manuals that baffle me with their twisted English, odd illustrations, and bizarre syntax that tells me to “insert screw for under complete-ness with danger” (whatever the heck that means?). Bottom line is that, for documentation junkies such as myself, fewer technical writing errors make us think they care a little more about QA/QC in the manufacturing process as well. As most technical documentation is written post-production, I’m likely wrong, but stupidly optimistic.
8) The Dual Swivel Feature is Great - it operates smoothly, and the spring loaded ratchet mechanism locks in angles (aside from the positive stops). It feels robust enough for a saw of this caliber. Best of all, the three positive stops for 90, 45, and 90 degrees are all adjustable and easy to bypass by simply pivoting the stop itself (all solid cast pieces). I could write a entire column on swivel abilities alone. But the ability to swivel the saw—as opposed to the vise—is largely why I chose the King Industrial model in the first place. I love this feature and can’t recommend it enough for a small shop with limited workspace. Also, I have owned several swivel saws before (such as the Craftex 4x6), and recall thinking that being able to swivel just one direction was adequate (because you could always just flip the stock for the mirror angle.) However….. swivelling in both (dual) directions would be a dream. Consider a power mitre saw such as a Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, etc., for doing trim. Then imagine it can only swivel/pivot one direction...and you get the picture. Oh, yeah…now imagine it takes ten times as long because instead of spruce or MDF your material is metal, and you see the advantage of a swivelling saw instead of a pivoting vise in a small shop.
9) The Saw Feels Solid - I love that very few parts feel cheap or poorly built (as a whole). This is different for everyone, but for me it means, heavy, dense, little slop, rigid, and that cuts are repeatable. Yes, there are a few parts that I would have preferred to have tighter tolerances, or a more expensive feel/look (such as the On/Off magnetic switch), or the sheet metal wheel guards, but all in all, all I’m happy with the “solid factor.”
10) Blade Bearing Adjustment - this is easier here than some other saws as the lateral movement is made through a screwhead—once the bolts holding the bearings are backed off. In some saws you simply loosen the bearing bolts and move the entire bearings, but the Kind Industrial model features a screw that allows for finer play, which is much easier.
11) Power - the motor on this is 220V / 6 Amp—which I like. It seems to have more kick to it than the 110V/11 Amp models (PA and Harbor Freight) which I have measured on a Kill-a-Watt Meter at less that than 1000 Watts (????). Bottom line is that on even a devoted 110V circuit in a residential garage (required for a car heater by Canadian Electrical Code), you may still dim lights. For something this big I like 220V to be safe.
12) Big Surprise, the paint job is top quality! Seriously.
SOME THINGS I AM NOT SURE ABOUT
1) This saw is belt, not gear driven, and I notice that the V belt seems smaller than I recall on my old 4x6 (in terms of thickness). Perhaps belts are of better quality now (?)…or maybe this is not a issue. It just seemed odd for a 220V 6 Amp motor that the belt was as thin as it was.
2) I prefer a gear box with visual access to the worm drive so I can watch the oil level without opening it up…in other words, a sight bubble. But maybe this isn’t a necessity. There is an access hole to check gear oil level at least. Either way it is an easy mod to add a bubble if needed. I had written on my old 4x6 crankcase “Worm Gear Drive - Check Often,” but in ten years I never checked it and it ran like a clock the whole time.
IMPROVEMENTS I INTEND TO MAKE
1) Coolant Management- I think all coolant systems should have a ceramic or neodymium (rare earth) magnet in the reservoir or somewhere in the plumbing. It catches small particles and prolongs pump life. I’ll be spending $2.00 at Princess Auto or Lee Valley to address this concern on Saturday.
2) Adjustable Drainage - King Industrial should pay me massive residuals for this idea, but I’ve yet to see a shop or garage that is perfectly level. For this reason I would make the drip tray adjustable using some type of stair gauge device so as to allow the coolant to flow back (properly) into the tank instead of pooling with off cuts in the tray like some kind of metalic Love Canal. I intend to combine this improvement with the pivoting wheel mod to ensure that coolant drains back to the tank, instead of sitting in the tray.
* Day Two Mishap (see pic) - After playing with the saw for a day I tried to dial in the Auto-Stop setting. At some point the machine failed to fully sever a 1/4” sliver of 3/16” wall 2x2 tubing. I stupidly re-started the saw after freeing the blade, BUT without removing the off-cut which the saw promptly kicked out. Because the protective sheet metal pulley door was not a snug fit, the off-cut flew back into the wheel housing through the gap (see tragic pic below) and jammed between the blade wheel and the housing. In addition to a horrific sound it stopped the blade from rotating, bent back a tooth severely, and displaced the blade from the wheel seat grove significantly. Even after reseating everything, the damage to the blade was so severe that the blade jumped and jammed on every cut until it stalled. Once I figured out the problem, I installed a new blade and all was fine.
Solution: Close the gap on the cover. Duh….
FINAL OBSERVATION
I give the King Industrial 7x12 Dual Swivel an 8 out of 10, with a caveat that this could change, positive or negative, after 6 months or so. My experience has been that if something epic is going to fail it will do so in the first six months. I know an Ellis or a Hydmech would beat this saw hands down in terms of quality and the minor QA/QC issues I have identified. But I guess my point is for the higher end "residential shop user,” such as myself, who is willing to accept small fit-up issues, I am very happy and would buy it again. This saw was about as large as I could get without going full on industrial, and was as high as I was willing to pay for a home shop.
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Great write-up. Couple questions:
- so this model is not a 'stand up' where the cutting head swivels up & you can attach a table platen like a conventional XY band saw? ie. its chop-off mode only?
- what's the distance between edge of vice jaw & blade? (that's a kind of pita on my import when holding short stock)
- so this model is not a 'stand up' where the cutting head swivels up & you can attach a table platen like a conventional XY band saw? ie. its chop-off mode only?
- what's the distance between edge of vice jaw & blade? (that's a kind of pita on my import when holding short stock)
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Really nice review. Thanks.
Did you learn anything about auto-feeders for this scale of saw? What about auto cutting? On my saw one annoyance is once I get the feed rate set then the next piece to cut is a pain to get the saw to the right height to clear the part but not be so high that it takes forever to come down to the part height. If that makes any sense... Is the king any better at that?
Dabbler
ersatz engineer
Hey John, the Emmerson saw has a fix for needing to mess with the downfeed valve to position the blade... It could make a great machining project if you want one.
On the down feed cylinder, there is the normal down feed rate needle valve, but an additional bypass that lets the fluid flow due to greater downward pressure...
- So to position the blade for the next piece, you raise the blade, then force the blade down until it just about touches the work without touching the down feed rate.
I'm rebuilding mine right now, but in a month or so, you could come down and see how it works!
On the down feed cylinder, there is the normal down feed rate needle valve, but an additional bypass that lets the fluid flow due to greater downward pressure...
- So to position the blade for the next piece, you raise the blade, then force the blade down until it just about touches the work without touching the down feed rate.
I'm rebuilding mine right now, but in a month or so, you could come down and see how it works!
No, this model will not go vertical--you can't attach a table to it. I know some guys like this feature, but as I am lucky enough to have CNC plasma and power metal shears/nibblers this feature wasn't something I shopped for.
The vise jaw closest to motor is 1/2" inch to blade; the shorter jaw (closest to coolant dripper) is 1 3/8" to blade. My pic is a bit misleading....as I don't use technology very well.
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I didn't research auto feeders or cutting, sorry. To be honest I have never seen either on 7x12's. I'm not sure if they exist until you get to 9x16's, but I'm probably wrong as I (sadly) don't get enough industrial equipment exposure just having a small residential shop. Having said this, I've always thought this would be a fun DIY project using a linear actuator, an Arduino/Raspberry Pi and some of the newer breakout sensors or Grove add-ons from groups like Sparkfun or Calgary's Solorbotics. I don't think the code would be that difficult, and is probably available online already, but maybe the actuator approach would be too slow???? It would certain be bragging rights though
Now that I think about it, I do remember someone comparing the same problem you are having to his toaster: every time one piece toasts perfectly, the next piece is never right.
Yours is slightly better than mine in terms of distance of vise edge to blade. At least it looks like your front jaw is closer. Here is what I'm talking about. When I have shorter stock, say something machined off the lathe, I need to rig up some backing jaws otherwise there isn't enough left to grip. If saw is sitting in stand-up mode, I'll just push it through with the T-bar, but if small-ish diameter. I wouldn't push a log through that way. My other trick is to hold the stun in another smaller dedicated vise & grip that in the saw vise.
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Yup...I get it. Thanks for the pic. I love bandsaws for the small kerf and ability to make repetitive cuts...But it ain't no table saw if we're trying to shave stock to size, right? It turns us all into jerry-riggers and potential Heath & Safety violators (and maybe YouTube embarrassments). I once saw a guy mod a small vise with T-nut to fit into his existing band saw vise, where the T-nut went into the viewing lane for the Acme thread (if that makes sense). Very clever. Worked like a charm, except that he had to machine down the underside of the cast vise to make it flat enough to hold the T-nut.
I love it when guys think up these things themselves to solve problems...it's part of the hobby and I like learning from everyone else.
I'd love to see that Dabbler. Very good stuff!