Hitachi CB6YI 10 inch Tilting Head Bandsaw with Dust Collection

Discount Price: $119.99

Features:

• Motor: 1/3 HP, 4.0 amp, continuous duty, induction-type, 120v, 60 Hz, 1725 RPM
• Cutting Capacity: 9-3/8" throat depth, 5" max height at 90 degrees
• Blade Size: 63.5 inches, 1/4 to 3/8 inch width, 0.014 inch thickness
• Blade Speed: 3600 Feet Per Minute
• Includes: Miter gauge, 30 micron dust collection bag, LED worklight w/9v battery, Blade 63.5in x 3/8in x 0.14in x 6 tpi

Customer Reviews:

Good band saw - but watch out [Posted on 2007-10-28]
Saw works well, and the tilting head (vice table) works really well. BUT - can't find any blades for it!!! 63.5 inch blade is on nobody's list and local stores (Home Despot and Lowes) don't have anything close. Light for blade seems like an after thought as it does not shine on the cutting area, and there is no provision for attaching a fence to the table. Other than that it works and the dust collection works pretty good, but I'm going to hook it up to my big dust collector.

Decent Saw [Posted on 2007-10-30]
It's a good saw for the money. You have to shop around for blades and keep spares on hand because you're not going to find them at the Big Box.

Even though it's a "bench top" saw it's heavy. Mine is mounted on a fixed base. It tracks straight and has decent power. The cast iron table is a nice thing to have one a budget saw. It is a three wheel saw but I don't think it'll be a problem. The blade tensioner is a nice touch, too.

The tilting head feature is great. I never cared for tilting the table on a band saw because it just seemed awkward. I would like the saw to tilt maybe 15 degrees in the opposite direction so I could cut dove tails.

poor design, poor implementation [Posted on 2007-11-24]
This saw seems to be designed around the desire for marketing to have something "different," and that feature is the tilting head. When I read about the saw I thought, yeah, that is a nice feature to have and smartly done.

However, in use it is far less appealing than it seems on paper.

The first problem is that the fit and finish of this saw seems like typical cheap Chinese junk. A lot of the time with tools you get what you pay for... a cheaply sold tool tends to be cheaply made. I thought a Japanese company would avoid this but I was wrong.

The fit and finish shows itself when you attempt to square up the blade to the table. The first problem I encountered after squaring it up was that all my cuts were slightly off 90 degrees. I couldn't understand it, until I got around to checking the angle of the blade on either side. The table is either warped or milled poorly, meaning that there is roughly 1 degree bend in it centered around the slot cut for the blade. So if you are square on one side, you are not square on the other side. You can work around this by letting the kerf get the "bad" side, but it's just poor craftsmanship.

The second problem is that the head will shift with the vibration of the saw. So you have to really crank it down to lock it into place. And unfortunately, the way the clamp interfaces with the head, cranking it down causes the head to slightly shift. So even after you get it perfectly square, tightening the head can give you a half a degree change.

I spend so much time checking for the blade being square, adjusting the head, and tightening/loosening the thing that the saw is a net time waster for me. I can cut more accurately and quicker with just a hand miter saw, without ruining any cuts.

This for me is the biggest problem with the saw, if you can't rely on the accuracy of the tool it's hard to justify owning it.

The dust collection is not bad but not great. A lot of dust ejects out the back of the saw rather than gets pulled into the dust bag. I hook up a vacuum underneath the saw as a result, still can't catch it all but it does better than using the dust port for a vacuum.

I echo the comments of the other reviewer about the lamp. First, it is battery powered because this was cheaper than running a wire and running the lamp off of A/C power. It seems to do nothing much as well, the brightest point of the lamp when everything is adjusted correctly falls about one inch to the right of the cut. Just sloppy implementation, which means it is a feature for the marketing checklist and nobody cared about getting it right for the people actually using the saw.

The lack of a fence is one way of keeping the price point cheap, but not putting any mounting holes in place so you can add a third party fence I find has no excuse. Again, it shows that the saw is not really planned out for serious use.

Overall I would have to say avoid this tool. The money is better spent on something that has a better design, that is accurate, and has useful features (a fence) instead of silly features (tilting head).

Don't buy Hitachi - Period! [Posted on 2007-11-28]
I purchased the Hitachi CB6Y 10" Tilt Head Band Saw from Amazon because I thought they had a good deal and I liked the idea of the tilt head rather than the table tilting as on most others. The saw arrived OK and the setup went fine. But after making all the adjustments as instructed and then turning it on, there were some strange noises coming from the upper compartment. After further inspection it appeared there was a problem with the upper blade wheel. The instructions with the saw said not to return the saw to the retailer from whom you purchased it but to call the Hitachi technical support 800 number if there were any problems. So this I did. Guess what the tech rep told me? He said that if I had bought it at Lowes I could return it for a replacement but since I bought it from Amazon, the problem was between Amazon and me. I asked if there was any guarantee or warranty on the saw and he again stated I could either return it or take it to a service center for repair. I asked if he had any knowledge of any problems of this type with the saw but he had no answer. Of course, he would not say if any repairs would be covered under a waranty. And he also implied that I should have bought it at Lowes since the saws Amazon sells may not be of the same quality.
And now I have an 80 pound package to get to a shipping center and pay to ship back to Amazon and then wait for reimbursement, which is what an Amazon customer rep explained to me.
I recently bought a Rikon jointer and discovered it had a very slight bow in the cast iron fence. One call to Rikon and they are shipping out another fence. That is what customer service and standing behind a product is all about. Apparently Hitachi knows nothing about this.
Let the buyer beware!

63-1/2 blade availability [Posted on 2008-03-29]
Sears sells 63-1/2 blades, they use to sell the same saw but it was marked as a Sears brand.

Click here for more details and discount information...