New tool day is always a great day in the woodshop. Back in November, we purchased the Grizzly 17″ G0513X2 bandsaw to replace our older 14″ Grizzly saw that had seen better days. We weren’t ready to bring it into the shop just yet because of the planned remodeling. However, the sale Grizzly had going on leading up to Christmas was too good to pass up. We stored the saw until the new workbench was closer to being completed and we could begin the install. Now we’re ready to get this beast set up and running.

This saw has a lot of features our older model did not. Being able to more easily identify the amount of tension on the blade will be a big help. Even installing new blades is easier thanks to a small window that allows us to see how they are tracking without having to open the service door and expose the wheels.

The motor on this machine is wired for 220v and should be able to help us resaw more easily. Grizzly does allow this to be wired for 110v but I couldn’t think of a reason I would want to do that. We spend a lot of our time sawing down hardwoods like red oak and hard maple so the extra power and size will make that significantly easier.

We’ll have some pics and video of us testing out the new bandsaw in the next few weeks. We have a few small oak logs that will get put through with the resaw blade on as well just to see how it performs.