Laguna 14bx Bandsaw: Choosing Between 1.75 HP and 2.5 HP 

+RikkuMuchitsujo Thanks for your feedback, and enjoy your new saw.

Hi Tom, thanks for your kind words. I do try to find make meaningful quantitative observations whenever possible. I think it's helpful to people who are evaluating products, and it is also strangely enjoyable for me. #imageek :)

Thanks for the feedback!

Great to hear! Thanks for sharing your feedback, Kevin. Enjoy your new saw. Cheers, Paul

Awesome Mark! You’re gonna love that thing!

Thanks Phil! 🙏

My pleasure. Thank you for watching. Cheers

+Larry Pasha Hi Larry, thanks for the question and for the kind words. I haven't evaluated the 14 SUV, but I've looked it over. I think it's a nice saw, and there are a couple aspects of it that are noteworthy advantages. I like the rack and pinion table tilt adjustment mechanism a lot. If I made frequent adjustments to the angle of a bandsaw table that required precision, this would be an important consideration. I wish they had that same mechanism on the 14bx, but I think for most people that is a "nice to have" rather than a "must have" feature. Also, I like the idea of a Leeson motor, but my sense is that the motor's on the 1412 and 14bx are actually pretty decent. The fact that the motor in the 14 SUV is 3HP rather than 2.5HP is interesting, and I'd love to run the same tests on the 14SUV as I did on the 14bx to see how it compares. In reality, however, the tests that I did on the two bx saws were more to understand the difference in performance, but they were not actually very reflective of real world use. In the most extreme case that I ran, with a 13" walnut plank, I would prefer to saw faster than I could on the 1.75 HP motor, but I could live with the limitation. The speed that I was able to achieve in that test on the 2.5 HP saw, however, is faster than I would ever resaw such a large board in real life anyway. So any additional resaw speed beyond 2.5 HP would be unrealized in my shop unless I was sawing some really hard tropic wood. And when I was pushing the 2.5 HP as fast as I could, the motor was still barely breaking a sweat, so I was probably limited by other factors at that point. To your question about whether or not it is worth the additional $400, everyone would look at this through their own lens, but to me personally I don't believe that it would be worth it. In terms of the Hammer N4400, I've never actually seen one in person, so unfortunately I'm not qualified to say much there.

You’d be fine with 1.75 if you want to go that way. No problem at all.

Good to know- thanks!

Thanks Derek. I believe it is a 6-15.

1412 should be great for that.

Thank you, Brian. The 1412 is a great saw. Same power and same fence as the 14bx. The main functional difference is the brake. I really like having a brake on a bandsaw for safety reasons, but I never had one before the 14bx so it never bothered me. I reckon it would be hard to go back now to a saw without one, but I'm sure I'd get over it. :) The 14bx is a lot quicker to set up because it has the unibody design rather than the separate base, but once it's set up that doesn't make any difference. So, going from 1412 to 14bx 1.75 HP is really mainly about the brake. Stepping up to the 2.5 HP gives a noticeable increase in power as I show here, but that really only comes into play with big resaw cuts or cutting bowl blanks. If you do a lot of resawing you'll appreciate the additional power, but if you're mostly doing curved cuts with an occasional resaw cut, it probably isn't as big of a deal. I appreciate the power difference more when I'm cutting up gnarly bowl blanks than when I'm resawing, but maybe that's because I find that I'm doing that more lately.

ToolMetrix the main use for this saw will be to cut bowl blanks and do resaw cuts, probably. so really the 220v would probably be the best choice. and thanks again for the in depth reviews

I would definitely favor the 2.5 HP bx in that case.

ToolMetrix oh! one last thing.. what's the life span of those ceramic blade guides?

Good question. I don't think of them as a consumable. I could be wrong, I don't think that normal use would wear them out. I think there is some risk of having one pop off and ending up in the dust collector, or possibly cracking, but they don't seem to be getting any smaller. I have had a piece of ceramic pop off a couple times, and I just glued it back in with super glue. So definitely keep an eye on them because they are expensive to replace.

Good question; I'm not sure. I'd suggest contacting Laguna with that question.

I no longer have these saws in my shop. Are you looking for information on how to assemble the base? I'm pretty sure that I did show the base in the Deep Dive video that I put on my channel.

Hi Rob, I haven't used the 14SUV so unfortunately I can't provide you with any guidance on that.

No, that’s not ok. Wrong plug, wrong breaker.

Absolutely! You’ll be well armed for bandsaw boxes with that saw. I would suggest getting either the Laguna mini-guides or a Carter blade stabilizer because the ceramic guides aren’t great for blades smaller than 3/8”.

@@ToolMetrix awesome, thanks so much

Hi Randy, thanks for your feedback. Glad that you enjoyed the video, and that you are enjoying your bandsaw. I had a 1412 when they first came out and liked it a lot. Since upgrading, I have moved the 1412 into my father's shop and he really enjoys it. Cheers, Paul

thanks randy, i know parallel an series configurations from other batteries and it makes sense, i think i will go with the 1.75hp now.

Thanks for letting me Know. I’ll get it updated. Unfortunately I think they are out of inventory on most products right now due to increased demand from Covid.

I just searched around on amazon and it looks like they aren't currently selling these saws there at all. You'll have to order through one of their dealers such as Woodcraft or Rockler.

You won’t regret that

You should contact Laguna Tools.