METAL BANDSAW 5IN. WITH SWIVEL CSA CX116

I agree with the first reviewer about this saw. There are some small issues to learn about ,but overall it is well made and worth buying. Mine has no vibration issues, but the shutoff switch probably should be replaced or moved . You need to be there anyway to catch small pieces ,so for me it is not a big deal. The vise is narrow ,so for long steel pieces ,I need to make extra , external supports with rollers ,but again that is not a big deal. I would definitely buy this saw again.

I purchased this to cut mostly hot-rolled steel tubing between 1/16 to 1/8 wall thickness. There are a few issues with this unit. First, on my saw, I was not able to square the clamp to the blade because there was not enough adjustment. I had to drill out the bolt holes in the clamp to make it square. Second the motor has a belt that connects to a pulley wheel so you can adjust the speed of the blade. That pulley wheel is not round on my saw and therefore, there is quite a lot of vibration when it's running. It hasn't caused me any issues yet, but typically vibration is bad long term. The wheels that hold the blade are also not round which cause even more vibration. It's really annoying that they didn't machine something that is round. Lastly the sliding part of the clamp that holds your piece slightly lifts up when you tighten it. That lift changes the orientation of your piece, causing your cuts not to be square if you are mitering. If you don't care about really good fitups then this might work fine. Messing with the blade guides is a hassle so I pretty much just leave them alone, even when changing blades. Blade changes are OK (5 min), but you have to unscrew about 8 screws that hold the protective cover over the blade and then a few more screws that hold the blade guards on. I struggle with blade tension because there is no indication of how tight to make the blade in the manual or anywhere else. I just try to guess how tight the original blade was and match to that. I broke one blade by over-tightening it. The mitering ability is very handy and I use it constantly. When mitering the squareness issue is really amplified with the fitup. I bought a really good blade (Lenox 10/14 TPI) and it cuts incredibly well and has lots of power. I like the automatic feed system. You have to be a magician to make the auto shutoff work properly though. There is about a 1/64 range of error between it working and not working (It's a little screw that comes down and touches a very sensitive button to shut it off after it comes down all the way). I have it working but if the wind blows the wrong way it will need adjustment again (the issue is that it either shuts off before the cut is done, or doesn't shut off at all) All in all this thing cuts very well but there are quality issues as I've mentioned. If you don't mind some squareness issues and vibration and just need to rough cut a whole bunch of steel this thing works pretty well. I was a bit disappointed by I guess $700 is not that expensive for a 5" metal bandsaw.