JET 5" x 6" Horizontal/Vertical Bandsaw, 1/2 HP, 115/230V 1Ph (Model HVBS-56)

I was a little skeptical about the delivery and assembly based on Amazon reviews of this saw. Here's my experience.I placed my order the evening of March 30. The saw arrived April 6 on a pallet. I did not have any shipping damage. I had free super saver shipping and am very satisfied.I assembled the saw myself in about 30 minutes. There are about 24 bolts. All holes line up perfectly. I've had kids toys that were more difficult to assemble.I've only cut a few pieces of steel so far. The cut is faster and cleaner than using my chopsaw. It had no problem cutting through a 2" x 4" solid steel bar. I purchased additional bi-metal blades but have not used them yet. You have to remember that this is not a top of the line saw. The stand is adequate but not built to support heavy parts. Overall, I am impressed with the capability of this saw for the price.

I've used the saw on one real project so far. When I got it I did some test cuts on scrap metal and it worked well after I got it set up. The one real project I've done since then was with light gauge square steel tubing. I was welding the pieces together of course. Square cuts and inside dimensions were critical and the saw did very well. It made the job easy.Putting the saw together can be a might aggravating. For one thing there wasn't enough of the bolts to put the legs on. I had the right sized bolts in my shop so I was able to carry on but it was aggravating. And I agree with other reviews by the way. The legs really are of too light a gauge metal. I don't think I will have to reinforce them but they are a bit light. Back to assembly. The instructions aren't great. When they put the motor on the saw they let a hinge like motor/belt tension piece flop to the inside rather than the outside and it began to look like I was going to have to do some significant disassembly to get the thing freed up. I finally managed to get it out and finished putting it together. I found I had to do some creative bending and springing to get the automatic cut off piece to reliably shut off the switch at the end of a cut with out it interferring with the saw coming all the way down. The cutting table for the vertical is light gauge metal and oh yeah a couple of those screws were missing too. I haven't put the vertical cutting table on and I probably will not. That's not what I bought the saw for. I believe some reviewers reported holes not lining up, that sort of thing. I did not have that problem with my saw.So, in summary, I would say be prepared for some serious aggravation when putting the thing together and then once you've got it together and set up you'll have a good saw.

I was excited to buy my first JET tool, as most of them seem to get good reviews. The first problem was the shipping. The UPS driver delivered it at night, when it was dark. I signed for it, but couldn't do a thorough examination. After he left, i was able to get it into the garage and look at it.The box itself literally looked like it had fallen off the back of the truck twice and rolled down a hill. It was terrible. You could clearly see, even without opening it, that there were going to be problems. I think the UPS driver should have not even delivered it like this at all in the first place. Anyone looking at the box would see it was going to have problems. But I decided to see for myself. When I opened the box, the Styrofoam packaging had all but disintegrated. It had been crushed flat and parts were poking through, clearly not protected. Now I was determined to inspect all the parts.So here's what i found.* There were dings and scratches on just about every part, including the motor.* The motor had clearly been hit hard enough to move, as it was dislodged and crooked.* The plastic blade cover was cracked at the point where the screw attaches it to the metal blade housing* The knob for the adjustable fence was missing.* The "table" that comes with this tool for vertical cutting is (as another reviewer stated) useless and flimsy. It was also damaged and bent during shipping.Most of this stuff above was probably due to the shipping or warehouse issues. I would have to assume that if you bought from a store, where you could actually see it, it would have been in much better shape.At this point I would have returned it, but I ordered this saw for a job i was doing, so I pressed on, just to see how bad installation would be. I figured I could get over the dings and scratches, and even the crappy table I was willing to overlook as this would never be used as a vertical band saw.So I forged on, put it together, and had many problems.* Instructions were so-so. Plenty of opportunity for additional pictures and identification of parts and clearer explanations.* Adding the legs was a simple matter, that went smoothly.* I had to realign the motor because it had been dislodged and the pulleys that the drive belt rides upon were completely misaligned. This took me awhile, but I managed to get it all straightened out.* The blade guides were completely misaligned causing the blade to be very crooked. Had to align those as well.Operation: So at this point i was getting over the shipping issues, but it took me a couple of hours to get everything put together, and aligned and tuned. In my opinion, when you are paying this kind of money, the thing should pretty much work properly out of the box.The biggest disappointment was that after all that time spent (yes, I probably had it coming) was that it would not cut at all. Here's what I found:* I was cutting a piece of 1/8" by 2" steel. not a big deal.* I clamped it down hard so it wouldn't move.* I cut slowly, as recommended.*...aaaaand the blade popped off the blade wheels.So i put it back on, readjusted the tension and started to cut again. And it popped off again. Put it back on and adjusted the tension again and it popped off again. I could not get it to cut through the steel. The blade kept popping off the wheels. No matter how much tension I put on it, and how i adjusted the blade guides, it just wouldn't complete even the smallest of cuts.So I've put as much time into this as I am willing. I'm returning it. And I can tell you that I will probably not be buying another Jet tool in the future, because if this is an example of how they work, even forgiving the shipping issues, It just isn't worth it.

This is a great product, very basic and easy to use. The directions could be a little better for the first time user but overall understandable. Packaging for this product is not to good, fortunately this product was ordered through Amazon and their customer service is the very best. Amazon issued a pick-up for the damaged bandsaw and shipped a new one immediately. The second one was damaged also but not as bad, Amazon gave me credit for the switch I replaced and my troubles. The Jet company sent a new replacement pulley for the damaged one. I would rate the customer service for both of these companies the very best! I have been using this saw for a few weeks and I love the way it works, nice clean cuts and I feel comfortable walking away while it cuts the steel. Amazon.com's customer service and Jet made this a good experience that could have gone very bad.