Jarviser
Established Member
The Record BS250 which I have used for 12 months for hobby work is an excellent benchtop bandsaw at an unbelievable price. It will resaw hardwood at the full 120mm depth accurately with a skip 4 blade, and there were improvements to the fence support and blade guard that are not mentioned in the user manual. It did take a couple of hours to set up as every setting including the table support needed adjusting. Since then not much has needed to be altered and the blade runs very well on the wheels without any need to fine tune tracking in use. I replaced the cam lever on the fence with a knob - this is its only weakness, apart from the following. Unfortunately after 6 months I had a screaming machine and jammed bearings 
. I assumed the bearings were trashed. Record's suggestion was that if you let the bearings touch the blade they will go round too fast and damage them (!! :? I thought that is what bearings were designed for). By taking one of the old bearings apart I found absolutely no metallurgical damage but a solid pack of sawdust. In my zeal to keep it clean between tasks I had brushed the sawblade thrust and guide bearings (3 above and 3 below) with an old dry paintbrush. I should have only used a vacuum nozzle because I thereby packed the bearings with sawdust which got past the shields. Unfortunately one downside of the price is that bearings like sawblades and belts are "consumables" and are not covered in the Record warranty (especially of you take the balls out!) At £6 EACH, a set of 6 makes up 25% of the original cost. However I did find, via eBay, www.vxb.com in the States which suplied me with 10 number 626-ZZ bearings for 10 dollars plus 10 dollars P&P. That is less than a quid each and they have run nicely for 6 months. I now see that they are advertising 20 of them for 15 dollars. So take care not to brush dirt into the shields like I did, and never WD40 them!.
. I assumed the bearings were trashed. Record's suggestion was that if you let the bearings touch the blade they will go round too fast and damage them (!! :? I thought that is what bearings were designed for). By taking one of the old bearings apart I found absolutely no metallurgical damage but a solid pack of sawdust. In my zeal to keep it clean between tasks I had brushed the sawblade thrust and guide bearings (3 above and 3 below) with an old dry paintbrush. I should have only used a vacuum nozzle because I thereby packed the bearings with sawdust which got past the shields. Unfortunately one downside of the price is that bearings like sawblades and belts are "consumables" and are not covered in the Record warranty (especially of you take the balls out!) At £6 EACH, a set of 6 makes up 25% of the original cost. However I did find, via eBay, www.vxb.com in the States which suplied me with 10 number 626-ZZ bearings for 10 dollars plus 10 dollars P&P. That is less than a quid each and they have run nicely for 6 months. I now see that they are advertising 20 of them for 15 dollars. So take care not to brush dirt into the shields like I did, and never WD40 them!.
