MM16 Mini Max Bandsaw Review

by Jacob Dahn

This review was written to provide some further information on Mini Max (MM16) bandsaws. My educational background is as a Mechanical Engineer. While this does not make me an expert on woodworking, it has given me an appreciation for well-made tools and what I consider to be solid, dependable workmanship. Thus, this contains views and pictures not found in sales brochures and typical reviews.

The recent purchase of a lathe necessitated something with more throat capacity than my current Delta 14". The main functions of the new saw are to cut large bowl blanks as well as resawing.

My decision came down to two saws, the Laguna 16HD and the Mini Max MM16. Both have similar performance, specs, and costs. I was disappointed there was no access to either of these saws at a local retail outlet or distributor. All of my research was performed via phone and internet. Due to many reviews and personal testimonials I decided on the MM16 from Mini Max (Centaro, Italy) of Austin, TX. Within two weeks the saw was ready for pick up at the shipping location. It arrived packaged inside its own wooden crate and bolted to a pallet. All accessories were stacked directly on the table top. The cast iron fence was also sitting on the table top. It was not wrapped or strapped down. With help, the saw was loaded into the back of my pickup and I headed for home. This is one heavy saw (490 lbs). Bring a friend (or two) to help load and unload it. The first order of business was cleaning the cosmolene off of every surface, crevasse, and thread. This was time consuming due to the sheer volume of cosmolene. All guides, covers, etc. were disassembled during the wipe down/clean up process.

The instructions were vague and lacking detail. The included exploded drawings are helpful, but they could be larger with more close ups. The accessory package is a nice touch. All the correct wrenches needed for adjustments, as well as, a push stick were enclosed in a plastic case.

Some issues arose during cleaning and setting up the machine.

The flatness of the top was checked using a Starrett 24" straight edge. The top was very flat; feeler gages proved the top to be within .005". With an area of 17.75" X 24.5" it was nice to see this level of flatness. The top was marred due to the cast iron fence sitting unprotected on it during shipping. The scratches are not deep enough to affect the use of the top; however, it required a considerable amount of effort to remove them.

The stock miter gage was of similar quality as most, pretty much worthless. I feel there is not a large amount of utility from a miter gage on a band saw anyway.

The table tilt mechanism is very heavy duty. The scale is coarse, but typical for such an application. The lever is easy to loosen, and once loose, the table moves with ease. Care must be taken when adjusting the angle of the table top. It is weight biased towards the right (outboard) side of the saw. When loosened, the top will fall to the angled position if not supported. It will strike the lower blade guides if they are in the upper-most position. The lower blade guides can be adjusted to within 4" of the table top for blade support. They will need to be lowered each time the table is tilted if you keep them in the up-most position when cutting at 90°. There are 4 bolts to adjust the table top for squareness to the blade. Since the table was level upon receipt I did not need to adjust them.

The top blade guard/guide assembly seems of a robust design. It is driven by a chain and sprocket. The blade guard is a multi piece design that collapses together as it goes up. There was a piece of slag from tack welding stuck to the inside of a guard piece which prevented it from retracting. When attempting to remove the guard assembly, I discovered one of the cap screws holding it in place was located behind the top wheel. This made the task of filing off the piece of slag much more difficult, but not impossible. After kicking myself about filing the hard way, I realized that if I raised the top blade wheel, I had full access to the fastener.

There was a small tear in the back edge of the top tire prior to my receipt of the saw. Mini Max was contacted and they sent out a replacement for free. The tire took 4 & 1/2 weeks to arrive! Luckily, I was able to use the torn tire until a replacement arrived.

All of the motor mounting bolts were loose and had to be retightened. This was noticed when cleaning the machine. Anybody setting up a saw should verify they are tight. They were easily tightened; however, there was no specification in the manual for torque values.

The MM16 has an interesting way of routing the dust into the chute. The blade is passed through a ½" piece of wood to knock the dust off and into the dust port. For testing, the machine was hooked to a Shop-Vac. This worked marginally at best; a much higher CFM machine would be needed to test the dust extraction properly.

There is an adjustable dust guard attached to the bottom door. This covers the bottom guides just above the dust collection port. Due to the design, the hand knob did not have enough threads available to hold it in place. After a fender washer was added the dust guard remained in place.

Both the upper and lower blade guides were of the "Euro" design and easy to adjust. There was plenty of room to turn and move everything by hand, a refreshing change from trying to adjust the lower blade guides on a Delta 14".

The lower blade guides would not turn freely along the length of the threads. Mini Max suggested to soak the guides in a solvent to make sure all the cosmolene has been removed. Over time the guides have loosened some, but I have not yet soaked them in solvent to verify this fix will work.

Another issue concerned the table insert. There was no secondary machining process to clean up the insert hole in the casting. This left a very irregular surface/profile for the plastic insert to be fitted to. The insert had been hand sanded so that it would fit the irregularities of the casting. Once the outside edges of the insert were leveled the center of the insert bulged up causing work pieces to catch on it. The only way to make this fit correctly is to sand more of the insert edges away. This is an unacceptable level of fit and finish. This is expected in castings from China for a low-end machinery dealer, not a high end "best of" band saw builder. Mini Max responded with "this is the way all of the Italian saws are built." MM recommended using a Dremel to grind out the insert area or to sand the insert down so it fits better. Sanding the insert to fit would have made large gaps around the edges, allowing it to wobble and rock. If a new insert is needed it will be necessary to hand fit each one. My top will be removed and taken to machinist to clean out the insert area. This should only take a few minutes; therefore I cannot understand why it wasn't done prior to shipment.

The burr from machining the table flat was also still present around the insert area and needed to be filed off.

Blade tracking was off when first set up. The bottom wheel was adjusted to get the blade tracking correctly. There are 4 bolts on the rear of the machine that need to be adjusted for this operation. It was a very simple process, just a minor inconvenience.

The upper blade guide bar assembly also moved from right to left depending on how high the upper guide was set. It was necessary to re-align it using the top 4 bolts. This was a little more difficult to adjust. It took about 30 minutes to get it to track parallel to the blade.

Mini Max makes many claims about their saw, most of which are true. However, it is my belief they greatly overstated the quality of the fence assembly. The fence assembly that was shipped with the saw was disappointing. The fence itself is rigid and nicely machined. However, the clamping mechanism is nothing more than a threaded bolt that contacts the fence rail. It has been difficult to slide at times and each time the fence is secured it leaves an impression on the fence rail. Over time, these impressions will get deeper and might affect the accuracy of the fence. The rule used for the fence is also very coarse. This combined with the viewing bubble height can lead to very inaccurate measurements. When resawing I will not be able to use the supplied tape because of this. Ironically, the last issue with the fence was the lack of threaded holes tapped into the top. The advertisements tout this as a way to attach auxiliary fences for resawing applications.

The tensioner for the blade is a light duty hand wheel. The wheel spins freely and is easy to tension the blade to the desired level. A nice touch would have been to add a spinner handle that snaps up out of the way, similar to those seen on metal working mills and lathes. At a cost of