Harvey, a woodworking tool company, has launched their new Alpha A-15 intelligent bandsaw, which is advertised as being the first next-gen tool of its kind.
Featuring the merging of “advanced technology with mechanical precision,” Harvey boasts that their new bandsaw will redefine the product category and bring the woodworking industry into a new era.
Harvey’s announcements claim that A Thing that Never Existed Before has Finally Arrived. Let’s take a closer look.
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Features include a digital control panel with touch screen display, nickel-plating for “a rust-free experience,” a 4-pole motor with built-in mechanical brake, upgraded blade guide system, Big Eye rip fence system, and voice-controlled LED worklight.
At the heart of the control panel is a 7-inch touch screen.
Built-in sensors allow for visualization of blade tension, table tilt angle, and blade speed.
It doesn’t seem to measure actual blade speed, but instead detects belt pulley position. There are 2 photoelectric sensors, one for each speed setting.
Based on what I’m seeing, it seems you get 2 speeds but not variable speed; Harvey says the high speed 4300 FPM setting is for cutting hard wood and dry materials, and the low speed 2300 FPM setting is for cutting wet or green wood.
Harvey says the A-15 bandsaw has “structural optimization for enhanced stability.”
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There are 2 safety shutoff sensors, so that things don’t start spinning when the cabinet doors are open, 2 emergency E-Stop buttons, a tension sensor, and the sensors for belt positions.
Harvey designed the blade guide with a built-in viewer, and added fine positioning adjustment knobs on both sides.
It includes a voice-controlled LED worklight. Harvey says that they plan to introduce more voice-controlled features in future updates.
Dust extraction ducts are fully enclosed within the cabinet for improved performance.
Harvey says that the first 50 “brave buyers” will get a Pioneers Edition bandsaw with exclusive privileges such as a limited numbered badge and 5 year warranty.
At the start of the announcement, Harvey’s founder introduced “Mr. Jumper,” their robot dog.
I think that Harvey is trying to draw parallels between the robot dog and the sophistication of their new modernized band saw.
Here’s the full announcement:
At the time of this posting, the new Harvey 3HP 15″ Intelligent Bandsaw is priced at $6,789 with $399 shipping to the contiguous USA. Their other 15″ bandsaw, the HW615Pro, is currently $3,099 with $299 shipping.
Discussion
The new Harvey bandsaw definitely integrates more modern technology than most machines I’ve seen, but I’m not sure I’d call it “Intelligent.”
Time will tell if there’s a market for a $7K bandsaw with touchscreen display and voice-activated worklight.
Some of the other features sound nice, such as the interior dust extraction duct. That’s a smart design that I can see as being potentially beneficial, but is it “intelligent?”
Nathan
Ota updates I don’t think so. What new feature are they going to add and how would it get it. I have to put it on my network ..
No variable speed motor seems odd for the cost . Are we sure it’s not a vs with 2 speed ranges? Crazy though. Anything on the fence does it have NC positioning capability. I can add my own. Voice activated light for less.
I like the idea of the touch pad for things like speed and tension if it does it. But not needed
Stuart
There’s no mention of variable speed, and no obvious means of controlling one.
There’s also no mention of auto-tensioning.
You get “real-time data on blade tension, table tilt angle, and blade speed,” but from everything I’ve seen, all such adjustments must be done manually.
MM
I’m not seeing much that’s “new” here, except for the voice-controlled table light. And I totally agree with Nathan, it’s downright nuts that a saw this expensive doesn’t have variable speed.
Gauges showing blade speed, tension, etc? My 1954 DoAll MP-20 has those. It has automatic blade tension–in fact it won’t let you start the blade motor if the tension isn’t correct. It also has a blade welder, hydraulic table feed with adjustable speed & pressure, hydraulic table tilt, hydraulic blade guide adjustment, built-in chip/dust blower, flood coolant, and it will run anywhere from 50 to 12,000 ft/min. No, that is not a typo. And most important: since it has a mechanical transmission it has plenty of torque torque in low range.
I’m really not a fan of how most modern bandsaws tend to not have the gearboxes the old-school saws often did because without that you never have good power at low speed. But this one doesn’t even seem to have electronic variable blade speed? And it costs how much exactly?
Robert
MM, that DOALL sounds very interesting? Are they still available?
fred
https://www.doallsaws.com/sawing-machines/saws
MM
DoAll is still in business, but they no longer make the old gear transmission models. That said, they are common on the used market. They are extremely robust, easy to work on, and parts are still available for them.
Monti
I like new tools and upgrades, let’s see how this takes off
MM
I agree, new tools are often great, but the only thing I see being “upgraded” here is the price. Meanwhile it lacks important features that many existing saws have. “new” is not automatically “better”.
Goodie
Old iron is the best!
KokoTheTalkingApe
Two speeds is one more than I have now, so I guess that’s good. And better dust collection is always good. But the other features are kind of meh.
What I would really like is some help with adjusting the bearings, blade position on the wheels, the wheels themselves if needed, etc. Maybe some built-in jigs or visual markers.
Bonnie
Seems like a whole lot of marketing-wank. There’s some interesting features, but the lack of variable speed in the worlds first “intelligent bandsaw” seems kind of insane. A DRO is cool, but certainly not the first.
John
It’s not even a useful DRO though, which would be on the fence. That would actually be cool, like marking a bunch of different points and being able to return to them easily.
Saulac
It is surprisingly difficult to find a band saw that can cut anything beside wood that most DIY can afford. Few year back I got one of those ubiquitous 14″ wood cutting band saw used and converted it to cut metal. I used a cheap right angle worm drive gear box (50:1) I think. I also upgrade all the guides and tensioners. Have been using it to cut everything from stainless steel to basa wood. I mostly just leave the metal blade on. The speed is probably too slow for wood…but I am not in a hurry. Band saw is a must have if you have into making random stuff. It is the best tool to get materials to the rough shape before you do anything else to them.
fred
When we bought our metal fabrication business- the plant came with a gigantic Armstrong Blum Marvel plate (vertical band) saw and some DoAll horizontal saws. They all had some use – but there are so many ways to cut metal – that they (particularly the big Marvel) mostly gathered dust – in favor of water jet and plasma cutting. I have no experience with cold-cutting (toothed-blade) chop saws – but they also seem to have gained popularity – at least for straight and mitered cuts.
For my home shop – like you I had no budget or space for big commercial metal cutting band saws. I never thought to adapt my older Delta 14 or its replacement Laguna 16-inch wood cutting band saw for metal. I did buy a stand to hold my corded Milwaukee portable band saw to use as a horizontal cutting machine. I also toyed with using the saw in vertical mode with a Swag stand – but never had enough need:
https://www.amazon.com/SWAG-Portaband-Powder-Coated-Switch/dp/B00LBFQIGI
The few times I had to cut metal plate to fit shapes – it was mostly bull-work with a jig saw finished with hand tools – or if it was thin I’d use my scroll saw.
Andrew London
I was definitely shocked when I learned Harvey wasn’t an American company. Sad. It’s truly a shame we can’t make quality machinery anymore
fred
The DoAll and Marvel metal cutting band saws, that I talked about, are still manufactured in the USA (Minnesota and Wisconsin) as far as I know. They are industrial tools priced accordingly. What we have lost (IMO) is the ability to manufacture quality machinery at a price that appeals to mass-market (aka homeowner) consumers who want low price first – then complain if the quality takes second fiddle.
Kurt
A portable metal cutting bandsaw mounted in a SWAG Industries table works great for my metal cutting needs at home.
John
Yeah I’ve gotten a lot of work done with a portaband in one of those tables. The only problem is if you want to cut something wide and deep where you run into the saw. And with the thin blade you have to be careful to get straight cuts.
Bonnie
I think portabands with accessory tables pretty much own the hobbyist metal band saw market.
Rog
I’m not sure if calling the first 50 buyers “brave” gives off the same vibe they think it does.
Kyle
Tacking on the “extended” five year warranty is also… tacky. What truly sets premium brands apart from the competition is customer support, not marketing buzzwords and special editions. That warranty should be standard.
Stuart
I wouldn’t want to be an early adopter for something like this – there are usually headaches involved. But if everyone balks about it, nobody would buy one.
To my knowledge they haven’t made anything like this before, and as per their website their typical warranty period is 2 years. I think extending it to 5 years provides some reassurance that it won’t be a dud and that Harvey will take care of any unforeseen first-generation problems that might come up.
PW
Hmmm. For this price, you can get a Powermatic 24″ bandsaw shipped to your door – and you don’t have be “brave” to get a 5 year warranty.
It’s nice to see new things being tried – but at that price I’d definitely expect white glove service to be included whether I was order no. 49 or order no. 51.
I’m too poor to be the target market. But even if I wasn’t, I’d think I’d be prizing power, smoothness, mass, and precision over voice activated features and yet another sketchy device to wall off on my sketchy device WiFi network.
Improved dust collection sounds nice though.
Stuart
To the best of my knowledge, Harvey is a Chinese company that mainly produces woodworking machines in China. This price could be taking into account the current tariffs situation. I looked around, and so far the bandsaw has only been announced in the USA and not in any of Harvey’s other markets.
If I were in the market for this, I’d wait to see if the price changes.
KMR
Harvey is indeed a Chinese company, they even admit as much on their US website.
That said, this seems to be their first foray into distributing their own brand label in the US market, but it is definitely not their first rodeo manufacturing. They’ve been suppliers of equipment and component sub-assemblies to MSC, Baleigh, SawStop, Grizzly, Laguna and on and on. Something happened around 2021 though as that is the last of the import records I can find.
Bonnie
Harvey dust collectors have been somewhat popular for a few years, and their other stationary power tools seem to pop up regularly. This certainly isn’t their first foray into direct sales of their brand.
Stuart
Harvey has been distributing tools under their own brand label in the USA for a few years now. They marketed some equipment via Bridge City Tools starting in 2020
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/bridge-city-covid-19-pandemic-deal-042020/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Sometime between 2020 and 2022 they started selling table saws and more here.
PW
That’s a good point – the pricing situation is certainly “fluid” right now.
Digger
I really like my Harvey table saw and wish I had their 15” bandsaw BUT for 7 grand I would expect a variable speed as well as a larger table. This seems like putting lipstick on a pig.
Robert
“Brave Buyers” indeed.
Like modern cars, seems to have a lot of “Nice to have” electronics that make the price tag not Nice to have; and a not Nice to have lower reliability just by having more failure electronic and software points. This physically large bandsaw is probably a pain to ship for repair, and seems more likely to need it.
As a counter example of doing speed control right on a pulley system, Nova has variable speed control on their drill presses. That seems more acceptable for roughly doubling the cost that Nova did.
S
The tech industry has far too many examples.
OTA updates only work if the company has an interest in maintaining the product.
Extending the warranty 3 years only matters if their product is good enough to not need it, or they have a robust service network equipped to minimize downtime. Just ask Kia owners how that’s working out for a lot of them and their excessive oil consumptions…
Stuart
I had to drag a desktop PC to my garage in order to update the firmware of my Nova drill press so as to enable it to be used with a keyless chuck. If I recall correctly, that was because the updater only worked with Windows.
As long as it’s easy, I’m fine with OTA updates.
Regarding Harvey support, they were on my shortlist when I was shopping for a cabinet table saw but I saw too many complaints online. I think they still need to establish their reputation.
MM
Wow. In my opinion this is a fantastic example of technology that has ended up on the downhill side of the tech curve. It’s honestly mindboggling to think that a non-cnc drill press would have firmware in the first place, let alone require an update to do something as simple as swap to a different chuck. Do you have to download different drivers to run forster bits in it? Does it need a RAM expansion to handle hole saws? 2-factor authentication to change the rpm? Virtual currency and in-app purchases to make drilling more efficient? Just what does this software do, exactly, that offsets this degree of hassle and presumed expense?
Stuart
https://teknatool.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/19000127324-assisted-powered-spindle-hold-function-for-nova-viking-and-voyager-drill-press
https://teknatool.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/attachments/19077121286
It shipped without a power spindle hold feature, but they added this capability later.
Nick
Interesting because most of what I’ve seen online regarding their cabinet saws are quite positive. I bought one about two years ago and have been very happy with it.
IronWood
Harvey could not have designed a saw I want less.
eddiesky
I was looking at the Harvey C14Pro as I will need a resaw bandsaw in the future. And that is usually US$2500 saw (not cheap). But this Ambassador Smart gimmick, at US$6800… um . no.
I watch StumpyNubs (James Hamilton) on youtube. He “influences” and uses a Harvey bandsaw and is honest about it, hence my interest. I’d like to see him get one of these to “dissect” and give his honest opinion on. Bet Harvey will not like that.
I can see infomatic that lets you know bearing wear, clogged port or tension issue, but if smart, it should re-tension, have variable speed, input tooth count and have degree display with calibration for tilt bed.
I may have to rethink Harvey now.
Stuart
Keep in mind that he’s sponsored by Harvey.
Wayne R.
“OTA updates” bring me immediately to thoughts of surprise subscriptions & forced inactivations. I’m hoping to avoid any more of that, no more “owning” anything that requires an app to operate.
Al
I’m feeling a bit low-rent right now. Just put new wiring and light switch on a 1950-60s 12-inch band saw. This is it’s third light switch. Second or third motor.
It might not make it to 100 years.
But mine has voice-activate beverage delivery. Redundant, if you count both kids.
Dennis Yuan
Not impressed with Harvey Tools. Anyone who has the know how can install a VFD on a larger 3 phase motor on a 3 phase bandsaw. Some of the best older bandsaw like a Delta 20″ has a higher tablenfor finish work with a 12″ height clearance. Resawing wood should be with a resaw bandsaw. I do not mean this Harvey POS nor a Laguna. I am talking about the Hitachi CB75F or the Hitachi CB100. Those are the real resaws. You never want a Harvey for regular bandsaw use as the table is made too low. Switching wide and narrow blades requires you to keep readjusting the guides. Harvey still lacks a full machining line.
John
Not having variable speed at that price is crazy. I just put a VFD on my drill press for $100.
John
Its possible the reason it isnt variable speed is because they only want users to cut wood with it. Slow it down to 200fpm and people will cut aluminum with it. I know I would. Which introduces issues with blade cooling the mfr doesnt want to deal with.