Not a band mill user, but I would stay away. General Industries is a pretty cheep manufacturer. I wouldn't spend 2 grand on a chinese made mill when an LT-10 is just 700 buck more and comes with the service. HF is not a good tool dealer for people like us who need tough, tough, stuff to hold up to what we do. Even HF's paint brushes literally fall apart.
I'm a wannabe BSM, so I've a great interest in this size, highly portable BSM.
The saw is "made by" Central Machinery Industrial, not General Industries. CMI is the brand, but HF frequently "rebrands".
The LT-10 is $2,995 PRESENTLY and going to $3,200 March 1st, thats a diff of $1,000 to $1,200, not $700.
As I stated above the previous model of the HF BSM was a rebadged Hud-Son MADE BY Hud-Son and the support line went to Hud-Son (but it was sold under the another label). Hud-Son is a well established BSM mfg and has been in business selling sawmills since 1970.
So if this was a rebadged "Woodland Mills" saw I'd say "so what" Woodland Mills has only been in business since 2009. Their saw may be a rebadged HF.
There is another forum which discusses sawmills and they had the same opinion about the Hud-Son version of the HF mill, saying it was cheap chinese junk, until they found out it was made in America by Hud-Son. Dozens of posts along the lines of "I've never seen one but it's junk".
Thruout my searching I only found about two people who owned one of the Hud-Son HF mills, they both liked them and admitted the mills are lightweight. But if you only want to do a few trees now and then it was sufficient. And if you get to use a 20% off coupon ONLY COSTS $1,600 plus shipping, or half an LT-10 next month.
I'm not defending this one, I might buy one if I finally get to retire. But I get fed up with people saying things are junk when they have no knowledge of the item other than a picture in a catalog.