Bandsaw wheel alignment and tune up

Re: Bandsaw wheel alignment and tune up

Falberg saw Co

>Unless you have crowns roughly equal to the radius on both wheels you're doomed.Dooooooooomed! Get your local machinist to do it or grind them out yourself, but forget about co-planar and guides; that's your biggest problem. You may have lost the crown by tire wear, if so-that's easy: replace them. You'll have to shim if you want both wheels parallel to the frame but you can still get co-planar alignment by using straight edges. Co-planar doesn't have to be perfect unless you're fixing to really crank up the blade tension; then it is. Thrust support bearings shouldn't even touch the blade until you feed wood into it. Unless you're cutting contours you don't even need pinch rollers or guide blocks so that's about the last thing on your to-do list. You can eye-ball the crown from the profile of the other wheel. Happy resurrection! Sounds like fun.

Re: Bandsaw wheel alignment and tune up

Tony Ward. Blue Mountains, Australia

>My question is ~ Does it really matter if both wheels and not co-planner, in my view the question is whether the blade remains (tracks) at the centre of the top wheel when operational?

Tony Ward

Re: Bandsaw wheel alignment and tune up

Brian Philipp

>Will your saw still work with nonplanar wheels.....yes.

Will your blades track as straight and last longer.......no

use washer shims to get the wheels coplanar...and get a new spring to help get maximum tension needed to prevent wander.

and if your tires are flat....replace them.

Happy New Year,

Brian

Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

wilbur

>I haven't pulled off the tires on my wheels to check yet, but I'm pretty sure that the wheels themselves are flat. Does this preclude the use of urethane tires? I've read that urethane tires are more difficult to crown due to how thin they are, and that they instead rely on the wheel being crowned to provide the crowning.

Re: Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

Falberg saw Co

>Hi Wilbur, I don't know how you found a bandsaw with flat wheels, but if they are flat you'll need some kind of crowned tires which I never heard of. Pull the tires off and confirm the crownlessness of those wheels before we go spinning off into a bunch of what-ifs, please.

Re: Bandsaw wheel alignment and tune up

Scott Crumpton

>Make sure to check coplaner on both sides of the wheels. Right and left. On my Griz 555 I found that the riser block introduced a slight rotation. I was only able to get it properly aligned after grinding down one of the alignment pins to square it up.

---Scott.

Re: Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

wilbur

>Yup, the wheels are flat. This bandsaw was made in the 1940's, and from what I've been able to learn many bandsaws of that era had flat wheels.

I tried taking a block of wood that I put a slight concave profile on one face, and used it as a sanding block with a piece of coarse sandpaper on that face. I was able to establish a slight crown, and the blade certainly behaves better than it did before, although not perfectly.

I'll probably wind up replacing the tires at some point in the near future, anyway.

Re: Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

Falberg saw Co

>OK, Wilbur, it looks like you have nothing to lose. You can 1, take the wheels to your friendly local machinist and have them properly crowned ; or 2, (preferred method) take an angle-grinder full of coarse grit (36 or40 grit)sandpaper to the outside edges till you get as close as possible to a crown. You'll have to do these operations with the saw running so be careful how you set up. The drive wheel you can do without a blade mounted, but you'll need to run it with a blade and get your sander (and here you might have to squeeze in with a Dremel or straight valve grinder into the opening with the driven wheel. OR, and this might work better for the bottom wheel also, just wear it down with a bastard file while the saw is running. With, what, 32" wheels (?) it won't take much to get a curve equal to the circumference of the wheels. Glue on a cool pair of urethane tires which Suffolk can get custom sized for you and you're stylin' ! How are the wheel bearings? Do the thrust support bearings still turn? The rest is easy.CAUTION: the above procedure is suicidally dangerous and I wouln't recommend it to anyone, so you're on your own safety-wise.

Re: Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

wilbur

>Hehe -- 32" wheels? If you could see how low the ceiling is in my shop (82" vertical clearance), you'd understand why I had to stitch my side back together after reading that. Hehe!

It's a 16" Walker Turner. I think one reason why I was able to get it into my shop is because the stand it's on is on the low side. Here's a picture:

When you say that I should take the wheels to a machinist to have them crowned, do you mean having the machinist crown the metal wheels, or to put new tires on and have the machinist crown the tires for me?

Re: Crowning and rubber vs. urethane

Falberg saw Co

>Machine the wheels. The tires are only 1/8" thick so that's out of the question. Did you try grinding the rolling edges? It looks like you have good access to both wheels. I would crown the drive wheel first and put a tire and blade on it because then it'll track better while you *lathe* the lower wheel. Sometimes you can spin the wheels with the friction of the grinder if you angle it just right and there's not too much resistance from the wheel bearings.. Keep it spinning and the surface contour will stay smooth and round. I should read these things before I post them. I don't know where 32" came from. Good luck. Keep me posted.