4x6 bandsaw observation/question

[Rich Carlstedt]

Gee Guys, if you have not had your blades come off, that is a very rare.
I have had my 'honey' for 22 years and it cuts terrific.
I have fixed maybe 10 saws when guys have seen mine. everyone threw the blades. most were completely out of allignment...As Paul mentioned appropriately above.

The other issue not mentioned is a problem with design !
The blade tensioner is "SOLID"..you use a thread to apply tension to the idler wheel. this is totally wrong and increases tendencies of the blade to jump.You want "Spring tension" style This is because with solid, any "load induced on the blade INCREASES its tensile Load heading to Yield. so a tooth hanging up can/will shear itself off ..not good Or the blade will get "longer" allowing it to fall off ( this can be caused by chips getting between the wheel and blade as well)
To fix it, fasten ( Loctite!) some allthread to the idler crosshead right where the current rod is threaded. Drill out the threaded hole in the frame so the allthread comes out cleanly about 4 inches. mount a heavy car valve spring with washers on the threaded rod, and take a new round handle that is tapped and spin it on. as you tighten against the spring, keep applying torque till the blade sings when snapped. You now have a spring loaded adjustable idler that is very forgiving of chips and varing loads
Thats It
Rich

[lugnut]

Rich, I hope your right, just because it sounds good! I’m going to try it. I don’t have too many problems with the blade coming off unless I’m making a heavy cut and using a lot of WD40 and forcing the blade a little. Normally, by cleaning the chips and dust off (is that called Swarf?) and WD40 off from the drive wheel I can stop the blade from coming off. Still I can’t complain too much when I think that this $130 saw from who knows where is still doing a job that saws costing hundreds of dollars more don’t do much better. I love it and any one who has one does also.
I think one of the more important things to get these little saws to do their best is to use the best blade you can afford. A good quality bi-metal blade will last 10 time longer than the cheap replacement blades sold but the saws supplier. One more thing I have found is: don’t cut to close to a weld or cut made by a acetylene torch. The metal has been hardened in those areas and will take the teeth off the blade in a heartbeat.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it
Mel

[pcarpenter]

Good tip, Rich. I'll add that to my ever growing list of shop projects. My woodworking bandsaw has such a spring and is almost a necessity there. Out of paranoia since mine has the extra cheap motor that is famous for smoking, I usually only use it attended and sometimes "modulate" the blade pressure (lessening it) by hand when it seems I may have adjusted it for feed that is too fast. I have yet to shed any teeth by being cautious like this, but I shouldn't have to babysit a saw like this either...thus the value of your modification.

I am using one of those variable pitch blades (I believe this one is either Morse or Starrett??) and find I can use it for just about everything without any real loading. I do sit there with a fine wire brush and drag it on the side of the blade sometimes to get it to shed the swarf. That's another mod on the list.....a wire scraper wheel for the blade.

Paul

[billyboy]

sounds like a neat idea, but im trying to get a mental picture of the setup, would the spring be mounted between the round handle and the outside of the frame?

bill

[Timewarp]

I too would like pictures of this modification if you could post some.
Paul L

[bob308]

i have had one of those saws for 15 years. had to aline the wheels. it is the most used pice of machinery in the shop. i did stiffen up the legs like showed in hsm years ago. made a big improvment.

i did pick up another one at an auction it has a bruned up motor. i am going to do rich's improvement to it and see how it works.

[Forrest Addy]

For many years, I used a Toledo Beaver 4 x 6 band cut-off sawm a precurser to those presently on the market. A 1/2 band will only take so much stock per unit of time. If you weight the saw frame down in an attempt to hurry it along you overload the band causing momentary clogs and stoppages. That's normal band behavior in overload conditions.

If you want more squatre inches per minute, get a beefier saw.

I got tired of waiting for the 4 x 6 saw so I bought an Asian 7 x 12 saw a few years ago. It's a dandy. It's still down scale from larger saws but $600 was spendy enough for me.

As for the morons on bike shows taking sledge hammers to dumb machinery, "contemptable" is too mild a word as a descriptor for their actions. This kind of behavior doesn't even deserve comment. Anyone who loses his temper in this fashion is not safe to keep in the shop. If he was working for me, I'd fire him in an instant regardless of how creating or productive he was. For one thing he's busting up my shop machinery, for another he's setting a behavior example I couldn't tolerate from anyone. Had I tolerated it, it would set me up for a later giant tort action for suffering an unsafe condition. And finally while flashes of temper are normal; yielding to them and going berserk is unmanly.

[John Stevenson]

I no longer have one of these saws having parted it out for a larger model a while ago.
Having said that I did have one and really use one for 15 years with little or no problems once it had been sorted.

I'd go as far as to say that this machine probably did more work than any other in the shop during this time given the cost ratio's of the machines.

I haven't looked at a recent model so I don't know if they have improved but early on I recognised faults on mine that once cured made it very reliable.

I fitted a decent stand and tray with a coolant pump mounted on top of the gearbox and driven by an 'O' ring from the motor shaft but that was preference on the amount of work it had to do.

The main fault on mine was tracking.
I removed the tracking rollers complete with slides and using an adjustable spanner twisted the blade vertical then marked out where it wanted to NATURALLY lie.
I then fitted the roller back and looked where it held the blade and it was about 3/16" off on the rear roller set and OK on the front set.

Sounds very crude but I sawed the roller bracket off the slide and cast welded it back 3/16" further in.
After that and once adjusted I had no problems long term.

What I did find out that once a bandsaw is setup and it cuts right it stays that way provided nothing comes loose or it pops a bearing.
If a bandsaw starts tracking off when it has been proved OK it's the blade.

It's always the blade. What happens is that it loses the set from one side and this causes the other side to cut better and wander off.
I have even had brand new blades track off after being fitted.
You want to start playing with it but don't, throw the blade, fit a decent one and you are away.

Some people have had decent results with the supplied blade, others have found them to be rubbish, it's a toss up what you get.

I have found Lennox blades from J&L to cut better and outperform all others.
Starrett blade are absolute junk, you are better off using a length of banding from a parcel than a Starrett blade.

.

[outback]

I have 3 of these saws.

To address the blade jumping of the drive wheel I screwed a stip of 1/4" steel to the frame near the drive wheel that prevents the blade from jumping off the drive wheel.

Yes, it is in the way when replacing blades but the blade no longer jumps off.

I can send a pic of my solution if someone is interested.
Jim

[Alistair Hosie]

make sure the blade is not a tad too big for comfort otherwise it should not come off unless your doin a popeye on it with those big forearms of yours Alistair