bandsaw tune up

  



On a trip to a local sawmill last week I came apon a Rep from a woodworking machine manufactures. With the aim of shifting a few items from the catalog, he was giving a demonstration on how to get the best from your bandsaw. It was basic stuff, but the coffee was free, so I sat in with the intention of warming up a bit before strapping my timber to the truck.

It wasn't long before I was experiencing that old sensation that what I had simply written off as information for the novice was in fact a direct lesson to the woodworker, so long in the tooth, that they have forgotten  wisdom passed to them an age ago. The message was clear, the only way to achive accurate results with a bandsaw was to constantly insure it is correctly set up. And apart from having a sharp blade with the right amount of teeth centred on the wheels, the main area of adjustment is to be found on the bandsaws guide post set up. Located above and below the bandsaws table, theses will normally consist of two guide blocks, which need to be set about a sandpapers thickness, either side of the blade. I make my blocks out of hard Maple which I pre-soak in a lubricating solution to reduce friction. I have one fellow timber man who swears by his method of microwaveing the blocks for two minutes after a 24hour soak in lubricant. 

The other part of the guide assembly is the Thrust bearing found behind, but NOT touching the blades edge. I have lost count of the old hard worked bandsaws I have seen with the Thrust bearing frozen, unable to turn due to overheating when run too close to a rotating blade. These sorry bearing will usually carry the tell tale deep scares of miss use.

My coffee break lecture was a lesson to us all, if we want the best from all of our woodworking machinery then we have to put in the effort with constant matinance and respect.