Bandsaw tuning, vertical blade and coplanar wheels

**John G** · 19th August 2016, 10:43 AM

I have noticed on my bandsaw that although the blade is perfectly vertical left-to-right, it is not vertical front-to-back, as the photo shows.
I thought I just needed to adjust the table, but it turns out the blade is not parallel with the blade guide either. So the guides move away from the blade as the guide is lowered. Which means the thrust bearing is not in the right spot unless you continually adjust it.

bsangle.jpg bstopwheel.jpg bsbottomwheel.jpg

At first I thought the blade was not running on the wheels correctly, but as the photos show the blade gullet is running nicely on the centre of the crown on both top and bottom wheels. Unless there is something else obvious I don't realise?
Which then brings me to colplanar wheels...

It seems straight forward to me that to make the blade vertical I either need to move the top wheel out or the bottom wheel in.
But measuring in that first photo, to fix that angle I would need to shim the wheels by 11mm, which is crazy!
And depending who you listen to, either they must be exactly coplanar (e.g. according to Grizzly) or else they don't (and even should NOT be colplanar) for proper tracking (e.g. according to Alan Snodgrass)

So which is it?
I want to know before I go to the hassle of taking everything apart in order to remove the wheels and shim them.
I don't think I even have enough room in the case to shim by 11mm!

The alternative is I just leave the wheels as is and adjust the table and the guide holder so the guide runs parallel with the blade.
This might be a lot easier than taking wheels off.

**pommyphil** · 19th August 2016, 12:22 PM

What happens when you tilt the top of the top wheel out ? Shouldn't the blade track out on the top wheel and become more vertical ? Phil

**Don Burch** · 19th August 2016, 04:19 PM

How is the saw performing?
Do you have access to Michael Fortune's 5 bandsaw tuneup steps?
I do the coplanar check with the blade on, minimal tension. Once I make the tracking adjustment, the wheels are no longer coplanar.
The table - blade angle doesn't matter for through cuts or resawing, but tenons and related shoulder cuts need better accuracy.
Sometimes a crooked blade weld can cause the blade to reciprocate.
I would square the table to the blade and not worry to much.

Don

**John G** · 19th August 2016, 07:00 PM

Saw performs well except a bit noisy. Probably need to have the motor serviced and oil the bearings... but the blade is stable.

Anyway, I did some more measuring and it looks like the table and guide is at fault.
Checking the wheels was a bit of a pain because the table and cabinet get in the way.
But from the photos, the wheels are actually pretty good. The top wheel is not exactly parallel because, as you say, you set the tracking by tilting that wheel. But the centres are pretty close. I certainly don't want to start moving them further apart. And the few mm the wheel is out does not explain the angle of the blade.
IMG_1287.jpg IMG_1281.jpg IMG_1282.jpg

So I had a close look on how the table is mounted. It attaches to a cradle to allow it to tilt sideways, and the cradle attaches to the cabinet with 4 bolts. So I could shim those to square the table. Just need to work out how thick the shims need to be.

The guide mount connects to the cabinet with two bolts, so again a shim on the lower one would bring the guide parallel with the blade.
IMG_1286.jpg

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