Thread: blade positioning

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Are the wheels flat or crowned? I would ring up the bloke who you spoke to and ask him to sort out what is what. You paid good money for it so you should get good advice.

Chris, I checked the wheels and they are slightly crowned. I think my old Hafco 14" BS had more crowning than this but didn't really take much notice to be honest. I've tried to take a photo to show the crown of the tyre. Definitely not flat though.

tyre crown.jpg

Originally Posted by mark david

I have watched the video and certainly wouldn't disagree with any of it.
The blade on my bandsaw is more or less in the centre of the tyre, slightly behind if anything.
I have not gone to great pains to tune my bandsaw as it is quite old and noisy and the motor is rather under-powered for my liking and not very good for resawing.

I can understand people thinking that having the teeth running on the rubber tyre would damage it but ceratainly don't think there is evidence of this.Having the teeth overhanging the front of the wheels seems to make no sense, you certainly wouldnt want to try that with a blade that is only 6mm deep!
You would want the tyres supporting and driving as much of the blade as possible.

I think there is a tendency to forget that the bansaw was surely invented to cut curves primarily and not straight lines.

Until recently I had an old 14" BS and I looked at it the same as you do yours. Probably could have gotten it humming nicely but I needed to get a good set of guides and didn't think it was worth it.

I had the same thought about the thin blade too. It's one thing to have a 1" blade with the teeth off the front but a 10mm blade, like I have on it now, would only have 6-8mm on the tyre.

I've bought this BS mainly for ripping and to have the ability to resaw, although I haven't done that yet, I would like experiment with veneering at some point. Curve cutting is only a secondary benefit for me but I do want to get a thin/fine blade in my arsenal.

Originally Posted by mark david

Yes I suppose you are right, but more of a band mill than the modern bandsaw.

The main difference is the use of a table but everything else is pretty much the samethe same

I personally think they have the potential to be one of the most dangerous machines in the workshop if not used correctly.
Laurel and Hardy cut their car in half with a bandmill in "Busybodies" well not really but a great gag.

I agree, I watched a guy cut his thumb off while talking to someone and not paying attention - it all happened so quickly the guy didn't even stop talking.