Hi everyone,

About 9 months ago I bought a woodfast 18" bandsaw (1981 build). It looked like it still had the original rubber on the tires, and for some time it ran really nicely. The rubber then started pulling away a little on the top wheel causing the blade to vibrate from left to right at every turn, so I sent both wheels off recently to get them re-coated (at Complete Rubber, Fairfield, Melbourne). Unfortunately what I didn't do or request was to get a slight camber on the wheels as well.

When I put both wheels on and mounted the blade on the wheels, it was impossible to get the blade to track correctly. It would track in the centre position of the wheels for a number of turns and then deviate. After talking to Woodfast in SA this morning, they've said that the wheels really need a camber, even a slight one, to help track the blade correctly.

However, I also noticed that the lower wheel wobbles, not a lot, but perhaps 1.5mm at the outer edge of the rim. I can confirm that it isn't the rubber that's wobbling, but the actual metal wheel itself. I've checked the drive shaft and that appears to be running true and straight and has no give at all - so the bearings there appear fine. However when I put the wheel over the drive shaft it's not 100% tight against the shaft - there's a tiny little big of give as i move the wheel. It's only tiny and i can't really see a gap against the shaft but it translate to a small movement of maybe 1mm at the outer edges of the rim.

The wheel is held in place by a short (1" long, 5mm square) square rod of metal placed into a notch in the wheel & axle, held in place by a nut. Once this is all in place and tightened up the wheel doesn't have any give, but it also doesn't turn true, running with this wobble. It basically looks like the wheel isn't perfectly orientating itself at 90 degrees to the drive shaft.

By comparison the top wheel has no give and runs really nicely.

The questions I have are:

- Is this wobble a concern? It's small - if i put a camber into the bottom wheel, and that runs straight, does the wobble matter so much?
- The square rod of metal is a little bit deformed from years of tightening and usage - could this be the cause of the wobble? It doesn't perfectly fit into the notch, it's actually a little smaller than the notch.
- Does anyone have any suggestions on how to cut a camber into the wheels in-situ? I want to try to avoid sending them to Adelaide to get re-coated & a camber ground into the rubber.

Any help on this would be great. It's a really beautiful bandsaw and I want to try to do all I can to get it working properly.

Thanks in advance,

Steven.