Thread: Hafco BP-16A Upper guide twist

Originally Posted by Squirrel

After setting it all up I discovered that the mounting block that held the thrust bearings was not centred, so even with the adjustment screw all the way out it, the bearing was about 3 mm away from the blade on one side.

.

Are you talking about a bearing that the back of the blade runs against when cutting?

The upper guide on mine has no bearings at all, just a pizz weak round piece of steel that spins when the blade runs on it and now has grooves in it .

Martrix,

I mean the flat bearing face that spins at the side of the blade, this was off centre and one fell out of it's housing.

Now that you mention the rear bearing, because it is all off centre my blade doesn't run on the centre of this. Found the only way to adjust the blade to the rear bearing was to adjust the tilt of the top wheel so it just sat off it.

How did you make your adjustment.

Squirrel.

Originally Posted by Squirrel

Martrix,

I mean the flat bearing face that spins at the side of the blade, this was off centre and one fell out of it's housing.

Now that you mention the rear bearing, because it is all off centre my blade doesn't run on the centre of this. Found the only way to adjust the blade to the rear bearing was to adjust the tilt of the top wheel so it just sat off it.

How did you make your adjustment.

Squirrel.

Is yours the same as this?



Mine were pretty well centred to begin with.

The 1" round disc's have a 3mm rim which the rest of inside of the disc is set back, which means there is SFA surface actually supporting the blade.

I had a 6mm blade on, and because the guides wouldn't go back far enough so that the band was running in the centre of the wheels, I had to run the blade closer to the front of the wheel which was always putting a twisting force on the blade...... have snapped three so far.

IMHO those guides are POS.

I have all the bits to make up my own guides that will hold blocks of Lignum Vitae and also when I get around to buying them, Cool Blocks.

Also a table mod in the works which will give me 12" (300mm) in re-saw height.

Will do a thread when done.

You think those guides are POS - you should try the old ones (which I think Squrrel might be talking about) . I thought the new style guides were brilliant but must admit, I haven't used mine much since I upgraded to the new model guides and I haven't tried such a small blade on it either - will have to give it a workout cutting some blanks soon.
Out of curiosity Martrix, what sort of work are you doing that needs a 6mm blade????

Originally Posted by TTIT

You think those guides are POS - you should try the old ones (which I think Squrrel might be talking about) . I thought the new style guides were brilliant but must admit, I haven't used mine much since I upgraded to the new model guides and I haven't tried such a small blade on it either - will have to give it a workout cutting some blanks soon.
Out of curiosity Martrix, what sort of work are you doing that needs a 6mm blade????

The guides probably work much better on a wider blade, but I need something that does it all.

I was using 6mm blades on the advice of a Cabinetmaker with 25 years experience who uses the 6mm skiptooth 6tpi exclusively for everything (including resawing). I have seen it cut 10" x 2.5mm veneers and the thin blade is excellent for curved work. I think the use of this blade was born from not being bothered to change the blade for different tasks.

But after everything Ive read I will only be using a minimum of 12mm wide 3tpi hook tooth for resawing now.

Squirrel, can you take a photo of your top guide setup showing the problem?

I currently have a fine blade in my BP16 with the old guides, and it seems to run well. I did have to adjust the angle of the top wheel to keep the blade up to the thrust bearing. Will try to get a photo today.

woodbe.

Well after trying to tweak mine the top (band tensioner) wheel (handle) broke off.

Then I noticed that I couldnt tension the blade enough only to find the 6 bolts holding the mounting/guide plates for the top wheel were not tight, they had slipped down somehow.

After readjusting them back (to the top of their holes) and tensioning the blade, I basically have very little movement to where the spring is fully compressed.

Is this normal ?

oh and fyi (if it means anything) my guides are like the ones in the post matrix did.

I am almost glad that Hafco never got back to me in relation to these, they were out of stock in late November and would contact me when they arrive in.
Sounds like there is a lot of problems.

Iain, just teething problems . I've had the BP16A working its guts off for the last month and have no complaints and no regrets at all. The supplier promply sorted out my initial problem and everything now runs as straight as a die.

But, it is chaiwenese (typical plastic handles etc) - same as all 14" & 16" saws around the same price.

Contacted H&F they are sending a new one out no probs

Can't fault the service.

Iain, it's a price/performance tradeoff. The BP16A is a particularly capable machine at a very good price. You can pay a little bit more and just get more of the same, quality wise. If you want a lot better, you have to spend at least 2-3 times the money and get into one of the low end european machines or similar.

So, most BP16A owners have a few teething issues. The good thing is that they also know their machines better than one that works out of the box as it were. I'd buy one again.

woodbe.

Had a visit from the Grand Poobah's 2IC and he advised me to keep the one I had as it is basically a good reliable machine.
Just did a little tune up and saved me $700.00, cost me dinner though

Originally Posted by woodbe

Squirrel, can you take a photo of your top guide setup showing the problem?
woodbe.

I should have attached photos in the first place, would have saved a heap of typing.

Photo 1: is a front on view showing how the guides are off centre.
Photo 2: Same thing
Photo 3: Modification to elongate hole
Photo 4: Shows how the bearing fell out of body.

Squirrel..

Did you try moving the top wheel?

If you loosen the six bolts holding the mounting guides, there may be enough slack to move the top wheel to the side, so that the blade runs more centrally in the bearings.

And how do I know this? Well, after fiddling with the afore-mentioned 6 bolts, to get things so the top wheel mount only went up-and-down (no side-to-side), I noticed that the blade was rubbing against one side of the table insert, and wasn't lined up with the cut in the table.
So, after adjusting the wheel sideways to correct that, I realised that the table mounts could have been adjusted to give the same correction (but without requiring another fiddle to line up the top bearing travel)

Cheers,
Andrew