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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    383

    Default Hammer bandsaw - getting a blade to stay on?

    Hi,
    I've just spent a frustrating half hour trying to get a 1/2" 3TPI carbon steel blade to stay on my new Hammer bandsaw. It seems very sensitive to the amount of tilt that I put on the top wheel while on the bottom wheel the blade automatically moves to the front edge despite being initially placed in the centre of the wheel.
    I'm used to bandsaws with a distinct crown on the wheels & tires, whereas the Hammer seems to have little to no crown at all on the wheels & tires, so it is basically flat.
    Mr Duginski comments in his book that "flat tired bandsaws" are more difficult to set up wrt the tracking and I would wholeheartily agree with that statement.
    A request to other Hammer bandsaw owners - what techniques have you found useful to get the blade to stay on the flat tires?
    Thanks
    Paul
    Auckland, NZ (no local support here!!!)
    New Zealand

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 1999
    Location
    Westleigh, Sydney
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    Default

    My Hammer N4400 has a yellow crowned tyre on it. Haven't heard of one with a flat wheel - sounds like a poor idea if they've made a change. Any chance of a pic?
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  4. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    nsw
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    I'm with Alex, same curved yellow crowned tyre on the wheel. Pics please!!

    I run a 1in 3TPI amonst others, and have never had a problem with blade mounting despite regular blade changes. I've found blade mounting to be a very straight forward process.

    Half inch 3TPI?? that's a wicked sounding blade. I don't run any 1/2 inch blade coarser than about 6TPI myself. What's the set of the teeth on the blade like? Is it any wider than others?

    I'm guessing it's the set of the teeth thats drawing the blade forward, but as you've mentioned, a curved crown is supposed to take care of that.

    I'll ask a dumb question, just in case. You are moving the blade guides right out of the way and setting/tensioning the blade first, and THEN bringing the guides up to it, aren't you?
    (dumb question, i know, but if you had left the guides in place and the bearings were holding the blade forward of it's preferred running, then it'll cause the blade to run off every time). Just checking, in case.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    383

    Default Picture of Bandsaw upper wheel

    Hi Alex and Timbernut,
    here is a picture of the upper wheel + tire of the bandsaw. It is black, not yellow.
    I took an inspection light and a small engineer's square and checked out the curvature on the lower wheel tire.
    There is a discernable gradual crown on the tire - tire width is 26mm and the drop from the centre of the tire across to the edge is about 0.5mm. How does this compare to the crown on your yellow tires?
    No problem with the dumb question - I have been setting the blade guides wide open and the back thrust bearing way back while I do the tensioning (and turning the top wheel by hand), so they do not interfere in any way.
    Yes, the 1/2 inch 3TPI does have a hefty set on it - this size blade worked fine on my 14" bandsaw but the latter had quite a distinct curve for the crown.
    Thanks for the replis.
    Paul
    New Zealand

  6. #5
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    Jun 1999
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    Westleigh, Sydney
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    It's a different wheel & tyre to mine. My tyre is inset in the wheel, and sits pretty well flush at the sides. Also, I suspect that the camber on my wheel is more than on yours. All I can suggest is that you email Felder here - they're pretty good, I've found.
    FWIW, I use the 1/2" 3TPI blades from Henry Bros. nearly all the time, with no problems.
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  7. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Toowoomba
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    144

    Default

    G'day Paul,

    Did you ever sort your problem out?

    I too have a Hammer - looks like it's the same as yours. I've not had the problem you have but at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious - have you adjusted the 'camber adjuster' wheel at the back of the machine? This controls where the blade sits on the on the top wheel of course and if adjusting that doesn't fix the problem then I would suggest that the bottom wheel may be out of whack for some unknown reason.

    Cheers
    Brian

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    383

    Default Problem now resolved

    This message is to closeoff this topic and outline how the problem was resolved. There has been some lapsed time as I went away on holiday in warm sunny Cairns in mid-July for a couple of weeks.
    I took Brian's suggestion and checked the bottom wheel (using my eye and a small bubble level )and found that it seemed to have a slight tilt vertically backwards.
    As advised by Alex, I then contacted Stefan at Felder NSW and outlined the problem, including the existence of a tilted bottom wheel. He put me in touch with Hermann at Felder Austria who asked me to check the alignment of the bottom wheel with the bandsaw frame.
    I decided to be pernickety about this and used a plumbbob hanging from the rafter of my garage to check both the bandsaw frame and the bottom wheel (I did this over two weekends to repeat the measurements and ensure I got consistant results). This showed the frame to be square and parallel, but that the bottom wheel was definitely tilted backwards. It did mean that I could be confident using a straight edge against the bandsaw frame to measure the actual tilt of the bottom wheel.
    I sent these results to Herman who then advised me to correct the vertical tilt using the 4 adjustment bolts on the back of the botton wheel axle housing. I went ahead and did this which brought the bottom wheel into precise vertical alignment with the frame.
    I then retried putting the 1/2" blade back onto the bandsaw and after fiddling with the upper wheel tilt (camber), found that this was tracking nicely in the centre of both bandsaw wheels, I then tensioned the blade fully up, started the bandsaw up and the blade stayed on OK. I cut some scrap pieces of wood and no problems, the blade stayed firmly in the centre - problem fixed!
    The support from Stefan at Felder NSW was good on this, and he took a personal interest in making sure the problem was resolved - my thanks to him for this. My thanks also to all those who took an interest and replied to this thread.
    I'll post a set of detailed instructions in a following message to show how I adjusted the tilt of the bottom wheel. This may be useful for others as it has to be done carefully.
    Paul
    New Zealand

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
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    nsw
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    Hey Paul, thank goodness you finally tracked the problem down. Good to hear Stefan was helpful - he's a nice bloke, who understands how to run a good business (ie, keep your customers happy!).

    Now you can get on with making the sawdust fly in earnest!!

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Toowoomba
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    Default

    Great news Paul,

    I'm just not sure whether your saw was brand new or not? Mine was as was my C3-31 and both needed tweeking before I was happy to do any serious work. I won't mention the impeller falling off the RL-125! Quality control issues even on mid to high range gear like this!

    Also, I'd be interested to hear if Stefan (or others) have advised to use the blade tension guide on the saw as just that - a guide. Certainly the Wood Whisperer bloke advises this and recommends tensioning the blade to the next measurement on the chart. I tried this a couple of days ago and I'm fairly convinced that not only was the saw more stable but the cut was cleaner. I always release the blade tension at the end of a task so that the tires are not damaged.

    Finally despite my thinking that the Hammer bandsaw would not be affected by blade drift, this is not so and I've needed to adjust my fence accordingly. I did read somewhere, perhaps in the N4400 manual, (such as it is) that the fence should be aligned parallel to the mitre slot - but this is clearly not so. Not on my saw anyway. Mind you, I have subsequently read that all bandsaws are subject to blade drift to a greater or lesser extent.

    Cheers
    Brian

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Darkest NSW
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    As with any bandsaw, you have two choices when it comes to fence alignment.

    (1) Take note of the drift, then adjust the fence out of parallel with the mitre slots so that the saw cuts straight when timber is run along the fence.

    (2) Adjust the blade tracking on the top wheel until the saw cuts straight with the fence in standard configuration (aligned with mitre slot).

    The second option is recommended by Michael Fortune in a FWW article on bandsaw tuning. It was easy to achieve even on my Scheppach Basato 4, which now exhibits zero blade drift. You should be able to leave the fence aligned with the mitre slot, and make all adjustments via the tracking.

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
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    Toowoomba
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    Thanks for your input Mr Brush.

    I've just read that Michael Fortune article in FWW (Dec 2004) and now understand why adjusting the tracking on the upper wheel can affect drift. My blade looked and felt like it was in the centre of the wheel, but perhaps in my case, with my saw, this position might not afford drift-free cutting and I should concern myself more about getting the cut right and not where the blade sits on the wheel. Is this thinking correct?

    Do you adjust the tracking each time you change the blade? This would entail doing a test cut or two each time the blade is changed and making adjustments in the tracking - which, come to think of it, is easier than adjusting the fence position!

  13. #12
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    Nov 2005
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    Darkest NSW
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    Default

    Dovetail - it only takes very small adjustment of the blade on the wheel to affect the drift, so it wouldn't have to be far off centre to have a noticeable effect on the cut. I would definitely adjust to get a drift-free cut rather than trying to get the blade dead central on the wheel.

    I tend to keep a 1/2" 3 tpi bi-metal blade on my bandsaw most of the time, but on the odd occasion that I switch to a 1/4" blade for curve cutting I do need to adjust the tracking and do a couple of test cuts to tune out the drift. It takes about 2 minutes.....once you've done it a few times you'll get to know which way to adjust the tracking to move the cut in the required direction, and even roughly how much.

    I'd rather have everything aligned to the mitre slots on the machine than play around moving the fence all the time, but thats mainly because the tracking is so easy to adjust on my saw.

    Enjoy your lovely Hammer bandsaw - I would have liked that one myself, but the dollars couldn't quite stretch that far . Several forumites have the N4400, and everyone seems very happy with it once it has been set up right. What cash I saved by buying a Basato 4 I lost in time spent grappling wth the "manual" to put it together....

  14. #13
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    Apr 2004
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    Hi Dovetail, I didn't get any advice from Stefan about how the blade tension guide is not very accurate, but I have already learned not to trust these on my previous bandsaws so I figured the same would apply to the Hammer as well. Basically I just use the blade tension guide as a starting point, apply the finger blade deflection technique as shown in the Wood Whispering bandsaw setup video and look at how well the blade cuts some scrap timber,
    cheers
    Paul
    New Zealand

  15. #14
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    Jun 2007
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    Toowoomba
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    Yep, that's exactly how I've been setting up my blade tension lately but it is interesting to note that Michael Fortune in the FWW article suggests that one use the tension setting below that indicated for the blade in use. Mind you, he does then indicate that the tension should be checked with the finger pressure technique using much the same parameters as the Wood Whisperer chap.

    Plan to try the 'alternative' blade drift adjustment tomorrow.

  16. #15
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    Mr. Brush has nailed it in post 12. Set to get a parallel cut.
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