I bought this vertical metal cutting bandsaw sight unseen on Grays. I took a gamble that it was in running condition but it turns out to need a bit of work (I guess I paid too much!) so I figured I might as well give it a full refurbishment and get it in near new condition. It also looks a bit tired cosmetically although not so bad on the pics.

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It's a made in the UK Startrite and would have been something of a Rolls Royce when new. It's also big... 90cm throat, twin cast iron tables and weighs around a tonne.

Initial issues identified are firstly the air compressor had seized (needs new bearings). Instead of fixing it the previous owner (a factory) just cut the drive belt off and threw away the chip blower apparatus!

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The next issue is that the variable speed drive system had seized. The system uses two pulleys that change their width. The sliding pulley-halves had stopped sliding due to some sort of anti-friction paint peeling on the shaft and jamming them. I guess they avoided grease/oil as it would have got centrifuged onto the pulley and belt.

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The jammed drive system had in turn wrecked the mechanism that pushes the pulley narrower, I guess someone had used a lot of force as it got sticky. Inside the pulley shaft there was a broken up circlip and a worn shaft of the pusher mechanism.

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Other issues are minor, such as some wiring needing replacing, the light is missing, and the gears in the table handfeed mechanism are worn.

Does anyone know what the anti-friction paint stuff would have been? It's like hard grey plastic. An internet search suggests I could use something like Molykote D321R but that's just a guess.
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