A few bandsaw questions (BP 355)
Hi guys,
I have had my bandsaw for a while yet have only just had the room to set it up. Its a Hafco BP 355. Setting it up and using a bandsaw for the first time I have a few questions ( some of them quite silly I am afraid).
I have two functions I want to achieve with my saw- the odd resaw and some finer work like mucking around with a few bandsaw boxes etc....
I have set it up as per Alex Snodgrass...
1. The Hafco has two drive speeds - fast or slow, and adjustable belt/wheel system to accommodate this. For basic woodwork functions if I want to leave it most of the time without mucking around, how should I set it- Fast or slow? The specs note 50Hz: 12;10 or 60 Hz 14;12 ( not sure what the latter part refers to?)
2. I played around with the drive belt tension (not blade tension) in the lower chamber when setting it up ( the same belt I can adjust on the pulley system above to change speed)--- anyone have idea how firm this should be? My understanding is too tight it will wear too quickly, too loose it will fly off-- I currently have it quite tight so that it won't fly off if I push on it it might give about 5mm either way.
3. Made a resaw cut with the stock blade and it burnt the timber quite badly.. Now I plan to get new blades anyway, but any other reason for this?
4. As above- I know its an age old question but plan to get two blades or one all purpose blade that will accommodate finer work and resawing- at this stage from reading the forums here I think I will call Henry Bros and ask them, but for the record, any other recommendations on blade suppliers/which blades to buy?
4. The Resaw I achieved first go on the Hafco was not bad- 3mm more or less seems to have no drift, but am curious if there is any better aftermarket bearings/thrust bearings as they are quite hard to adjust on the stock model. I have read about carter- anyone tried any aftermarket products that work for them with this specific bandsaw?
5. Does anyone know if the stock rubber tires are glued down to the wheels on this saw or do I need to glue them down?
Now a couple of less specific dumber questions;
6. When I power down the saw it clunks like crazy clunk clunk clunk and is very noisy- it almost sounds like somethings is not in line or is about to fly off ( but I can't see any issues)- maybe I am biased after watching high end saw videos on youtube but...is it normal? Especially for this model, or should it run quietly and smoothly?
7. Finally another stupid question re drift and bandsaw fences; How parallel to the blade does a bandsaw fence need to be?
The reason I ask this is simple; you ask anyone about a tablesaw fence and it is very important it is parallel and fine tuning the fence to the blade to 3-5000/inch is often recommended... However every bandsaw video I watch people don't put as much emphasis on the fence being parallel to the blade- even Alex snodgrass in his example video chucks on a carter magnetic fence, squares it to the blade *by eye* then resaws a piece of wood. My stock fence wobbles at the outfeed side and therefore unless I start measuring distance from the mitre slot to the fence on both indeed and outfeed sides of fence before every cut, I can not ensure it is parallel.
All and any help for this bandsaw newbie is appreciated. Sorry some of these questions are pretty basic.
Cheers
Andrew