roller guide adjustment on bandsaw

jw

GWE

This may help:

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Thanks for the info, I will check it out. granpaw P.S. My blade tension (I think) is too tight rather than loose.

OK, most of these have eccentrics on all the side rollers. You may have the blade running too close to the edge of the thrust rollers (the ones that run on the rear edge of the blade). If it is too close to the edge of those, small twists in the blade may allow it to occasionally run onto the rounded edge, which will drive the back of the blade sideways. So, you want the rear edge of the blade resonably centered on the thrust rollers.

I generally set the rollers to just about zero side clearance, so it is pretty hard to slide a new blade in between the rollers.

The second problem, if this is a 4x6" import bandsaw, is the driving wheel can walk off the shaft. This can chew up the worm gear drive, too. I ended up drilling out and retapping the setscrew hole one size up, and putting two short setscrews in it, one on top of the other. This seems to have helped keep it from getting loose. If the driving wheel is in the wrong position it canmake it hard for the blade to track properly.

Jon

Assuming that you're tightening only by hand (with no cheater wrench), then it's highly unlikely that your "old bones" can get the blade too tight. You really want it to be as tight as you can turn the adjusting knob (and then some).

Another possibility for problems is if you are using a cheap blade (which would include the blade that came with the machine). While a cheap blade is not likely to be causing your blade to go "off track", it will prevent you from ever getting a straight cut. These "cheap" import bandsaws *will* cut well and cut square, provided you set it up correctly and put a decent blade in it.

- Michael

"DeepDiver" wrote in news:t1%9f.1765$ snipped-for-privacy@typhoon.sonic.net:

Well the blade that came with the saw lasted in moderate use for about two years, then one morning I found someone had cut aluminum or something that plugged the blade and it wouldn't cut anymore. I changed the blade and found it would not cut straight so I had to try to re-align and in doing so I probably got the eccentric nut(s) off enough to cause problems. I have downloaded the manual for both the HF saw and the 'Jet' (the latter is more to the design of the guides I have) and read how to correctly align them, however, there was nothing in the discription I hadn't tried. I'm leaning towards the solution offered by Jon will try that this morning. Thanks again to all... granpaw

The problem isn't the guides. The band wheels are bending the set out of the blade on one side, which causes the blade to sart veering off line as it cuts. Very common on imported machines of this type. Bugs

According to Bugs :

Only if you are using a blade too narrow for the design. These machines (at least the 4x7 ones) are designed for 1/2" blades, and have a notch to clear the teeth on that size only.

Enjoy, DoN.