Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly scrap wood

[Griff]

This is brilliant!

[footfootfoot]

You know, it would be a lot quicker to cut those out with a bandsa... Umm, never mind.

[lumberjim]

Think of all the band saws you could make once you have a band saw.

[glatt]

Lately, it's been just about every piece I have made that I wish I had a bandsaw.



I set it up with the new motor. Works well.

I really need a table though and a safety enclosure.

[lumberjim]

That's impressive. That's slower than you want it though? Seemed a little slow to me. That's probably because the only one I ever used was in school. Industrial grade machines there.

Looks like it will absolutely serve though. Nice work. Again.

[footfootfoot]

RE: speed

What size are your pulleys? The picture of the pulley on the motor seems tiny. Use your pulley sizes to set your speed.

[glatt]

I think I could have fed the wood into the blade faster. I was going slow because I was honestly terrified of the saw without an enclosure around those huge spinning wheels. So I put almost no pressure on the blade with my feed rate. I didn't want to upset the saw and have it tear my face off.

And as for the pulleys, I didn't have the right size for the speed I wanted, but it was going to have to be something like 6 inches diameter and pulleys that large were a bit more expensive on Ebay. I still needed to buy a pulley to go with my new $5 motor, but it was only $10 instead of like $25 for a giant pulley to go on the old motor. All that being said, I agree you want to adjust pulley size to get the speed you want.

[Griff]

Looking good man.

[classicman]

I was honestly terrified of the saw without an enclosure around those huge spinning wheels.

Totally with you on this one!
Looks really good so far. I am loving this whole thing.

[footfootfoot]

Speeds:
http://web.mit.edu/machineshop/Bandsaw/speeds.html

Calculate band saw SFPM:
http://vintagemachinery.org/math/sfpm.aspx

[Griff]

So after all this time i read the thread title as: Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly sacred wood

Seems appropriate.

[footfootfoot]

Glatt, this guy is a man after your own heart. You should check out his channel

[glatt]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[glatt]

My wife was out of town for the weekend, and the kids were away for most of Saturday at a band competition. I had time to get some work done. And I am getting close, so I'm motivated.

I wanted to get the table done this weekend, and the first step Saturday is to make these little flying saucer bolt heads to clamp the trunnions down. They need to be the same thickness as the trunnion supports, so I grab some of the leftover boards I had glued up to make those. They are an awkward shape. I could really use a band saw to cut these out. Funny thing about that, I think I now have a band saw I can use.


I cut out and glued down the paper templates to the stock. Then I clamped a scrap piece of quarter inch thick plywood to the band saw frame.



I cut them out on the band saw and they look great! I have a band saw!


I cleaned them up and smoothed them out on my son's disc sander.

[glatt]

The trunnion plans call for multiple layers glued up in a sandwich to leave an open slot that the locking bolts can move around in.


I used the table saw to cut up some more of that maple bed frame I dug out of the trash last month. I cut it to the proper thickness and took some off each side so I can remove the finish as I get down to the proper dimension.


I marked out the upper and lower curves of the trunnions using a compass set to a different radius for each curve.


And then I cut each one out on the band saw! This saw is working great!