Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly scrap wood

[glatt]

It all blurs together. I was working on a bunch of different stuff in the shop late last week and on the weekend. I'd guess I spent about 6-8 total hours working on the band saw on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I looked through the pictures I took and am presenting them out of chronological order at times in order to make things seem more clear. Grouping different tasks together, even though I did them in fits and starts as I waited for glue to dry and performed other tasks.

I had completed the upper blade guide arm last time, and needed to attach it to the frame. It's critical to get the alignment correct. There is adjustment up and down with the arm, and forward and backward, but no adjustment side to side, other than the possibility of shimming in the future.

So let's start with putting a blade on the saw, tightening it up, and marking where the blade is on the frame. I placed a long straightedge directly under the blade and marked a line on the frame.


Next, I wanted to see exactly where the blade guide should be mounted. So I held the blade guide against the frame and lined up the saw blade location pencil line with the spot on the bearing where I wanted the blade to track. then I drew a second pencil line at the edge of the blade guide arm. This is where I would cut the notch, and it was critical that it be in the correct location.


Then I needed to mark how deep into the frame I needed to cut the notch. This wasn't critical from the blade guide point of view, because the blade guide was adjustable in that direction, but the clamp that will hold the blade guide arm will only fit if the arm is a certain depth. So I mark that spot and set the saw to the correct depth.


This is the frame with the blade location pencil line showing on both the upper and lower parts of the frame, and the blade guide arm notch's width and depth marked on the upper part.

[glatt]

I decided I wanted to run the hand held circular saw on a track to keep the cut nice and straight. So I made a track and screwed it to the frame.


Then I cut the notch out by running the saw back and forth on the track but shifting the saw away from the fence an eight of ah inch or so each time. The stupid saw tilted a little bit to the right when I was hanging it over the edge of the track a little bit. Partly my fault, but it's also a cheap saw that doesn't have the flattest base. So you can see on the picture below that the notch is perfectly flat on the edge where the saw was against the fence, but a little bit sloppy in the depth. I may have to fix this by cutting deeper until it really is flat, and then gluing a block in there to get it back up to the correct depth. You can see that I also drove a bolt into the frame that will hold the bracket that clamps the blade guide arm in place.


So I put that bracket on and tightened the knob I bought to see how well the arm would clamp in place. Even with the sloppy cut I mentioned before, it is rock solid and aligned extremely well. Woot!


The blade guide slides up and down beautifully and clamps rock solid in perfect alignment with the blade. I'm loving this!

[glatt]

I'm calling the upper blade guide done. It works.

So now I need to focus on the lower blade guide. It requires a big hunk of hardwood that will support the blade guide and also the tilting brackets that will carry the weight of the work table and whatever work the saw is cutting.

Only problem is, I am out of wood. Fortunately, we have new neighbors around the corner who just moved from two houses into this one they just bought. And they keep throwing away furniture. I snagged a beautiful maple double bed from them. It was too big with its head board and foot board to actually use as a bed (although it was nice enough) so I started cutting it up into lumber scraps.


It's a well constructed bed frame. None of that cheap Ikea crap. Solid maple.


The slats are beautiful, and while they are small, they might come in handy.


You can't glue up finished wood. The glue won't stick. So I had to scrape off the finish before I could glue these up. I noticed that the plans call for a threaded t-nut to be inserted in the finished block, and I see that the bed already has t-nuts in them so they can be knocked down and moved. I decided to use the scrap wood so the existing t-nut gets glued up in exactly the correct location.

[glatt]

I put blue tape over the end of the t-nut I plan to use because it needs to be free of glue, made sure it was in the correct spot, and then glued the scraps together.


Here they are clamped together.


And this is the drawing I am trying to copy. See how that t-nut is in teh exact spot it should be?


Here, I've cut the block up to match the needed shape.

[glatt]

It looks perfect, but the damn thing doesn't fit! The wheel is in the way. This makes it too close to the blade. By like an inch, maybe two. WTF?


I feel like I am going to need to cut a notch in it for the wheel. But first I double check my pile of printed drawings to see if one shows the back side. I'll be damned. It's supposed to have a notch.


The plans say a rough notch, hogged out on the table saw is fine. Works for me.


And now it fits. Perfectly. Awesome. This is gonna work.