Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly scrap wood

[glatt]

A year or so ago, I posted about making a drum sander to go in the drill press. It comes in handy here cleaning up the ugly saber saw cut. I had left an eigth of an inch or so, and now I sand down to the line. It was hard to see the line and slow going, but I persevered.


And I'm pleased with how they came out.

[glatt]

8/21 Sunday. Another couple hours

I let an hour or so get away from me without taking any pictures.
To get to this point in making the lower blade guide assembly support block, I started by cutting a block to size. Drilled the two slots on the drill press. Cut the corner miter off on the table saw by tilting the blade and doing a rip cut. (edit: actually, now that I think about it, I used a hand plane, an old bedrock #605, to plane that bevel on that corner.) Drilled the large hole that accepts the ball bearing using a forstner bit in the drill press. Then I cut away the two notches at the end of the piece on the table saw so that that tongue would be sticking out. In this picture I have it clamped in a vise to get two pilot holes drilled at those points on the right.


One of the slots is ugly because the drill bit wandered a little in the grain. But I tested it out and a bolt still slides back and forth in that slot without too much trouble.


I tested the fit of the screws by attaching the support block for the side blade guides.

[glatt]

I'm focused on the ball bearing mount now. It's held by a bolt screwed into a t-nut, but the t-nut needs to slide back and forth in a slot so you can adjust the bearing location. Being able to slide, it will also spin as you try to tighten it. You don't want it to spin, so I found a little bolt from some electronics or something I had taken apart and drove it into one of the t-nut mounting holes.


This is the bearing bolted into place. I had filed down a couple washers a bit to go on either side of the bearing. This bearing can be adjusted forward or back to accommodate different blades.


Here's the whole lower blade guide assembly attached to the table support beam. (I haven't attached the trunion supports I made a few days ago, but they will go on the ends of this beam.) The wrench is there to weigh it down in place until I bolt the thing to the frame.


That's all for now. I'm caught up.

[lumberjim]

Can you take a pic of the whole thing so I can get an idea of scale?

[glatt]

Here


It's sitting on a bedside table that the same neighbors who thew the bed out also threw out. I plan to try to turn that table into an actual base. Put wheels on it and cut a hole in the top to let sawdust fall down into the drawer. Something like that. Maybe attach legs to the existing legs splayed out a little more so it's very stable.

[lumberjim]

So it's like 4 ft tall?

[Clodfobble]

Side tangent for the men vs. women (if any of the latter are still coming into this thread...) I get that cool things come out of workshops, for sure. It's like the sausage factory. But am I the only one who sees the typical chaos of a standard workshop and just immediately wants to leave? I don't mean in an "ew, it's dirty" kind of way, but a genuine "oh my god no I have to leave" panic. I can't imagine even hanging out in there, the stuff is so overwhelming.

No offense to your workshop, glatt, you make some very cool stuff with it.

[glatt]

And I've been trying to aim the camera at the less cluttered areas of the shop!

[glatt]

It's actually a little annoying. My shop is a dumping ground for stuff from the house that doesn't have a home. And my son also leaves stuff all over. I really want to get a large shed and need to get around to making that happen. In the interest of transparency, I took some shots of the clutter.

[glatt]

And

[Undertoad]

OK my favorite part is the sound system

[glatt]

Like all things in life, it progressed organically over time. The JVC on the bottom I had in college and took to Germany with me. It has a broken tape player but I can't get rid of it because it has an aux input that I can connect to my IPod. The Hello Kitty came next. It plays tapes and CDs but sounds like crap. I should ask my daughter if I can get rid of it. It's hers. Finally, the huge Sony on the top just works and sounds good. I took it off the curb. No aux input though.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Side tangent for the men vs. women (if any of the latter are still coming into this thread...) I get that cool things come out of workshops, for sure. It's like the sausage factory. But am I the only one who sees the typical chaos of a standard workshop and just immediately wants to leave? I don't mean in an "ew, it's dirty" kind of way, but a genuine "oh my god no I have to leave" panic. I can't imagine even hanging out in there, the stuff is so overwhelming.

No offense to your workshop, glatt, you make some very cool stuff with it.

Originally Posted by glatt

And I've been trying to aim the camera at the less cluttered areas of the shop!

At first I thought, "What the hell is she talking about? That's not messy." Then I saw your other photos, and immediately thought, "Oh. That's more like it. I don't feel so bad about my shop."

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, NO.

Don't the various audio things get sawdust in them? Mr. Clod's CD players kept breaking.

[Clodfobble]

I should note, our garage looks just as bad. I just don't go out there.