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OLF's Jim_H is a gracious gentleman. He gave me some of his father's woodworking power tools. All he asked was that I pick them up and take them all. My son and I accomplished that yesterday. Thank you Jim.

One of the pieces was an older 14" Rockwell bandsaw. I'm tossing around the idea of upgrading to better guides and maybe a riser kit as well. I already have a 1.5hp 220v motor to put on it, so adding a riser kit isn't a bad idea. Anyone have any bits of wisdom to share about the machine in general or about upgrading it?

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Aoibeann

Hey Lillian - glad you were able to make that happen. Hopefully all of it will make shop life easier and faster and everything else you can imagine.

I went thru the process of upgrading a 14" bandsaw so I can lend some opinion here. Please bear in mind...OPINION. I spent about 6 months changing this and upgrading that on a 14" Grizzly G0555. Most of the 14 inchers are clones of each other so most of what you are told here would probably apply.

First - Take a good measure of your intended use. What I mean by this is that if you DO NOT see yourself resawing back sets (Items that are wider than the unaltered cutting height of your saw)...then I'm not sure adding a riser block is necessary. On my saw adding the riser realized many benefits to resawing but one thing it did was allow more vibration. Not a huge amount mind you...but enough for me to notice it.

Don't know how old that saw is but regardless of the addition of a riser block or not, it's a good idea to go ahead and replace the tension spring anyway. Tires need to be checked for cracking and such...replace if necessary...a pain in the butt if I may say so. Check the wheel bearings. Look for no play at all. Replace if necessary. Go around the entire saw with the proper toosl and make sure everything is snug. If the trunnion is true (the last thing to check in my opinion) don't mess with it but fix it if it isn't. A link belt is always a good idea.

I'll think of more....but I gotta go see a movie with my son....brb....

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Thanks Chris. Enjoy the movie.

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Aoibeann

What Chris said..... and another one of the better upgrades for any bandsaw is a good set of blade guides. I purchased the Carter set a few years ago and found them much better than the various sets of "cool blocks" and mini-rollers. They aren't cheap but in my opinion are well worth the money.

http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?P ... ilyID=2028

Depending on how old the saw frame is you might want to get one of the quick release blade tensioning arms... well worth it also. YMMV

http://www.amazon.com/Carter-Products-Q ... B0000AMK7M

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Peter

I was just looking at the quick release Peter and wondering about it. I don't know the age of the bandsaw yet, but is there a year that begins the lesser stiff frames? Up until yesterday, my bandsaw experience was limited to a 9" bench top piece of plastic caa-caa, so I'm not familiar with the general history of bandsaw evolution and manufacturing.

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Aoibeann

Okay so I'm back....

The other things I wanted to mention were already mentioned by Peter except one thing. I think it is reasonable to expect a 14" saw (that is setup for it) to be capable of handling occasional resawing. With practice by the user it can work very well....but it is less forgiving than the larger saws that are built with resawing in mind. Don't expect that it will IMMEDIATELY PROVIDE perfect results. It has nearly as much to do with the refined and practiced skill of the sawyer (you) as it does the setup. Setup is everything on a 14" bandsaw that is being used to resaw large billets.

That's it fer me....Have fun Lillian!!!!

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Good points Todd. I think I'll follow your last bit of advice and contemplate the rest. Thanks.

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Aoibeann

Would someone mind giving me a primer on riser blocks?

Mike

Bill Hodge sent me some good information about going over a bandsaw. Thanks Bill. The saw seems to be in great shape. The wheels are co-planer, the bearings seem to be okay as well. It needs a bit of tuning, but considering its trip home, that's not entirely surprising. I'll be replacing the tensioning spring if for no other reason than age. The rubber on the wheels look good, no cracks, groves or hard spots. The motor I was thinking about using won't work, so that's a non-issue now. All in all I'd say that the saw is in great shape.

As for use, I'm not sure yet just how much I will use it or to what extent. My first bandsaw was a 9" Ryobi that wasn't worth the money when I bought it. I couldn't tune it up well enough to cut a straight line through anything but thin pine. Up until this weekend my shop had really revolved around a table saw and a router, so all my woodworking methodology is/was centered around those two pieces of equipments. I really need to look at what a bandsaw is capable of doing beyond the obvious. Would I like to do some resawing? Yes. Is it critical, no. Would I like a better saw, maybe one day, but there isn't room for two. And considering what I had, this IS a better saw.

Oh, Filippo, your pronouns are missing an "s".

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Aoibeann