quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
PHPaul just out of curiosity what kind of lube are you using on the various parts. I would guess that what was used that long ago is not what is commonly used now..

Only things that need to be lubed are the upper and lower pulley shafts and they're on ordinary ball bearings so nothing special required. Whatever is in my grease gun when I'm ready to reassemble.

Very cool. That’s awesome that you’re putting time into it.

I have an old Walker-Turner band saw that runs 111” bands. Probably late 40s early 50s.

Has the 2 speed transmission. I’m guessing it weighs 700-800 pounds. Moving that sucker is a pain.

Spent the morning repairing the top blade guard as best as I could. Very thin cast aluminum and apparently had been dropped as it was broken into several pieces and put back together with fiberglass patches.

No doubt that was high tech at the time, but none of the surfaces had been roughed up and the resin had let go in many places and peeled off very easily in the remainder of the repairs.

I cut fish plates out of some 22 gauge galvanized tin to fit between the reinforcement ribs in the casting while spanning the various cracks, then drilled and pop riveted them in place.

Once that was done (8 patches and a raft of pop rivets later...) I flipped it over and filled the gaps with some JB Weld, more as body filler than in any hope of adding strength to the repair.

One mounting stud was hanging on by a thread and when I put the plate behind it, it popped off. I was able to drill and tap it for a 12-24 screw from the back side through the stud boss. Then I coated the back with JB Weld, clamped it to the repair plate and ran the screw in from the back. Should be a reasonably strong repair.

Got the new bearings for the driven shaft. Reassembled the bottom end with guard and mounted the bottom wheel. Runs smooooth, takes a gratifying amount of time to coast to a stop.



Started fabbing up the gear reduction to slow it down for metal cutting. Wood saws run up to 3000 Feet Per Minute at the blade, metal saws generally run 200 FPM or less.

Scrounged a 20:1 gearbox out of my stash, pulled the input shaft out of it and machined it to take a V-belt pulley with a keyway (versus whatever cobbled up mess it came with when I hauled it out of the dumpster when I worked at the cannery). I need to end up with about 40 RPM at the saw shaft, the output of the gearbox is 86 RPM according to my tach.

I'll need to machine an output shaft for it. The output is an 18mm hollow shaft with a keyway. I'll start with a piece of 3/4 bar stock so I can use a 3/4 bore pulley, machine the shaft down to fit the gearbox and cut a 1/2-13 thread on the other end to lock it in place.



^^^This is one of the blade guides. There's one missing and being 85-ish years old, I don't think Home Depot is going to stock them. I bought a piece of 1/2 inch bronze square stock from McMaster and will have a go at making one. That's roughly a 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 cube.

Got my Chinese casters from Amazon today, so finished building the cart for the bandsaw. Surprisingly, the caster set seems pretty decent quality. One pair of straight casters, one pair of locking swivel casters, 3" poly wheels, and mounting hardware all for less than $25.

I calculated things to put the table of the saw at about 40" which is a convenient working height for me. Cart top dimensions were planned to accommodate the gear box for the low speed drive arrangement.

Now that it's on it's own cart and I don't have to worry about lifting it any more, I can finish putting it back together.

Finished up the low speed drive. (Yes, I know, I need a shorter belt...it's what I had in my stash that was close enough for a test drive...) The combination gives me 36 +/- RPM at the lower wheel which translates to 150 FPM blade speed. That should work for most materials.

The home brew motor mount allows left/right adjustment for the belt tension between motor and gearbox, and forward/back adjustment for belt alignment if I need to move the gearbox. Same with the gearbox mount - left/right for pulley alignment, in/out for belt tension. It's just bolted to the original motor mount so I can return it to original condition in about 10 minutes.

I'll clean up the motor wiring and put a switch in the circuit. Got new tires coming from Amazon and a guy on one of the tractor forums I hang out on is sending me a 20 foot roll of metal cutting blade. Just need to find someone that and cut to length and weld 'em up.

Band saw is pretty much finished. Got a pre-made blade from McMaster-Carr and found that the blade speed was a little slow. Dropped the driven pulley from 12" to 6" and that seems like a pretty good compromise between cutting speed and heat buildup.

Still looking for a replacement upper wheel, but with new polyurethane tires and proper blade tension, the blade does stay on the wheel and cuts well, so it could be worse.

I'm into it for about $200 including tires, blade, pulleys, belts, casters and some odds and ends.