Upgrading Bandsaw HP

[james bell]

I have a MiniMax 16, great for resawing but not for use with narrow blades. I also retrieved by old Sear 12" which does well cutting thin wood but not thick hardwood.

Does anybody know if it is possible to swap out the 3/4HP motor for something with more power? I would 'guess' that if the rpm is the same and I can get it mounted correctly, it could work.

I am trying to do some bandsaw boxes which require intricate cuts.

happy thanksgiving ... jim

[Peter Quinn]

I don't know about your BS, but I was given a shaper with a 3/4HP motor (Sears) and those old sears motors (emerson?) were GARBAGE. Sewing circle surplus I think, not suitable for wood working tools IMO.

So, I bought a Grizzly 1 1/2 HP motor, same RPMs, TEFC, its ten times the motor the shaper came with and makes it a usable tool again. Most of the old Sears motors I have seen are open drip and get fouled rather easily, so they don't seem to make even as much power as they should for what they are. Did Sears know that wood working machines make dust?

I'd bet you can improve performance of that saw considerably with a new motor.

[Frederick Rowe]

Sam Blasco, from Mini Max, sent me these photos of how he mounts a 1/4" blade on his MM16. Just a block of hardwood with a shallow groove for the back of the blade to ride in. Sam doesn't use the lower guides at all. A narrow blade should be allowed to twist. Similar principal - no side guides - as the Carter Saw Stabilizer. Also a demo of a narrow blade (1/8" blade using Carter Blade Stabilizer Guides) on the Mini Max website video overview of the the MM16.

http://www.minimax-usa.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=&task=videodirectlink&id=7

[Tom Veatch]

...Does anybody know if it is possible to swap out the 3/4HP motor for something with more power? I would 'guess' that if the rpm is the same and I can get it mounted correctly, it could work...

Absolutely! I made a couple of dumb mistakes with my 16" Jet and ruined the motor. It now sports an industrial 3HP Baldour in place of the 1.5HP that came on it. Keep the same RPM and you won't have to recalculate the sizes and replace the pulleys. If you can replace the motor with one that has the same frame size, it'll make the mounting problem trivial. I couldn't, and had to fabricate new mounting brackets and replace the drive pulley. But that wasn't a very difficult task.

Note that, by a large margin, the majority of the stress on the saw's structure is from the blade tension. You'd have to increase the motor HP several times over to increase frame stress due to the motor torque by a significant percentage.

[Pete Bradley]

A lot of bandsaw "power" problems have more to do with band selection than the motor. 3/4HP should be plenty for anything a 12" saw can do. Make sure the band is sharp and the teeth aren't too fine. Personally I'd be figuring out how to run a finer band on your Minimax though.

The motor on your Craftsman may or may not be a good one depending on the definition of 'old'. I agree that the 70s-80s Emersons with the sleeve bearings weren't great, the older ones with cast iron ends and ball bearings are keepers.

Pete

[Chip Lindley]

I would think that an honest 3/4hp motor on a small BS like the Sears 12" would be sufficient to saw anything "delicate." The Sears 3/4hp motor may just not be up to the task.

I had a commercial TEFC 1/2hp motor on my Delta 14" and routinely resawed cabinet refacing veneers up to 3" wide. A 1/4" blade certainly never bogged it down! I only upgraded to a commercial TEFC 1hp motor when I added the accessory 6" riser for a 105" blade.

but....MORE HORSEPOWER will certainly never hurt! "AR! AR! AR! AR! (quote:" Tim "the tool man" Taylor)

[james bell]

i checked my motor a little closer and it is 1/2 HP. I tried to resaw 1x6 pine with a new 3/4" blade and it bogged down.

I have a 1HP but twice the rpm. can't easily go with a large load pulley and checking to see if i can get a smaller drive pulley. if not, then ...

grizzly has some motors at a decent price which would work - same rpm and drive shaft. question - should i go with 1 hp or 1.5 hp? not much difference in price. as long as the rpm is the same, should just give me more power with no adverse affects (i think!).

also thanks to Frederick Rowe for the info on minimax!

... jim

[Pete Bradley]

I hope you weren't trying to run a 3/4" band in the 12" saw. What TPI was the band? for 6" of softwood, you're going to want 3 TPI, 4 tops.

It may be that your machine runs best with a 1/2" band, which will want substantially less horsepower. Mike Fortune's getting a lot of mention in this thread, his FWW article mentioned that he runs 1/2"X3TPI for almost everything. That's certainly a band I use a lot on my 20" Delta (the other is a 3/8"X4TPI).

On most bandsaws built for 1725RPM, running a 3650RPM motor is impractical.

Pete

[James Carmichael]

Ditto what Chip said: 3/4 should be plenty for a 12" saw.

[Mike Heidrick]

Sam Blasco, from Mini Max, sent me these photos of how he mounts a 1/4" blade on his MM16. Just a block of hardwood with a shallow groove for the back of the blade to ride in. Sam doesn't use the lower guides at all. A narrow blade should be allowed to twist. Similar principal - no side guides - as the Carter Saw Stabilizer. Also a demo of a narrow blade (1/8" blade using Carter Blade Stabilizer Guides) on the Mini Max website video overview of the the MM16.

http://www.minimax-usa.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=&task=videodirectlink&id=7


Sweet pics. Thanks for sharing!

[Paul Atkins]

I use a 1/4" blade on my 20" PM for general use and even some resawing up to 10" tall. 3/4" blade on a 12" saw is 'just not right'.

[Peter Quinn]

i checked my motor a little closer and it is 1/2 HP. I tried to resaw 1x6 pine with a new 3/4" blade and it bogged down.

I have a 1HP but twice the rpm. can't easily go with a large load pulley and checking to see if i can get a smaller drive pulley. if not, then ...

grizzly has some motors at a decent price which would work - same rpm and drive shaft. question - should i go with 1 hp or 1.5 hp? not much difference in price. as long as the rpm is the same, should just give me more power with no adverse affects (i think!).

also thanks to Frederick Rowe for the info on minimax!

... jim

Jim, I am confused. Why are you attempting to resaw with the little craftsman BS and why are you putting a 3/4" blade on it if you have a minimax sitting in the shop? My impression from your OP was that the minimax did the heavy lifting, and you wanted to upgrade the motor on the little craftsman to run it as a dedicated curve cutting machine with very narrow blades for tight radius work. To me that seems like a fine idea, many of the late 1970's through late 1990's craftsman motors were terrible, I have thrown away several (my father has a shop full of craftsman tools from this era). The grizzly motors work well, I went with a 1 1/2HP motor on a small shaper with no ill effects and I figured for the marginal cost difference why not.

It seems you can run narrow blades on the MM, but if the space is available for two saws it might make sense to have the little saw set up for scroll work and leave the big one setup for resaw. What does not make sense to me is trying to tension a 3/4" resaw blade on a 12" BS. I doubt any motor upgrade is going to make that scenario work for you as the blade is still too wide for the saw to adequately tension, thus performance may be weak in any event.

[james bell]

i only had the 12" craftsman but needed to do some resawing. bought some new blades and tried, but not enough power (only 1/2 hp, not 3/4 which the new 12" craftsman have). So purchased a mm16 which does great resawing, but when i went to do some scroll type work, blade width for the mm16 wasn't fine enough.

i then 'retrieved' my 12" bs - when i moved i gave away my old craftsman radial/band/table saws and lathe, not enough room in my new shop space. luckily the person i gave the tools to let me have the band saw, but not enough power which is why i am looking to upgrade the power.

btw - ended up erecting a 40x60 steel building with 14' eaves for my shop - plenty of room now! (also erected a 30x50 building to hold all of the stuff that would have ended up in my shop otherwise)

thanks for all the comments ... jim