Bandsaw blades moves back and forth

[Stephen Saar]

I'm having some trouble getting my bandsaw blade to be steady. I recently got a Rikon 18" bandsaw when WC had them on sale for $1000. I've gotten everything setup, but I can not seem to get the blade to stop moving back and forth. The blade is steady if you are looking at it from head on, but if you look at it from the side it's moving back and forth about 1/16 of an inch. I tried adjusting the top wheel, and I have the blade now in the center of the wheel, but I'm still getting the movement. Any advice?

Thanks.

-Stephen

[Howard Klepper]

I'm having some trouble getting my bandsaw blade to be steady. I recently got a Rikon 18" bandsaw when WC had them on sale for $1000. I've gotten everything setup, but I can not seem to get the blade to stop moving back and forth. The blade is steady if you are looking at it from head on, but if you look at it from the side it's moving back and forth about 1/16 of an inch. I tried adjusting the top wheel, and I have the blade now in the center of the wheel, but I'm still getting the movement. Any advice?

Thanks.

-Stephen

Could be a weld that isn't straight on. Put a straightedge across the smooth edge of the weld to check it.

[Stephen Saar]

I'll try that, I was just working on it some more, and I noticed that if I move the blade more towards the back of the wheel I get less movement, maybe down to a 1/32 or a 1/64.

The blade I'm testing with is a tiberwolf 1/2" blade 142".

[Kev Godwin]

Stephen,
I had a similar problem some years ago with my grizz G0555. Howard may be right about the blade, but my problem was wheel alignment. I put a long strait-edge across the upper and lower wheels while under tension and found I was slightly out of alignment by about 1/16 inch. My blade was thrusting back and forth nearly an 1/8 inch.

I worked on shimming the wheels and solved my front to back wobble that way.
Kev

[Al Weber]

I had exactly the same problem with TW blades. A call to the Rikon service department indicated that it could be too little tension. I added some tension and most of the oscillation went away but not all. After a lot of tuning and tension adjustments I finally got it to an acceptable level but while I like TW blades for resawing, I may revert to the Woodslicers which are more expensive, don't last as long, but don't seem to have the problem. I do think that weld quality may be an issue too and maybe some design flaws with the bandsaw itself. It seems to me that there is more than one issue going on here.

[Rick Huelsbeck]

http://www.rikontools.com/lowerwheeladjustments.pdf this is an excellent document from Rikon on how to fix the problem, plus check the TW blade, could be the same problem I have with a bow in the blades material.

[Prashun Patel]

I had this problem on my Grizzly G0555 and a Timberwolf 3/4" blade.

The problem was not wheel alignment for me, because on a 3/16" and 1/2" blade it was fine. I think this was a combination of too little tension and blade weld. Ultimately, I just lived with it. On a thicker blade, the oscillation did not affect the quality of the cut enough for me to worry too much about it.

I suggest you get another blade too; for tight curves, you'll appreciate a 1/4 or 3/16" blade. The Ridgid ones are like $11 and do their job for a little while. Might be good to test with one of those.

[Chris Kelble]

Interesting....I just bought my first TW blade recently and have the same problem. It's a 3/4" 3 TPI blade for my Jet 14" w/riser. I am assuming it is the weld at this point. Never had a problem with my other blades.

[Prashun Patel]

Chris-
Have you used a 1/2" blade? The Suffolk Machinery folks sold me the 3/4", but to be honest, my saw feels better with a 1/2" even for resawing.

I couldn't ever get my 3/4" blade to flutter and resonate well, so I never really knew if it was tensioned properly. It worked good enough so I kept it for a few months. But I've had more confidence in the thinner blades. When I do the flutter test on my thinner blades, the blade literally sings when it's at the flutter point. A few tightening turns, it silences & trues up perfectly.

[John Thompson]

I am not a fan of low tension blades.. may be a weld but I would suspect not enough tension if you used the flutter method which IMO doesn't put enough tension on a blade to make it behave. I'm sure there will be many that will dis-agree but... that's just my experience with them before I stopped using them altogether.

Good luck...

[Prashun Patel]

I am not a fan of low tension blades.. may be a weld but I would suspect not enough tension if you used the flutter method which IMO doesn't put enough tension on a blade to make it behave. I'm sure there will be many that will dis-agree but... that's just my experience with them before I stopped using them altogether.

Good luck...

John,
How do you tension yr blades, then?

[Michael Church]

I have a Rikon 18" bandsaw and talking to tech support they said if the blade is moving front to back you can adjust lower wheel (left to right) by loosening the side bolts on the end of the lower wheel shaft ( outside on right of saw). You have to loosen the top bolt just enough to release tension first. Tech support will send you the PDF instruction sheet if you need it. I have it on my computer but it is too big to attach to this post.

Michael

[John Thompson]

John,
How do you tension yr blades, then?

I don't use low tension blades.. simply carbon spring steel on my smaller saw and bi-metal on my larger for re-saw. I crank the tension up to the blade width on both on the BS scale.... then test scrap. You cannot pay much attention IMO to an indicator on the BS. I simply use it for a reference point. I go up until I get the sweet spot or down.

It depends on the blade but in the majority of cases I have gone up before I find it. For re-saw that is almost 100% of the time. The flutter will work as I think they recommend flutter until it stops and then another 1/4 turn. But.. I would not be satisfied with a 1/4 turn necessarily. I would test on scrap at this point and observe.. then go up increments to check. The best cut will be observed this way and not just rely on what the manufacturer suggest an assuming you are good to go when you follow instructions to the tee.

[Stephen Saar]

http://www.rikontools.com/lowerwheeladjustments.pdf this is an excellent document from Rikon on how to fix the problem, plus check the TW blade, could be the same problem I have with a bow in the blades material.

Thanks alot for this link, I'm going to print this out and try the steps they list when I get home.

Thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions.

-Stephen

[Chris Kelble]

Chris-
Have you used a 1/2" blade? The Suffolk Machinery folks sold me the 3/4", but to be honest, my saw feels better with a 1/2" even for resawing.

I couldn't ever get my 3/4" blade to flutter and resonate well, so I never really knew if it was tensioned properly. It worked good enough so I kept it for a few months. But I've had more confidence in the thinner blades. When I do the flutter test on my thinner blades, the blade literally sings when it's at the flutter point. A few tightening turns, it silences & trues up perfectly.

Yeah, I have a Lenox bi-metallic 1/2" that I was using before, but I wanted something more aggressive to re-saw with and a guy at Woodcraft pushed me to the larger blade.

I could never get my 3/4 to flutter either, so I adjusted it to where it felt right and seems to cut OK.

No amount of tension seems to affect the blade fore/aft oscillation very much. It seems very clearly to me to be a defective butt angle of the two ends at the weld. The rest of the blade runs true, but as soon as I come within a foot or so of the weld (even rotating it by hand), it tracks away from the rear guide (toward me), then comes back a foot or so after the weld. It cuts well enough that I'm not overly concerned, but I thought it was annoying for a $30-ish dollar blade to be made that poorly.

This thread just caught my eye because it seems there are others with this same issue...

[Prashun Patel]

Have you tried filing down the weld? You might screw up the tooth set of a couple surrounding teeth. I tried to file it a little, but it didn't make a noticeable diff. But I didn't keep at it for fear of...aw, who'm I kidding..bekuz I was lazy.

[Chris Kelble]

Have you tried filing down the weld? You might screw up the tooth set of a couple surrounding teeth. I tried to file it a little, but it didn't make a noticeable diff. But I didn't keep at it for fear of...aw, who'm I kidding..bekuz I was lazy.

Filing wouldn't help in my case. It is the angle that the two ends are joined that causes the fore/aft movement (not side-to-side). Wish I could sketch this....

[Rick Huelsbeck]

Thanks alot for this link, I'm going to print this out and try the steps they list when I get home.

Thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions.

-Stephen
Your welcome, make sure to let us know how it works out.

[Howard Acheson]

First thing to do is to try one of your other blades. Hopefully you are not using the blade that came with the saw. These blades are frequently of low quality. It that is the blade you are using buy a new one. In fact, you should have at least 3 or 4 blades. Different blades are used for different cuts. There is no "one blade for all cuts".

[Tai Fu]

Thanks alot for this link, I'm going to print this out and try the steps they list when I get home.

Thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions.

-Stephen

Old thread, but I just found it because I was wondering why my bandsaw blades wobble back and forth. Everyone keeps saying "bad weld" but it does it on EVERY single blade I put on that bandsaw (it was also the possible cause of the shaking). I found this instruction, and while I do not have a Rikon I found similar adjustments on the back of my bandsaw to change the lower wheel pitch... Since it's 1am I do not dare turn the bandsaw on to see if this actually solved anything (my neighbor's house is literally 3 feet away and he will wake up if I power it) but I was able to align the blade position on both wheels (before the blade would sit really close to the front edge of the lower wheel even though the upper wheel position is where it should be) and I think I was also able to take out the blade wobble as well (but this is only based on turning the wheel by hand, not actually powering the saw).

I will report back tomorrow to tell you if this solved everything.

[Andy Pratt]

I had this problem after installing new band saw tires. The problem was that a few portions of the tires had not fully seated inside the groove on the bandsaw wheels. This had the effect of rocking the blade back and forth when it rotated over those areas. I fixed it by going inch by inch with a screwdriver, tucking each tire edge all the way into the groove. It was somewhat annoying to do but it did fix the problem and it hasn't resurfaced since. This would probably not be an issue with a crowned bandsaw tire style.

[Cody Colston]

I had this problem on my 17" Grizzly BS using TW blades. I quit using them, problem solved.

[John Coloccia]

It's almost always a bad weld, and partly why I stopped using TW blades also. It's easy to tell if it's the wheel or the blade. If it's the blade, it will oscillate at exactly the same point in the blade travel every time. You can see it even just turning the wheel by hand. Stick a block snug up against the back of the blade, and now start turning the blade. A bad weld will be obvious and you see it moving in and out in relation to the block.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

I have a 16" Minimax and the on-saw tension gauge is not very accurate. I don't use low tension blades and use a meter to set up the blade tension. The first time I used the meter I was a little leery of how far I had to crank the tension wheel to get to the recommended tension on the blade and the saw gauge is way off by then. The results were excellent though, the blade tracked better and the cut was cleaner. I think you'd be surprised how much you have to crank the wheel to put 30,000 lbs of tension on a blade.

[Tai Fu]

I really need a tension meter because my saw has no spring (yes, that's right, it has no tension spring, just a square nut bearing against the wheel support). I don't really want to spend 300 dollars on one but I read you can make one with a dial indicator... just not sure how to mount it and how much stretch do I need to equate to 30,000 psi?

[Dennis McDonaugh]

I'm at work and don't remember what brand mine is, but it didn't cost $300. I'll look tonight.

[Erik Loza]

Dennis, I can tell you how to calibrate that on-machine tension gauge if you like.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[BOB OLINGER]

For band saw help, call Louis Iturra (904) 642-2802 - no website, does business on the phone. He specializes in Delta band saws but knows them all. He's forgot more about band saws than I'd ever hope to learn. He publishes a parts and guide book nearly an 1" thick.