Rikon 10-325 Woners....Set Up Question

[George Farra]

Hi Everyone

My bandsaw got delivered on friday and spent time yesterday on assembly and set up....this is my very first bandsaw so this maybe an elementary question :). I beleive that Rikon ships this saw with a 5/8" blade. I derived that simply by measuring the width of the blade without taking the teeth into consideration....is this proper? With the teeth it was larger than 5/8 but under 3/4 and I noticed that the tension scale had those 2 incerments....so common sense kicked in.

Onto the tension scale...not so elementary. I needed to make an adjustment to track the blade and somewhere I must have gone wrong as I found that I had released tension and I was attempting to track the blade. Reapplied tension and the guage read around 3/8 so I assumed I had to retighted. As I was retightening the guage was not moving and thats when I noticed that the yellow pointer has a slot that fits a pin on the spring assembly. The pointer was no longer connected to the pin. Additionally, the bracket that holds the pointer was loose so it moves freely up and down since the mounting holes are elongated.

How do I get this set back up correctly so that I can guage blade tension? The manual leaves much to be desired but assembly went well and overall setup wasn't that bad. I'll get picks up of my new toy shortly.

I've read The Bandsaw Book and I understand the potential false positive these indicators can lead to but at the same time it still gives me some reasonable assurance that I'm in the right ballpark.

TIA

George

[Van Huskey]

First, I do not own a Rikon.

Second, bandsaw blades are measured from the tip of the teeth to the back of the band, these are nominal widths and do vary, however they usually measure a little more narrow than the spec due to the set of the teeth EXCEPT carbide tipped blades which measure wider than the nominal width by the thickness of the carbide. The width is actually the width of the unformed bandstock. I have seen some lower quality bands end up different than you would expect via actual measurement, but usually not enough to matter in terms of tension.

Third, what I would do in your case. I would raise the tension until plucking or striking the band causes it to "ting" not thud, you should be able to deflect the band with a modest push of your fingure about 1/4" or so. Be careful NOT to bottom the tension spring out. Then I would make a few cuts to determine if the tension is correct, if not adjust, when correct afix the pointer back and mark that on the scale for that blade.

Finally, get a new quality blade before you waste a lot of time trying to get a cheap OEM blade to cut correctly. Many people give up on A bandsaw or ALL bandsaws basing their experience on the poor quality blades that ship with saws.

[Neil Brooks]

Finally, get a new quality blade before you waste a lot of time trying to get a cheap OEM blade to cut correctly. Many people give up on A bandsaw or ALL bandsaws basing their experience on the poor quality blades that ship with saws.

That should be on the first page of nearly every band saw owner's manual :)

[glenn bradley]

Finally, get a new quality blade before you waste a lot of time trying to get a cheap OEM blade to cut correctly. Many people give up on A bandsaw or ALL bandsaws basing their experience on the poor quality blades that ship with saws.


That should be on the first page of nearly every band saw owner's manual :)

Or it should be on the order form so that you have your good quality blade in hand before the saw even gets there. I can't agree enough on how much you should withhold judgement or even initial setup until you have a decent blade in hand.

[Van Huskey]

Or it should be on the order form so that you have your good quality blade in hand before the saw even gets there. I can't agree enough on how much you should withhold judgement or even initial setup until you have a decent blade in hand.

I wonder given the fairly low cost of a "decent" carbon blade how much a company might save in initial CS and loss of goodwill if they just put a decent blade in the saw to begin with. Maybe it would be expensive or a pain to get decent blades to Taiwan and I know they like them to ship with a blade installed so the upper wheel assembly doesn't bang around loose. Maybe they could just ship it with a cheap toothless band OR maybe even a "band" made from crate strapping material or similar and add a decent band to the crate when it hits the US.

[George Farra]

Thank you all. I do realize that the blade is not that great so picking up replacements is a must. I'm using this blade to educate myself on the saw, how it operates, adjustment, etc without expecting any marvelous results from it.

I assume I should pick up 2 blades. a narrow (1/4 or 3/8") for general purpose cuts that would include joinery and curves and a wider (5/8 or 3/4") for resaw...correct?

[Neil Brooks]

I won't press Van to toot his own horn, though -- by all rights -- he should ;)

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?149862-Lets-talk-bandsaw-blades!

[Bernie May]

George-
On my Rikon 325 the screws are in the bottom of the slots. I have not touched them since I got the saw 3 or 4 years ago.
-bernie