Band Saw question

[Kent E. Matthew]

I have access to an old 14 inch band saw at work. I need to do some resawing on some red oak. I'd like to put a 1/2 inch 3 or 4 tpi blade on this machine. Will this work without rubber tires on the wheels? Like I said its a old machine and its not equipped with tires.

[david brum]

NO! I wouldn't try using a band saw without tires. I can think of all kinds of reasons, the main reason being that you might get seriously hurt. New tires don't cost that much. You could probably get cheap rubber ones from Grizzly for a 14" saw.

[Joe Kieve]

I agree with David, I wouldn't either. It'll mash the set out of the blade and probably ruin the wheel. I'd get some new tires before proceeding. And....I don't think it would be very safe either.
Just my 2 cents.

joe

[Gus Dundon]

Without tires on bandsaw? That won't work! Wheels are designed to run a blade with tires.

[Richard Coers]

I don't think it is a safety issue, what's going to happen? Blade come off? It will just mess up the blade. You can make it as simple as a cutting open a bicycle inner tube if you want. Heck, a few wraps of duct tape would get a guy by in a pinch. Check out the wood bandsaws on woodgears.ca He uses bicycle inner tubes for tires. Many old metal cutting bandsaws never had tires to start with. They would just fill up with metal filings anyway. How wide is the oak? Resawing requires a machine that has some tuning done to it. Not so much the fancy guides and such, but a good fence that is set for the blade drift, and horsepower.

[Kent E. Matthew]

It is an old Walker/Turner bandsaw. It has never had tires on it. At work we run a 1/2 metal blade on it. The oak are chunks that are 3" x 5" x 40".

[Lee Schierer]

Without tires on bandsaw? That won't work! Wheels are designed to run a blade with tires.

Typically metal cutting band saws don't have tires as the metal chips would get stuck in the tires. If this saw never had rubber tires and the wheels are not crowned it is likely to be a metal cutting saw. I would not recommend resawing on a metal cutting band saw as the blade speed is much too slow and you will get lots of burning. Also without rubber the set on the teeth against the wheels will be gone and the blade won't cut straight.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I'm going to be a bit contrary here...

If the teeth of your blade can run off the wheels, so the set doesn't get messed up, and the guides are up too it, I don't see why not. I don't see how slow blade speed equals burning if feed speed is equally slowed. Ideal, no, but I think it would work fine. You will need a good wood blade of course. Metal cutting band saws have notoriously bad guides though, so check first.