Clay Crocker
01-06-2014, 4:36 PM
I have a Grizzly G0514X2B 19" bandsaw that has given me fits while trying to get a new blade to track properly. I have had this saw for 2 years and I had been running a 1" Timber Wolf, steel, 3 TPI blade on the saw for quite some time; since this blade was getting a little tired I decided yesterday to install a new 1" Timber Wolf, bi-metal, 1 TPI blade to tackle a pile of resawing for my current project. Right off the bat I could tell there was a problem since I had to crank the tracking knob in quite a bit to get the blade to track on the center of the upper wheel. Then I noticed that even with the blade tracking in the center of the upper wheel the blade was not tracking in the center of the lower wheel. The blade was tracking way forward (away from the body of the saw) on the lower wheel; so much so that the tips of the blade were overhanging past the edge of the lower wheel by about 3/16". In fact, the blade was riding so far forward on the lower wheel that when the lower door was closed the tips of the teeth would clear the door lip by only about 1/16"!!! No matter what I did with the tracking adjustment on the upper wheel the new blade would ride forward on the lower wheel. BTW, I had the upper and lower guides pulled all the way back and out of the way and all tracking was checked while spinning the wheels by hand since I did not want to chance catching the blade's teeth on the door lip when I fired up the motor.
I decided I needed to check to see if the wheels were aligned properly so I made a "Coplanarity Gauge" to check if the the wheels were coplanar. With the new blade installed and under tension and tracking in the center of the upper wheel I found that the gauge was about an inch away from touching the lower wheel when laid across the upper wheel. Next, I adjusted the tracking knob on the upper wheel until the upper wheel was parallel with the lower wheel and found that the gauge would lay flat across both wheels indicating that the wheels were parallel and coplanar. With this tracking setting the blade was riding forward on both the upper and lower wheels and the teeth were overhanging both wheels about 1/4". With the blade tracking in this manner the teeth would catch the lower door lip when the door was closed. Just for grins I decided to put the old blade back on the saw to compare how it tracked. Turned out that the old blade tracked just fine. With the blade centered on both wheels I found that the wheels were nearly parallel and coplanar.
The new blade "looks" perfect; it lays flat on my assembly table and the weld looks straight and well ground to my untrained eye. I called Grizzly technical support and talked it over with Justin there. I explained everything I had done and seen and asked if he had any recommendations as far as anything else I should look at. I bought this blade from Grizzly, so he recommended that I return the blade and they would send me a replacement. So now I am just waiting for an email from Grizzly with my return shipping label; so no resawing for a least a few days. I searched past threads and found quite a few on bandsaw tracking and coplanarity but none specific to my issue. Has anyone else been unable to get a wide blade like this to track properly? The difference in tracking between the two 1" blades I have is like night and day. Can anyone think of something I may have overlooked?
Thanks,
Clay
I decided I needed to check to see if the wheels were aligned properly so I made a "Coplanarity Gauge" to check if the the wheels were coplanar. With the new blade installed and under tension and tracking in the center of the upper wheel I found that the gauge was about an inch away from touching the lower wheel when laid across the upper wheel. Next, I adjusted the tracking knob on the upper wheel until the upper wheel was parallel with the lower wheel and found that the gauge would lay flat across both wheels indicating that the wheels were parallel and coplanar. With this tracking setting the blade was riding forward on both the upper and lower wheels and the teeth were overhanging both wheels about 1/4". With the blade tracking in this manner the teeth would catch the lower door lip when the door was closed. Just for grins I decided to put the old blade back on the saw to compare how it tracked. Turned out that the old blade tracked just fine. With the blade centered on both wheels I found that the wheels were nearly parallel and coplanar.
The new blade "looks" perfect; it lays flat on my assembly table and the weld looks straight and well ground to my untrained eye. I called Grizzly technical support and talked it over with Justin there. I explained everything I had done and seen and asked if he had any recommendations as far as anything else I should look at. I bought this blade from Grizzly, so he recommended that I return the blade and they would send me a replacement. So now I am just waiting for an email from Grizzly with my return shipping label; so no resawing for a least a few days. I searched past threads and found quite a few on bandsaw tracking and coplanarity but none specific to my issue. Has anyone else been unable to get a wide blade like this to track properly? The difference in tracking between the two 1" blades I have is like night and day. Can anyone think of something I may have overlooked?
Thanks,
Clay