Lower wheel adjustment on Rikon band saw

[James Nugnes]

I have the Rikon 10-305 band saw. I bought mine last year after many of the kinks had been worked out of this little band saw and I have to admit it has served me well. These later models have a little bit more depth so you can cut thicker stock as well. I have even resawed things like tupelo and basswood successfully. So I can't complain.

Putting on a new blade this morning and noticed that while the blade tracks straight, it seats on the lower wheel about 1/8" inch back from the middle of the wheel and there it stays. It does not wander at all but it will not come to rest in the middle of the lower wheel. Went to the Rikon web site and there was a not specifically referencing this issue. Apparently, my lower wheel is just canted a bit and I need to adjust it to true on the shaft in order to get the blade to come to seat in the middle of the lower wheel. I wish I could remember but I can't remember if the saw blade always tracked just slightly off center on the lower wheel or not.

At any rate just wondering if anybody has performed this adjustment on the 10-305 or other smallish band saw and if it went pretty well or ended up being a Pandora's box. There are a number of other band saws that are really very similar if not the same as the 10-305 but branded differently. So there is a bunch of these out there in the world. I want to do right by the tool but I also want to avoid opening a Pandora'a box if I can. Anybody performed this adjustment? If so, how did it go? Fortunately it is not wobbling or I would have no choice I think but to try to get the wobble out. Thanks

[Tai Fu]

I thought when the bandsaw is tensioned the cant will correct itself. Wasn't it Alex whatever that said that bandsaw makers knew what they were doing by allowing the lower wheel to cant a little bit?

[Mark Engel]

I have the 10-305 and did do the lower wheel adjustment. The adjustment was fairly simple and worked with no problems. Just adjust in very small increments.

The reason for the adjustment on mine was to get better tracking after installing the Carter blade stabilizer. Out of the box the blade tracked fine.

[Clay Crocker]

James,

I ran across this while investigating a similar problem with my Grizzly bandsaw:

http://www.rikontools.com/lowerwheeladjustments.pdf

FWIW, in my case I found the problem was the blade I was using not the lower wheel adjustment. IMHO, if the blade is off center on the lower wheel "just slightly" I would not worry about it. In my case the blade was tracking so far forward on the lower wheel that I was afraid the blade was going to catch the lip of the lower door.

Clay

[James Nugnes]

Yup, I have that document Clay. Thanks....I am using the Carter stabilizer as well Mark. I guess if the blade was sitting just a tad forward I would be happier than having it just a tad toward the rear. I am just glad that it is not wobbling as that would require adjustment to the side to side bolts that go through the shaft at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions. Adjusting for the wheel if the blade insists on tracking either too far forward or too far back on the lower wheel requires adjustment to the 12 and 6 o'clock bolts on the shaft. I am less reluctant to adjust those although I can going to adjust very carefully.

The instruction is a half rotation on the correct bolt (the 6 o'clock in my case). Mark did you find a half rotation to be about the right amount of adjustment or was that in fact too much? Did you have to make adjustments in quarter rotation increments for example or did half turn increments seem just about right?

The shaft itself must have a bearing in there. I do hope the bearing is not going as adjusting the shaft will likely only put it under even more pressure. Although if it is going it hardly matters that it might be under more pressure. Once a bearing starts to go, it is as good as gone anyway. There is a separate bearing that sits on the shaft itself right at the wheel although I am not sure that is the shaft bearing itself or if a bearing sits farther inboard on the shaft that would actually be considered a component of the shaft itself.

[Mark Engel]

When I adjusted mine (12 & 6 oclock positions) I only moved the bolts about one flat at a time, so 1/6 rotation. When I got it where I wanted it, I had moved the bolts ~1-1/2 rotations total.

With the Carter guide, I did the adjustments with the blade tensioned and the Carter pushed to it's normal forward position.

[James Nugnes]

Wow you are a patient man Mark. Adjusting and getting the blade back on both wheels and rolling so that you can see where you are has got to be slow, careful work. Maybe a quarter to half turn would be OK given your experience. Really appreciate the input by the way. I always worry about the granularity of these sorts of adjustments as my preference for sure is to adjust up to where you want to be instead of going past and trying to come back.

Correction....just read that you did the adjustments with the blade tensioned...Holy Molly.....How did you keep the blade from pulling on the wheel tensioned like that?

[James Nugnes]

Thinking about this a bit more Mark, did you not initially take pressure off the shaft by loosening the bolt at the 9 before adjusting the 6 and 12? I would think that if you did not loosen the 9 (which is Rikon's instruction) you might be able to adjust the 6 and 12 without taking tension off the blade and wheel or at least not taking all the tension off the blade and wheel.

In fact, the more I think about it, at least if you are not dealing with a wobble, that makes more and more sense to me. Maybe I will just take a bit of tension off the blade, not touch the bolt at the 9 at all. If I just loosen the 6 and tighten the 12 that should let the shaft pivot on the bolts at 3 and 9 and may get me where I want to go much faster than using the instruction that Rikon gives you. I might be wrong but I suspect that is how you did it Mark, without loosening the bolt at the 9 as a first step.

[Mark Engel]

Just for the sake of clarity, my wheel needed to be adjusted in the opposite direction from yours. My blade was tracking too far forward on the bottom wheel. This was a direct result of '-pre-tensioning' the blade with the Carter stabilizer. Your blade is tracking toward the back of the wheel, did tensioning the Carter move it forward at all?

I did all of my adjustments with a 1/4" blade at it's normal, working tension. I also had the Carter pushed forward into the back of the blade while adjusting the wheels. I loosened the 9 o'clock bolt just a bit, less than 1/4 turn. I then loosened the 12 o'clock bolt one flat and tightened the 9 o'clock bolt one flat. I then turned the wheels by hand several revolutions to let the blade 'wander' into position. Repeat... Repeat... Repeat... When I got the blade tracking where I wanted it, I cinched down the 9 o'clock bolt.

Depending on how far off your blade is tracking, I don't think you will have any problem adjusting the bolts a quarter turn (or more) each time. Just be sure to rotate the wheels for many revolutions (by hand) between each adjustment

[Ron Schmidt]

James,

I ran across this while investigating a similar problem with my Grizzly bandsaw:

http://www.rikontools.com/lowerwheeladjustments.pdf

FWIW, in my case I found the problem was the blade I was using not the lower wheel adjustment. IMHO, if the blade is off center on the lower wheel "just slightly" I would not worry about it. In my case the blade was tracking so far forward on the lower wheel that I was afraid the blade was going to catch the lip of the lower door.

Clay


Is this the adjustment one would make to make the wheels coplanar?

[James Nugnes]

When I initially installed my Carter Stabilizer I did not notice it moving my blade forward. Might have something to do with the general level of tension on the blade. As I recall, there was a helpful tip from Carter about the blade tension and I remember using it. I think Carter wanted you to be able to move the blade about a 1/4" if you push on the side with you fingertip.

I just completed the adjustment. For those interested in another data point, I did use the Rikon instruction. So I loosened the bolt at 9 o'clock before adjusting the bolts at 6 and 12 o'clock and retightened everything when I was done. In my case I was adjusting a bit less than half a rotation each time. Ultimately adjusting about 3/4 of a rotation on the bolt at 6 o'clock yielded about 1/8" of movement of the blade on the lower wheel forward. I did have to readjust the upper wheel again after making the changes. Then I installed the Carter Stabilizer again. I ran it a bit to see if the blade would track properly and it did.

It all looks fine at this point. I will use it later today to be sure. I had a 1/4" blade on the saw before and just installed another 1/4" blade. So I did not feel like the stabilizer would need much in the way of adjustment and it looks fine. I did go from a 6 TPI blade to a 4 TPI blade which would not have required any changes in this installation.

I could be wrong. However I do not think what I did today results in a coplanar adjustment because I was still adjusting the wheels independently of each other. Granted with a machine this size, it seems that an adjustment to the bottom wheel forced some additional adjustment at the top wheel. There is really not that much space between the two wheels. So any adjustment at one maybe forces an adjustment at the other. But I was still adjusting each independently and was not even trying to adjust them reference each other.

Folks have commented here that in many cases, the manufacturers are not trying to perform coplanar adjustments on the wheels before shipment. I guess maybe one would have to know who as a manufacturer was and who was not.

I did just edit this post because there is one thing i think I should have done that I would do in the future should I have to make a similar adjustment. If the bolt at 9 o'clock is to be loosened as a first step in order to take tension off the shaft then I think you want to be assured that you are returning it to exactly the same spot because at least in my case I was not looking to make any adjustments at 3 and 9 o'clock. So in my case, I think in the future I will mark the bolt and the housing so that I can return that bolt to exactly the same spot. I don't want to induce wobble by returning it to a different place. Granted you probably can't move it very far off without also adjusting the bolt at 3 o'clock. Still I would want to know that I had returned it to the same place when I was done.

[James Nugnes]

I did just use the band saw. I set it so that the blade is tracking just the tiniest but forward of center and that is where it is staying both top and bottom wheel. Everything appears to be in order.