Rikon 14" BS 10-325 bearing sources

[Dewayne Reding]

I need to replace bearings on my Rikon 14" BS. I love the saw but the guide bearings were suspect from day one, and one or more noisy in short order. One bearing finally exploded and I need to replace it, and get a few spares. I see there is a tooless upgrade kit for the entire guide assembly but I'd prefer to skip that expense for now. I know I can order replacement bearings from Rikon but will they just be more junk bearings? Thought about sourcing a few locally if I might get a better quality bearing. Not sure if the bearing size is common enough for that to be feasible.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Bill Dufour]

Probably a standard bearing easy to find on the bay. I would recommend sealed not shielded. There should be a 4 digit bearing number on the outer race or seal/shield. It may end in Z, ZZ, R or RS which refer to seal/shield type and number if any. If these are the small skateboard type bearing expect to pay about $1.00 each
If you can not find a number you can measure the inner/outer diameter and thickness. If this is a ball bearing these will all be metric.
On motors the drive end bearing is often bigger then the fan end. A quality motor will often have bearing numbers on the data plate. Bearings from 1950's may use obsolete number system.

Ebay search terms.. skate bearing
VXB company is what I use partly because it is in the USA and in stock
Bill D.

SKF and NTN are good sites to find bearing sizes/numbers

http://webtools3.skf.com/BearingCalc/selectProduct.action

[Bill Dufour]

FYI The horrible freight digital caliper is more then adequate to measure a bearing. Bearings are exact mm dimensions. To be honest an adjustable try square is probably good enough for those small sizes. Make sure to measure the dismounted bearing, for inner bore, as the shaft it rides on my be turned down just for the bearing thickness. The rest of the shaft could easily be 1mm bigger or smaller then the bearing bore.
Bill

[Dewayne Reding]

Thank you. Yes they are skateboard bearings. 608RS Most of them have ceramic bearings but some are listed as steel. They are so inexpensive I can buy a few types and see how they last.

If anyone finds this on a search in the future I got them on Amazon for basically the same price with quicker shipping. They are all cheap and I am not optimistic they will be good for hi-speed duty as they also fit Fidget Spinner toys. I'll have four extra bearings so that should get me by for a few cuts if I have to shop for good bearings soon. I even found this bearing number offered for as little as about 10 cents each. I don't want to wear a helmet when I use my bandsaw. :eek:

[Nick Decker]

I recently ordered some spares to have on hand for my 10-326. Got them from Uxcell on Amazon, and they work fine. Only trouble was it took a couple of weeks to get them. Next time I think I'll go to the local Fastenal store; I'm told they can order them in pretty quickly if they don't have them in stock.

[Dewayne Reding]

I recently ordered some spares to have on hand for my 10-326. Got them from Uxcell on Amazon, and they work fine. Only trouble was it took a couple of weeks to get them. Next time I think I'll go to the local Fastenal store; I'm told they can order them in pretty quickly if they don't have them in stock.

Same brand bearing I just ordered with a Thursday delivery date using Prime. We shall see. Fidget spinner craze is over and they will be a dollar soon enough and we'll always have an emergency bearing supply. Bad bearings but for a cut or two..... :)

[Nick Decker]

Don't know if the bearings sold by Rikon would be any better or worse, but I think it's safe to assume they are more expensive. :)

[Dewayne Reding]

Don't know if the bearings sold by Rikon would be any better or worse, but I think it's safe to assume they are more expensive. :)

They sold me the first set of bad bearings so there is that. :) I do love the saw. It's a very good value and I don't regret the purchase. I do a lot of automotive work and I knew the saw had cheap guide bearings the first day I used it. They lasted longer than I ever expected they would but as I mentioned they were noisy from day one.

[Jason Lester]

I switched mine out for the Space Age Ceramic guide blocks. It's so much quieter and easier to adjust now. I went from hating to resaw to loving it.

[Bill Dufour]

Ceramic bearings are a waste for that use. Not as tough as steel ones.

[Dewayne Reding]

Ceramic bearings are a waste for that use. Not as tough as steel ones.

He is talking about guide blocks and not bearings I think?

[Jason Lester]

Right, same thing that comes on the Laguna saws stock, I think. It was $68 to replace the upper and lower guides and thrust bearings.

[Dewayne Reding]

Right, same thing that comes on the Laguna saws stock, I think. It was $68 to replace the upper and lower guides and thrust bearings.

I'll give that consideration over time. I've never used a decent band saw other than the Rikon. Rikon offers a tool less guide upgrade that looks slick, but it's $150, and I still don't know if the bearings are that good. The factory setup is a bit tedious to adjust after a blade change and if I used my BS more it would make good sense to improve it for the long-term. I don't mean to sound cheap but don't want to throw good money after bad. I''ll research well before I upgrade. And thanks for your input in any event. Do you just leave a few thousands clearance when using blocks?

[Nick Decker]

Dewayne, while I have not seen or used the Rikon bearing retrofit kit, I can tell you that the toolless bearing adjustment on the 10-326 works very well. From pictures that I have seen, the bearings on my saw look beefier than the earlier Rikon 14" saws, and I have not had any problems with mine. (I only ordered new ones to have spares on hand. Kinda anal that way.) I do not know if the guide blocks would work better than bearings or not, never used them.

[Jason Lester]

I set the blocks the same as the bearings.

[Nick Decker]

I switched mine out for the Space Age Ceramic guide blocks. It's so much quieter and easier to adjust now. I went from hating to resaw to loving it.

Jason,

I had heard good things about ceramic guide blocks in other threads here, and your mention of them on your 10-325 prompted me to contact Space Age Ceramics about using them on my 10-326. They currently don't offer them for my saw, but are interested in doing so. They sent me some guide blocks that they felt might work, and we're kind of "experimenting together" to refine what will work best.

As I said earlier, I have not been unhappy with the stock roller bearings, but at this point I'm impressed with the ceramics. The rollers weren't what I would call loud, but the ceramics are near silent. I guess maybe I was hearing roller noise without knowing it.

Dewayne, if the rollers that you ordered for your 325 don't make you happy, you might want to think about ceramic blocks.

[Curt Harms]

Jason,

I had heard good things about ceramic guide blocks in other threads here, and your mention of them on your 10-325 prompted me to contact Space Age Ceramics about using them on my 10-326. They currently don't offer them for my saw, but are interested in doing so. They sent me some guide blocks that they felt might work, and we're kind of "experimenting together" to refine what will work best.

As I said earlier, I have not been unhappy with the stock roller bearings, but at this point I'm impressed with the ceramics. The rollers weren't what I would call loud, but the ceramics are near silent. I guess maybe I was hearing roller noise without knowing it.

Dewayne, if the rollers that you ordered for your 325 don't make you happy, you might want to think about ceramic blocks.

Nick, how are you holding the ceramic guides in place? I too was not too enthusiastic about the ball bearing guides so played around. I'd read elsewhere about simply replacing the bearings with wooden guides and figured " what they hey, why not?" Here is an early effort.
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I was afraid that using only one hole the blocks would want to rotate and pinch the blade but that hasn't been an issue. I've since replaced with wooden guides with Corian. Corian is nowhere near as hard as ceramic but can be easily worked with woodworking tools and I had scraps. I find blocks better for narrow blades - if the band's teeth contact the blocks the block's surface may get chewed up over time but isn't hard on the band and the blocks are easy to square up on a sander or just make more. They also don't accumulate pitchy or wet sawdust.

[Nick Decker]

Mine are held in place by the same thumb screw that used to hold the roller guides. The photo doesn't show it, but the thumb screw goes through a horizontal slot in the ceramic block, which allows for adjustment to and from the blade.

Like you, I was concerned about the blocks rotating, but they haven't moved after tightening.

I asked the Space Age Ceramics guy if it might be better to use a circular block for the thrust bearing, but he feels it's better to have a larger surface contacting the back of the blade, that a circular guide results in a point contact which is harder on the blade. I'm not an engineer, so I'll take his word for it.

So far, I've only used them with a 1/2" blade, for ripping and resawing. They're no harder to adjust than the rollers, maybe even a little easier, and they're super quiet. I like.

If there's any problem using a smaller blade for curvy stuff, I'll report back, but so far so good.

[Nick Decker]

I did some cutting today with a 3/16" blade that I use a lot for curves, and wasn't as impressed with the results. The ceramic side guides are still good, although the expected occasional sparking is a bit distracting. Not real happy at this point with the thrust bearings, communicating with Space Age and varying some things.

[Nick Decker]

Just to tie up my impressions about the ceramic bearings for the 10-326, I think what I'll do is just use the ceramic side guides and go back to the original roller bearing for the thrust. The ceramic thrust bearing works fine, but due to the way the Rikon guide holding mechanism is designed, it makes the thrust bearing awkward to adjust. You're trying to adjust the fore/aft movement of the bearing while also keeping the bearing face parallel to the back of the blade. On the lower thrust bearing, you're also in a position that's kinda hard to get to and see clearly. With the circular roller bearing, you can almost do it by feel and quickly be done with it.

[Dewayne Reding]

I received my new bearings from Amazon and all is well enough. It resaws like it used to. The OEM Rikon adjusting system is nothing but tedious though. I will probably install a Highland Woodslicer 1/2" back on it and call it good for all cuts. I would want a different guide system if I intended to flip blades during every project.

[Nick Decker]

Good to hear all is well, Dewayne.

[Jason Lester]

<p>
Here are the ceramic blocks on my 10-325. The kit from Space Age Ceramics came with everything I needed to replace the stock rollers.</p>