Bandsaw tire question

[Josko Catipovic]

I 'upgraded' my Delta 14" to Carter urethane tires, and now the blade is centered on the upper wheel, but rides with teeth protruding off the front edge of the lower wheel. Take a look at the attached picture. The wheels are coplanar, I've got the top wheel tilted as far back to almost touch the rear housing, and still can't get the blade off the front edge of the lower wheel. I notice the new tire doesn't quite come up to the lip of the wheels and blade is riding on the aluminum lip of the lower wheel. Is my new tire too thin? Is this a reasonable way for a bandsaw blade to ride? Any hints are welcome.

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[lowell holmes]

I would check to see if the wheel is out of alignment.

[Erik Loza]

How does it cut? That would be my first test. As long as the teeth aren't chewing up the tire or wheel and you can bring the guides into range, is there an issue?

Erik

[Carroll Courtney]

Guessing,maybe possible that wheels has come little loose on shafts moved outward? That it was not doing this before tire change,maybe try another blade which maybe blade is bent.

[Doug Garson]

I have a 14" Rockwell from I think the 60's (same as the Delta) with urethane tires (not sure what brand but they are orange), haven't checked if my wheels are coplaner but just checked and the blade is riding in the middle of both wheels. I'm not convinced coplaner matters since you tilt the upper wheel to get the blade to ride in the center so maybe shim one of your wheels out of coplaner until the blade rides near the center of both wheels. (I'll duck now while all those who feel coplaner is mandatory jump in :D).

[Brian Tymchak]

I 'upgraded' my Delta 14" to Carter urethane tires, and now the blade is centered on the upper wheel, but rides with teeth protruding off the front edge of the lower wheel. Take a look at the attached picture. The wheels are coplanar, I've got the top wheel tilted as far back to almost touch the rear housing, and still can't get the blade off the front edge of the lower wheel. I notice the new tire doesn't quite come up to the lip of the wheels and blade is riding on the aluminum lip of the lower wheel. Is my new tire too thin? Is this a reasonable way for a bandsaw blade to ride? Any hints are welcome.



I had / have similar experience on replacing my tires with the Carter urethane tires. I wish I could provide a solution, but I still have issues.. As you mention, the Carter tires don't fill the wheel well lip to lip, so it was quite a chore to get the tire centered on the wheel. I also felt that the new tire could be stretched on one side and relatively bunched on the other. Again, I spent a lot time trying to get to a point where I felt things were balanced. And as you show, the blade moves to extremes on the tire. I was using a small .25" blade, and found that finding the sweet spot where the blade stayed in the middle of tire was a tedious task balancing tweaks in the tracking and blade tension. I found that I could over tension and the blade would track to the front lip like yours. Once I found a balance, things worked well. However, when I released tension on the blade as I am not a frequent BS user, and then retensioned, the blade once again wandered to extremes. So far, I'm not a big fan of the Carter tires, but I haven't pinned the issue directly to them.

[Robert Hazelwood]

I wouldn't like the blade riding on the lip of the wheel. Otherwise its not a big deal if the blade rides a bit forward on the lower wheel when centered on the upper wheel.

Seems like the new tires are thinner than the original, is that true?

Does your saw have a way to adjust the lower wheel? You can try to adjust the bottom wheel so that the blade rides on the tire and not the lip. Or find thicker tires. You can get rubber tires which are fairly thick, but they have to be glued on and you have to true and crown them after installation.

[Josko Catipovic]

I learned a lot about bandsaws in the last day. In a nutshell, there are TWO stable positions for a blade to ride on this saw:
1. One is with teeth overlapping the front of the lower wheel, and the back wheel tilted as far as it goes. Bandsaw blades like to ride on 'humps'. In this case the blade finds the ~1/16" hump on the lower wheel lip (hump's just visible on the back of the lower wheel in the picture) and happily rides on it. To keep the blade centered on the top wheel, I need to crank the top wheel all the way back until it almost brushes the back housing. This is a very stable point for the blade.
2. If I manually center the blade on the lower wheel, I can get it to ride and be stable on the crown of both wheels. I this case I need much less tiltback on the top wheel, and the blade is entirely on rubber. It seems to be stable in this position, but both supports have to be moved ~3/8" back. I think this is the way it's meant to ride.

I was concerned with situation 1. because the blade seemed to be gradually loosing tooth set on the inside, i.e. it would start to drift outwards, with a perceptible bow towards the outside off the table, particularly when sawing thicker stock. It would 'make sense' that teeth riding against an aluminum rim could loose set faster than those riding against rubber.

So, why do my wheels have these lips? The tires I took off (after 20+ years they'd lost the crown), were noticeably thicker than Carter replacements, so blades didn't have lips to ride on.
Now my question is what to do about these wheel lips: nothing, get thicker tires, pad out the inside of the wheels by a 1/16" with something (what?), or grind down the rims. I don't like the idea of grinding down bandsaw wheels before understanding what's going on, so I'll welcome comments and advice.
For the time being, my blade is riding well on crowns of both wheels.

[Robert Hazelwood]

The lips are very common on smaller saws, they prevent the tire from ever working off of the wheel. Without the lips the tire would need to be glued to the wheel. Of course the tire needs to be thick enough to be at least a little proud of the lips once installed. So I'd look either for thicker PU tires or get rubber tires and glue them on.

I dealt with tire issues just recently. have a Laguna 14bx and it has lips machined into the wheels. It came with polyurethane tires that were not glued to the wheel, and these tires were not that tight on the wheels. They were a bit narrower than the tire channel and with the blade off you could push them back and forth with your fingers. I ordered rubber tires, which are quite thick. They were quite wide, too, and had to be cut down to fit into the tire channels. Then I glued them in with rubber cement, and after that cured I crowned the tires which makes the tire perfectly true.

I like the idea of gluing the tire to the wheel, and by crowning them after installation you end up with a truer wheel than you'd likely get by simply stretching a PU tire the wheel rim.

[Bill Dufour]

Is the blade perpendicular to the table? Sounds like the wheels are parallel but not on the same plane.
Bil lD.

[Josko Catipovic]

The wheels are on the same plane within 1/32". (Of course, you have to ask: at what level of tiltback adjustment?) Blade is as perpendicular to the table as I can measure with a 12" square. When it rides on the front lower lip, lower end of the blade is slightly forward.

[Tom Henderson2]

I 'upgraded' my Delta 14" to Carter urethane tires, and now the blade is centered on the upper wheel, but rides with teeth protruding off the front edge of the lower wheel. Take a look at the attached picture. The wheels are coplanar, I've got the top wheel tilted as far back to almost touch the rear housing, and still can't get the blade off the front edge of the lower wheel. I notice the new tire doesn't quite come up to the lip of the wheels and blade is riding on the aluminum lip of the lower wheel. Is my new tire too thin? Is this a reasonable way for a bandsaw blade to ride? Any hints are welcome.

432440


Alex Snodgrass says getting wheels "co-planar" isn't important.

He says what is important is that the bottom of the blade gullets is in the physical center of the upper blade and it stays there.

You can google "snodgrass bandsaw" and find many youtubes; I think the best is the one filmed at a woodworking show. Take a look if you haven't already.

But I don't think he would feel your setup is correct -- the way you have to crank the top wheel adjustment so far and the way the teeth hang off the edge on the bottom seems too extreme.

As another poster said, try moving your bottom wheel out a smidge to get the blade back more towards the center. So.. 1/8" maybe?

Did you have to wrassle much to get the tires onto the wheels? something may have gotten out of whack then.

Take some photos of the top and bottom wheels -- closeups of the blade so we can see the alignment and the hub so we can see the shaft etc. would help.

The hub on the lower wheel on my 12" bandsaw got loose a while back; don't know how or when as I hadn't done any maintenance on it in many years. But it did, and when I pushed it back so the shaft was flush with the hub and tightened it, all was good again.

I'm far from an expert; just thinking out loud with you and the forum. Hopefully it will stimulate some discussion.

-Tom in SoCal

[Darcy Warner]

Step one: throw away urethane tires

Step two: epoxy on epdm tires

Step three: true and crown

Urethane tires have a tendency to squish and move around.

I can get a BS that is 140 years old to track and cut like any new saw, your delta is capable of better than that.

[John K Jordan]

I 'upgraded' my Delta 14" to Carter urethane tires, and now the blade is centered on the upper wheel, but rides with teeth protruding off the front edge of the lower wheel. Take a look at the attached picture. The wheels are coplanar, I've got the top wheel tilted as far back to almost touch the rear housing, and still can't get the blade off the front edge of the lower wheel. I notice the new tire doesn't quite come up to the lip of the wheels and blade is riding on the aluminum lip of the lower wheel. Is my new tire too thin? Is this a reasonable way for a bandsaw blade to ride? Any hints are welcome.

432440

Josko,

I want the blade to run centered on both tires. I didn't have time to read all the posts, but did you check for coplanar with tension on the blade? I had to do that when I tuned up my 14" Delta years ago but it was a pain.

(My newer Rikon (18") has adjustments for the lower wheel making it very easy to adjust.)

JKJ

[John Lanciani]

The Carter tires for the Delta saw are crap, and have been for almost 20 years. I bought a set from woodcraft way back when, and they were too narrow and too thin then. They were promptly removed and returned. If you just have to have urethane, Sulpher Grove at least sells one that fits correctly but, like Darcy, I highly reccomend sticking with black rubber and gluing them on (though I use 3M automotive weatherstrip adhesive instead of epoxy). I get mine from Woodworkers Tool Works, but there are other reputable suppliers as well. Once installed and crowned, your saw will work properly for the next 20-30 years with no aggravation.

E.T.A.; Snodgrass is a snake oil salesman.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I have had Sulphur Grove urethane tires on my 18" saw for 5 years, ever since I got it with dry rotted tires. They were a bit of a struggle to install but they have held up really well even though I saw brass as well as wood on this saw. I haven't tried other brands.

[Bruce Wrenn]

My original Sulphur Grove utrethane tires only lasted 16 years, so I tried another set from them. The Carter tires are junk, as they don't completely fill the width of the wheel. Check out "BlueMax" tires. The wheels on a Delta 14" is already crowned, so tires are just flat bands.

[Joseph Montroy]

Your Carter tires are to thin. I went with the "blue max" ones mentioned above and couldn't be happier.

[Myk Rian]

Step one: throw away urethane tires

Step two: epoxy on epdm tires

Step three: true and crown

Urethane tires have a tendency to squish and move around.

I can get a BS that is 140 years old to track and cut like any new saw, your delta is capable of better than that.

I have urethane on my 1960 Delta. Nothing wrong with them at all.
I'm wondering if it's just a bad blade. It happens.

[John K Jordan]

I have urethane on my 1960 Delta. Nothing wrong with them at all.


I've have urethane tires on my 18" Rikon for four years now. They work perfectly. Blade stays where I put it. They are so tight I had to get creative to get them on.

Aligned wheels, adjusted guides, sharp blade, proper tension, happy sawing.

JKJ

[Josko Catipovic]

Thanks folks. I ordered thicker (1/8") tires and will let you know how they work out.

[Pete Staehling]

Yeah, I bought and took off the carter orange tires on my delta 14" band saw they didn't fit properly. I should have sent them back, but they are still hanging on the wall too many years later to consider returning them. They were thin enough that the lip stick up and a bit narrow for the groove. You could conceivably have run them if the wheels aligned so that the lip wasn't an issue, but I had problems with them with some blades.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Yeah, I bought and took off the carter orange tires on my delta 14" band saw they didn't fit properly. I should have sent them back, but they are still hanging on the wall too many years later to consider returning them. They were thin enough that the lip stick up and a bit narrow for the groove. You could conceivably have run them if the wheels aligned so that the lip wasn't an issue, but I had problems with them with some blades.I've only see Carter tires that were blue.

[Pete Staehling]

I've only see Carter tires that were blue.
My mistake. Sorry, not Carter tires. I mistyped. I think they were the orange tires from Rockwell if memory serves correctly (it has been a few years and my memory is hazy on the purchase). I hope I didn't steer anyone wrong.

[Matthew Hills]

Step two: epoxy on epdm tires
Does epoxy allow you to replace the tires later?

Matt

[Josko Catipovic]

While installing my new Sulphur grove tires I discovered the lip at the edge of the wheel is ~3/16", obviously thicker than the 1/8" replacement tire. BTW, my blue Carter tires are also 1/8" thick. Someone at Suplhur Grove mentioned that yes, the delta 28-203 (early '90's, US-made) did come with 3/16" wheel lips for a while. So I just spun up the lower wheel and ground down the front lip to a hair under 1/8", put the new tires on, and everything is as it should be.

[John K Jordan]

While installing my new Sulphur grove tires I discovered the lip at the edge of the wheel is ~3/16", obviously thicker than the 1/8" replacement tire. BTW, my blue Carter tires are also 1/8" thick. Someone at Suplhur Grove mentioned that yes, the delta 28-203 (early '90's, US-made) did come with 3/16" wheel lips for a while. So I just spun up the lower wheel and ground down the front lip to a hair under 1/8", put the new tires on, and everything is as it should be.

You are a genius.

JKJ

[glenn bradley]

Great fix.

[Darcy Warner]

Does epoxy allow you to replace the tires later?

Matt

Depends how long you keep the saw. A good set of tires, crowned and trued will last you decades.