Rockwell/Delta 14" band saw advice needed

[Brett Helvie]

I recently picked up this old but refurbished Rockwell band saw for $100 and it looks like it was set up to cut metal since it has a 1" pulley on the motor and an 11" pulley on the saw. Using the band saw calculator website that gives me about a 525fpm speed which I've since learned is way to slow for wood. I need advice on pulley size for the motor and saw and was also wondering if it would be worth upgrading to a 1 or 1.5 hp motor. Thanks for the help!
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[Lee Schierer]

My 14" Delta band saw has a 2" dia. pulley on the motor and a 4-3/4" dia. pulley on the lower wheel. The motor is a .75 Hp 1725 rpm. I would change the pulleys first and then evaluate the motor. You will probably also want to replace the tires. I would suggest making a guard to cover the motor, belt and pulleys.

[John TenEyck]

The 14" wheels have a circumference of about 3.66 ft. Pick your blade speed, but 3500 is good for wood, so those wheels need to turn at 955 rpm to do that. If your motor rpm is 1725 rpm, a motor pulley of 4" and a driven pulley on the lower wheel of 7" would give the wheels a rpm of 986 rpm, so a blade speed of 3613 fpm.

John

[Brett Helvie]

Thanks John. I'm not sure exactly how to evaluate which blade speed is best - I've heard anywhere from 2500-3700 for wood.

[Brett Helvie]

Thanks for the input Lee. I'll go ahead and change out the pulleys and then see how the motor performs. I'm not planning on doing much resawing with it so 1/2 hp may be sufficient.

[Carroll Courtney]

What a good deal, looks perfect

[John TenEyck]

Thanks John. I'm not sure exactly how to evaluate which blade speed is best - I've heard anywhere from 2500-3700 for wood.

Or even faster. My 14" Delta runs at about 4000 fpm on the largest gear ratio. My big Grizzly runs at 4500 fpm. As long as there are no harmonics at the speed it's running at, speed is your friend in wood. Sometimes, the pulleys you can find will dictate the actual speed it ends up at. No big deal, but I'd pick faster over slower if given a choice.

John

[Brett Helvie]

I appreciate the replies. I ordered some new pulleys and urethane tires...looking forward to putting it to work!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Thanks for the input Lee. I'll go ahead and change out the pulleys and then see how the motor performs. I'm not planning on doing much resawing with it so 1/2 hp may be sufficient. Hundreds of thousands of these saws were made with 1/2HP motors, then Delta bumped them up to 3/4HP. Finally the enclosed stands had either 1.0HP, or 1.25HP motors. Unfortunately the motors on the enclosed stand unit weren't true TEFC motors. Ittura has a catalogue that is the "Bible" for 14" band saws.

[Geoff Crimmins]

I believe that the saw originally ran at about 3000 sfpm, which is pretty typical for a 14" saw. Louis Iturra talks about increasing that to 4000 sfpm, but says you should glue the tires on or they can fly off at that speed. It's usually larger bandsaws that run at higher speeds.

[John TenEyck]

I believe that the saw originally ran at about 3000 sfpm, which is pretty typical for a 14" saw. Louis Iturra talks about increasing that to 4000 sfpm, but says you should glue the tires on or they can fly off at that speed. It's usually larger bandsaws that run at higher speeds.

I use polyurethane tires on my 14" Delta at about 4000 fpm. No issues with the tires getting loose. I think there could be issues with the OE rubber tires, however, so that's good advise.

John

[Lee Schierer]

My 14" Delta band saw has a 2" dia. pulley on the motor and a 4-3/4" dia. pulley on the lower wheel. The motor is a .75 Hp 1725 rpm. I would change the pulleys first and then evaluate the motor. You will probably also want to replace the tires. I would suggest making a guard to cover the motor, belt and pulleys.

Based on the calculations from this site (https://www.blocklayer.com/pulley-belteng), my upper wheel turns at 726 rpm which moves the blade at 2660 fpm. It works quite well for crosscuts and resawing.