Ceramic VS Roller Guides

[Roy Hatch]

I have a Delta 14" with riser block and am currently using roller guides. There is a significant amount of noise generated when sawing, and adjusting my guides seems to make little, if any, difference. Recently, while resawing some pine I noticed a lot of build up on the blade and the rollers. This causes me to wonder if the ceramic guides would have a tendency to scrape this from the blade rather than roll it out nice and smooth as the rollers do?

I have no problems with the set up of the saw and it performs well. The backup bearings don't seem to be an issue.

Has anyone switched from roller guides to ceramic and found an improvement?

Roy

[Jim Becker]

Roller guides seem to be the noisiest option, although they do work smoothly for blade sizes that they are suited to. I always used Cool Blocks on the 14" machine and they were quite quiet. Ceramic guides will still be noisier than Cool Blocks or wood guides, although I suspect they will be quieter than the rollers.

[Dick Strauss]

Roy,
I've been saying almost that for a while now. I think that when cutting green wood (or wood with lots of pitch) the rollers don't work as well as the standard metal guide blocks IMO. As you mention the rollers tend to compress the fibers and pitch onto the blade. I never have to clean pitch from my blade (using std metal guides) while my buddy always has to clean the residue from his BS blades (Carter roller guides) when cutting the same piece of wood.

FYI-We both have a Delta 14" BS with riser block, 3/4hp motor, and a TW 3/8"-3tpi-AS blade.

I don't have any experience with ceramic blocks but would assume the square corners would do the same job of scraping the blade clean until the blocks got quite rounded.


Good observation,
Dick

[Scott Brihn]

I have not used ceramic guides on a 14" machine but do have them mounted on a Laguna 16HD. The ceramic guides are mounted just behind the gullets and thus I'm not sure they would solve pitch build up on the teeth. My understanding is if you surround the teeth with the ceramic the set will ultimately shatter the guides.

NOTE: In use the ceramic guides can throw off some sparks. It took me a little while to become comfortable with this fact.

[Eddie Darby]

I have a Delta 14" bandsaw with the cool blocks. I use the Pam trick on the blade, and I soak the cool blocks in the Pam as well. I run Low Tension blades on it, and so I perform the Flutter test on the blades. This all makes for a quiet enjoyable experience.

On very small blades, I totally enclose the blades inside the cool blocks.

[Roy Hatch]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the suggestions. Ceramic guides will go to the back burner while I try other ideas. Sounds like a simple (and free) idea would be wooden blocks first and then to cool blocks if needed.

I have cherry, oak, hickory and walnut in shop. We know cherry will "burn" but I don't suppose that matters with guide blocks. Any suggestions as to which might give the best results?

Roy

[John Thompson]

I also run rollers on my 18", but have cool blocks on my smaller BS. Cool blocks (or hard-wood blocks) are probably more suited for curve cuts anyway. No matter what type you run, pitch build-up will always be a problem that needs to addressed with blades and guides with soft-wood. Wet wood is even more harsh.

Keep your blade clean or it will react as dull. PAM works fine but kinda expensive IMO.. Have a look at the ingredients and you will find it is Canola oil, alcohol and propellant. Hmmmmmm... makes you wonder doesn't it? Kinda like that "Louisville Slugger" glove conditioning oil that used to have for $6 in a 1 oz. bottle. "Louisville Slugger" proudly displayed on one side and 99.5% Mineral oil.. .05% dye on the other side in very fine print and proabably a reason. ;)

Sarge..