Mark Rios
04-23-2004, 2:13 AM
First of all, thanks to all who gave me their advice on jointer blades.
I have finally found the limits of my Grizzly G0555 bandsaw. This afternoon as I was continuing to work my way through the walnut that I'v e been working on for the last few months, I had been cutting all day, I once again hit a nail that had grown inside and been covered by the wood of the tree. I thought that this would be a good time to try my BRAND NEW Woodslicer blade that I JUST received from Highland. I went through all of the trouble of removing my large table set-up and fence system and painstakingly adjusted the new blade and put it all back together again. I put a LITTLE extra tension on the blade. I made one cut through the 26" long, 10" high piece of walnut root ball and cut a 2" slab from the main piece and it came out pretty good. The blade was a little squirrely but it was a pretty good cut. I started on the next cut, got about 4" into it and BAM!!!!!! a very loud, very bad noise and the blade was flying all over the place. It lodged itself in the removable, aluminum plate in the table of my bandsaw and was definately finished, after only 30" of cutting. Okay, I thought that the blade had just come off of the wheels because I hadn't adjusted them right (no trouble before however). I had only bought one Woodslicer so I put on a 1/2" AS-S blade from Timberwolf and I couldn't get the machine to put any kind of tension on the blade at all. At first I thought that I had a funny length blade but then after looking around for a minute I saw that the two bars that support the upper wheel on either side of the adjusting bolt had failed and were bent VERY, VERY badly. No hope for them. I had only been using 1/2" blades all day, no 3/4" blades that need extra tension, but I guess that the failure was due to a cumulative sort of effect. Anyway, those of you who also have the G0555 might want to keep an eye on the tension adjustment components and maybe forestall the loss of a blade. I doubt that anyone will have any trouble unless you've been doing the kind of milling that I've been doing for the last couple of months. I just don't know though if the tension will cause a failure later for some who use the saw for more regular kinds of cutting. Will it just take longer for the failure to happen? Time will tell I guess. I'm not too upset that the failure happened as much as that it caused the loss of the BRAND NEW $30 blade. $30 down the drain just like that. That really hurts. Now I've got to wait for Grizzly to send me out some repalcement parts. I'll call them first thing in the morning but I'm probably looking at a week of down time. However, they did send my repalcement bearings via the mail and they got to me in only two days. Hopefully it will be quick. I doubt that they will do anything for the ruined BRAND NEW blade though.
Thanks for letting me vent.
I have finally found the limits of my Grizzly G0555 bandsaw. This afternoon as I was continuing to work my way through the walnut that I'v e been working on for the last few months, I had been cutting all day, I once again hit a nail that had grown inside and been covered by the wood of the tree. I thought that this would be a good time to try my BRAND NEW Woodslicer blade that I JUST received from Highland. I went through all of the trouble of removing my large table set-up and fence system and painstakingly adjusted the new blade and put it all back together again. I put a LITTLE extra tension on the blade. I made one cut through the 26" long, 10" high piece of walnut root ball and cut a 2" slab from the main piece and it came out pretty good. The blade was a little squirrely but it was a pretty good cut. I started on the next cut, got about 4" into it and BAM!!!!!! a very loud, very bad noise and the blade was flying all over the place. It lodged itself in the removable, aluminum plate in the table of my bandsaw and was definately finished, after only 30" of cutting. Okay, I thought that the blade had just come off of the wheels because I hadn't adjusted them right (no trouble before however). I had only bought one Woodslicer so I put on a 1/2" AS-S blade from Timberwolf and I couldn't get the machine to put any kind of tension on the blade at all. At first I thought that I had a funny length blade but then after looking around for a minute I saw that the two bars that support the upper wheel on either side of the adjusting bolt had failed and were bent VERY, VERY badly. No hope for them. I had only been using 1/2" blades all day, no 3/4" blades that need extra tension, but I guess that the failure was due to a cumulative sort of effect. Anyway, those of you who also have the G0555 might want to keep an eye on the tension adjustment components and maybe forestall the loss of a blade. I doubt that anyone will have any trouble unless you've been doing the kind of milling that I've been doing for the last couple of months. I just don't know though if the tension will cause a failure later for some who use the saw for more regular kinds of cutting. Will it just take longer for the failure to happen? Time will tell I guess. I'm not too upset that the failure happened as much as that it caused the loss of the BRAND NEW $30 blade. $30 down the drain just like that. That really hurts. Now I've got to wait for Grizzly to send me out some repalcement parts. I'll call them first thing in the morning but I'm probably looking at a week of down time. However, they did send my repalcement bearings via the mail and they got to me in only two days. Hopefully it will be quick. I doubt that they will do anything for the ruined BRAND NEW blade though.
Thanks for letting me vent.