Band saw Wheels Alignment Question

[Chuck Tringo]

Ok, so one of my first shop projects when I get to AZ will be to tune and Mod my Craftsman 22401 Steel framed band saw. In prep for the move, I took 20 minutes and moved the task light to the front of the saw, but I have many other plans as well :D. I plan to use it for ripping in place of the tables saw for safety reasons since my older 2 kids are getting more interested in helping me in the shop, so I plan to make a larger table for it as well as remove the bottom base and build my own a little lower than the one it came with. Although I'm 6'2", I have done some rips on it when rebuilding the stairs in my house and felt it was a bit higher than I would like. Ill probably distance somewhere in the middle of its current height and my tablesaw height, taking into account the table I build will likely be between 1 and 1 1/2 inches thick. (I don't resaw alot and this has an 8 1/4 inch capacity so I feel the loss of cutting height wont be a problem at all for me, and when it becomes one, Ill get a bigger saw :p). Ill also be ditching the ghetto fence, and with the bigger table either building one, or putting a table saw fence on it...the only band saw fence Ive seen that looks like it will doi what I want it to is Laguna's new driftmaster...but for that price I could get a Unifence and still have enough left over for dinner and a movie :cool:)

Anyways, on to the question :D with the doors off, the wheels sit back in the cabinet about 1/4 inch, so using a straight edge to align them aint quite going to happen. My plan was to take a box level and use double stick tape to put equal sized pieces of wood at the top and bottom to clear the lips of the cabinet. I haven't found anything specifically adrdessing this in alignment, everything Ive seen seems to be geared towards C frame Band saws. Thoughts? Ideas?

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, the wood block idea is fine, perhaps a c clamp would hold the level to the bottom wheel only.

Then measure your gaps at the top wheel using a block of the same size.

(or reverse the process depending upon which wheel you are going to move).

Regards, Rod.

[Heather Thompson]

Chuck,

What I would do is get a length of elastic cord and tie the ends together, stretch it over the top and bottom wheels, instant straight edge on both sides of the wheels. I learned this method at the race track when aligning the tires on my race bike, simple, cheap and accurate.

Heather :)

[Brian W Evans]

Can you folks tell me what kind of straightedge you use for this type of work? The longest I have is 24". I've seen levels used in magazines but I haven't had good luck with them being really straight (mine are mostly borg cheapos, though).

[Chuck Tringo]

Chuck,

What I would do is get a length of elastic cord and tie the ends together, stretch it over the top and bottom wheels, instant straight edge on both sides of the wheels. I learned this method at the race track when aligning the tires on my race bike, simple, cheap and accurate.

Heather :)

Hey heather, that would work great for a C frame, but my problem is the lips of the Steel Frame, the wheels are inside of it so the stretch cord wouldnt be straight...a normal straight edge pushed against the frame would not come in contact with the wheels.

[Rod Sheridan]

Band saw wheel alignment isn't performed to the hundreth of a millimeter.

A level, or a straight piece of wood is accurate enough.

For a bandsaw I use a piece of aluminum flat bar, it's light and plenty straight enough.

Remember, after you get them co-planar, you're going to adjust the blade tracking and take them out of coplanar, so don't sweat the extreme accuracy angle.

Regards, Rod.

[Chuck Tringo]

I agree Rod, I have used it set up from the factory so far and it hasnt been terrible. I just want to get it tuned pretty good, hence my idea of taping wood blocks on the end of a Box Level :)



Band saw wheel alignment isn't performed to the hundreth of a millimeter.

A level, or a straight piece of wood is accurate enough.

For a bandsaw I use a piece of aluminum flat bar, it's light and plenty straight enough.

Remember, after you get them co-planar, you're going to adjust the blade tracking and take them out of coplanar, so don't sweat the extreme accuracy angle.

Regards, Rod.

[Pete Bradley]

Chuck,

Taping wood blocks to a straightedge is the standard approach. Don't overthink it, within 1/8" should be fine.

Pete

[Curt Harms]

I had a similar problem with checking wheel alignment. I used a piece of 1/4" plywood a little longer than the distance from the top of the top wheel to the bottom of the bottom wheel. I used a factory edge and cut away whatever prevented the straight edge from touching the wheels. Simple and seemed to work fine:)

HTH

Curt

[David Romano]

My solution was to edge joint a 2x4 and cut notches out where it would hit the frame. Since the 2x4 can warp over time, I pass it over the jointer before I use it each time.

David

Also, I check the co-planarity only after tensioning and tracking my widest blade