Italian made bandsaw brand enigma, any clue?

[rodrigo sosa]

Greetings!

I recently acquired an 800mm wheel bandsaw that has me clueless about its origin except it is supposed to be somewhere in Varese Italy. Any idea of the brand? Its a beautiful made piece of machine, heavy, very heavy, much more than my 900mm j.a. fay & egan co.
Google has no clue, had used italian keywords too (sega a nastro, etc) but nothing shows up
Just for curiosity mostly, since I doubt I'll get any information at all in the form of a catalog/manual, but who knows...

thanks in advance,

Rodrigo

bandsaw1.jpgbandsaw2.jpg

[Van Huskey]

That's interesting, would love to see more pictures.

Varese is up in the very northern part of Italy quite a bit farther north than the industrial center usually associated with Italian bandsaws. Not seeing more of the saw I wonder if it might be a pre-war saw which may be part of the reason references are lacking.

[Jim Becker]

Did you try a Google image search using that logo photo?

[Van Huskey]

Did you try a Google image search using that logo photo?

First thing I did... seems google thinks it is a stone carving.

[Bill Orbine]

Hermes seems familar. Hermes today does CNC machinery.

[Van Huskey]

Hermes seems familar. Hermes today does CNC machinery.

"They" also make some of the most iconic and expensive women's bags, DAMHIK.

[Erik Loza]

That appears to be a pre-war Italian bandsaw. You might be one of the few people to lay eyes on something like that.

Erik

[Van Huskey]

You might be one of the few people to lay eyes on something like that.

Erik

I REALLY hope the OP shares some pictures with us, I would love to see this thing!

[peter gagliardi]

A full front, back, and side shot would be great!

[rodrigo sosa]

Hi guys!

Here are a few pictures, and yes, did try image search and no luck. Same result as Van got, at least Google is trusty there
I doubt the motor is original, the plate mentions the Buenos Aires distributor (btw, Im in Montevideo, Uruguay) but maybe they imported these bandsaws without engine?
The upper wheel has adjustment for axle angle (tracking right?), Its the red knob facing down (the other red knob is the lock for the adjustment). The fence works like a parallelogram and has fine adjustment by 2 screws.
The main frame is massive, the upper wheel support is surrounded from the back and front by the main frame, again, feels rock solid
All the casted parts that are not rectified are covered in putty
The table is rectified and has a pattern to make it more slippery

IMG_20161118_125058.jpgIMG_20161118_125114.jpgIMG_20161118_125150.jpgIMG_20161118_125157.jpgIMG_20161118_125204.jpgIMG_20161118_125215.jpgIMG_20161118_125231.jpgIMG_20161118_125413.jpg

[rodrigo sosa]

The tires on the wheels are long gone, some rest of a mesh is still here and there
They are not crowned, but have some small depth grooves, any idea about the purpose?

I plan on using the ceramic blade guide from Laguna and the tires from Carter. Will need to crown them, seems like the general agreement and physics agrees too despite the hassle of doing so. I'll keep the original blade guide horizontal post and custom make a new one in the lathe to put the new guide.

At first though about reworking the finish for aesthetics, that means a lot of sanding, putty, sanding, re apply putty, more sanding and painting, but im more inclined now to keep it "old". Sadly, at the auction site they used the fork lift to move it without a pallet and they damaged some of the putty in the arm.

On the other hand will retire some political newspaper cuts and clean that. I don't allow politics in my shop and this bandsaw wont be the exception!!

Im digging the idea of white oak for the guards, just to renew the wood parts, I think it will look nice.

The first thing I did was the guide post, it had a very dark patina (rust) and was very hard to move (used a car jack to do it)
After lots of WD-40 and fine grit sand paper it glides up and down nicely.

cheers!

Rodrigo

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[Matt Day]

I'm not help on your questions, but that is one beautiful saw! The architectural details are great - a work of art!

Edit: What's up with all the stickers on it?

I've never seen a fence like that either.

[rodrigo sosa]

Edit: What's up with all the stickers on it?

newspaper cuts with some chicks, cars and old propaganda

[Van Huskey]

That thing is sexier than socks on a rooster.

It is definitely pre-war and you are most likely correct and it may have been imported sans motor.

My first thought was how cool it would be cleaned up and painted BUT then I saw the stickers and would be hard pressed to remove them, they strike me like a vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunk plastered with stickers from its travels around the world. While I am not for politics in the shop either unless it was some pre or during war nationalist propaganda from Italy or Germany I will probably let it remain just to leave its history intact. As deplorable as it would be there is a part of me just for pure history that would leave even the previously mentioned propaganda on it but would have to remove it on the off chance someone would confuse me with Marge Schott. In that vein the clippings may be equally offensive to someone from your part of the world.

This is a GREAT find and honestly if you plan to use the saw for resawing with a wide thick blade I might opt out of the Laguna guides and just make guide blocks to fit out of Lignum Vitae the saw sure looks like it should give enough tension that with hand feeding would have enough beam strength the side guides would be basically unused. Plus the blue anodized guides would look like 22" rims on a 50 year old car.

Thank you very much for the pictures and wish I could help with the provenance but I would say that is a rare saw.

[rodrigo sosa]

I plan on resawing, thats for sure, but also some mid to big radius curve work. I don't see super tight curves in my future but for sure lots of curves, this was one of the reasons to convince myself I needed a bandsaw .
Having lack of space in the shop (who doesn't) this beast will sit on wheels in a corner and show up when needed.
I don't know the story of the bandsaw 'owner talking' but sure it was put to heavy duty. The saw destroyed the guide bearing on the back (was that a bearing?) and some hexagonal screws are now suited for flat screwdriver, yes, that bad

I agree the weird color of the Laguna ceramic guide will look out of place here, but think of it as the Gas Monkey 66' chevy Apache (?)
Rusty, stickers and new performance rims?

Since I already have the guide, will use that first and see how it goes. Im way south of UPS 2nd day from Carter, its more like a 2 weeks with intl. shipping, customs, etc

In any case, any hint, tip, suggestion is ALWAYS wanted and much appreciated, Im constantly learning new things and this forum has posed to be my main source of knowledge, there is always someone with good opinion and knowledge to share kindly.

Offtopic: Looking back, (my posts here are scarce) its been a long run setting the shop on my own. Its incredible how much energy is needed and the addition of being far from sources of parts makes it even harder.
You cant imagine how difficult was to source PVC piping for ducting the dust extraction system, the dimensions are a mix between imperial and metric and none were close to the clearvue cyclones inlet.
The flexible tube for the exhaust of the machines had to be adapted too (only imperial were available)
Blast gates ordered from clearvuecyclones needed to be modded (will build new ones, those are too filmsy).
Wiring the 400V required a big auto transformer with a custom support for its lord heaviness.

The slider I bought had the scorer riser and side adjustment "knobs" broken and soldered badly that hurted, installing the new one required tapping the iron to rework the iron thread with an unobtainable (here) tap bit M24x1mm (thank you Amazon). At least now the SCM 315ws looks and works like it should in all its scoring fully aligned glory (thanks to parts pronto, top notch guys)

At least the gem of the shop needed no work (except moving it to the basement) The Abricht-dickenhobel maschinen (jointer-thicknesser combo). Got it from a 2nd hand seller from Germany, its an SCM FS 410. Beautiful machine, just beautiful. Halve the price of whats available here and in pristine condition. How satisfying is to joint hard wood and look at the whirl of chips in the cyclone. Got it from http://tischlereimaschinen-kenkel.de/, they dont speak fluent english but was more than enough to arrange everything

cheers!

That thing is sexier than socks on a rooster.

It is definitely pre-war and you are most likely correct and it may have been imported sans motor.

My first thought was how cool it would be cleaned up and painted BUT then I saw the stickers and would be hard pressed to remove them, they strike me like a vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunk plastered with stickers from its travels around the world. While I am not for politics in the shop either unless it was some pre or during war nationalist propaganda from Italy or Germany I will probably let it remain just to leave its history intact. As deplorable as it would be there is a part of me just for pure history that would leave even the previously mentioned propaganda on it but would have to remove it on the off chance someone would confuse me with Marge Schott. In that vein the clippings may be equally offensive to someone from your part of the world.

This is a GREAT find and honestly if you plan to use the saw for resawing with a wide thick blade I might opt out of the Laguna guides and just make guide blocks to fit out of Lignum Vitae the saw sure looks like it should give enough tension that with hand feeding would have enough beam strength the side guides would be basically unused. Plus the blue anodized guides would look like 22" rims on a 50 year old car.

Thank you very much for the pictures and wish I could help with the provenance but I would say that is a rare saw.