In the ongoing but dull saga of the Parks 18" bandsaw I am happy to say that I installed the urethane tires and got it running on 115v on Tuesday. I used a 20a 125v toggle switch that I think I bought from Surplus Center years ago as a spare. Anyway it was in the parts drawer, so I used it. The saw runs well and seems to have plenty of power for my intended uses. I was able to resaw a 10" wide walnut offcut using a 4x4 clamped to the table as a test fence. Today I welded a piece of light angle iron onto the bracket on the upper guides to cover the blade above the guides, the original guard was missing and it made me nervous.
This saw has several grease zerks, one on the upper shaft by the wheel, one on each thrust bearing, and I imagine there ought to be one on the lower shaft but I haven't found it yet. Do these get regular gun grease or something special, and how often and how heavily should they be greased? I'm used to these fittings on farm equipment and some car chassis components, but have not seem them on wood shop tools before.
Before I can put this saw on the riser block and move my current saw out I need to get a rip fence for it, as I use the rip fence a lot for banjo parts and such. I have found a Kreg aftermarket fence that seems to be in the $120 range, and Shop Fox has one that looks like it will be about $150 with shipping. Maybe there are others I should look at, or maybe I could find an old one somewhere, I don't know what the options are. If anyone has a recommendation I'd appreciate it. I have been using the factory fence on my Jet 18" and have been happy with it, once I bent the lock tab so it held, years ago. I think that because of the way this table is sunk into the sheet metal of the saw I may need a fence that only uses a front rail, which would seem to point to the Kreg. The table on this saw is 18" deep and 20" wide, and weighed 53 pounds when I took it off the saw for transport.