I needed a better way to deal with long (12-14') stock at the bandsaw, jointer and planer. For my mantel project I need to work with stock that long. I have a couple of single roller stands I have used in the past but wanted something better, especially for the jointer. Now I know a short bed jointer can't really flatten stock that long, but it gets it close enough for me to finish with a plane.
So I picked up a couple Bora PM-2700 expandable roller stands. Here it is fully retracted:
DSC_0149a.jpg
And here it is fully expanded. The rollers stay at the same height regardless of how much you expand it. It expands from just under 15" to 50" in length. It expands easily and smoothly and can even be curved; not sure why you would want to do that:
DSC_0150a.jpg
As you can see, each leg is independently adjustable in height. There is a scale on each leg in inches and cm. The scale tells you how far each leg is extended, but not how high the rollers are which would be more helpful I think. Bora says it is adjustable from 23" to 36"; I think it actually goes a little higher than that.
Unfortunately, Even at full height it is not quite tall enough for the 18BX bandsaw, so I made a set of blocks to raise it another 3 inches or so. They work ok, but I will work out something that attaches to the legs more permanently in the future. Because my shop floor is not perfectly flat and level, adjusting the height using the scales on the legs is not very practical, so I made a set of T-Bars out of plywood. I clamp them to the bandsaw table as you can see below, and then it is a simple matter to lift one end of the rollers up tight against the T-bar, loosen the two leg knobs on that end, and let the legs fall to the right setting and then retighten the knobs. Then repeat at the other end. Just takes a minute or two and resulting alignment is plenty good enough for ripping rough lumber. I'd probably take a little more care if I was sawing finished stock. Here's a pic showing the T-bars in place. They are clamped to the table at both front and back of the table so I can press the rollers tight to the T-bar while doing the alignment without lifting the end of the T-bars.
DSC_0151a.jpg
Finally, here's a pic showing the sets of stands all lined up and ready for use:
DSC_0152a.jpg
All in all, I'm happy with this product and this solution. They are so much more stable than the single roller stands and offer much more support. The stands don't take up that much space when retracted. Really, about the same footprint as a single roller stand with tripod legs. They are well made and solid (bora says they can support 300 lb. I didn't test it, but I believe it). Of course I would love to have permanent infeed and outfeed tables, but I don't have the space, nor do I have more than occasional need for them. I was worried that they would take a lot of time to align to machine tables, but with the T-Bars it really is fast an easy. One small gripe: The threads on the caster stems are not imperial. They're not metric. They're British Standard Wentworth, BSW 1/2-12! I know this because I was going to bolt on the extension blocks and couldn't find a bolt that fit, so I got out my thread gauges and checked them.
One last point: I was expecting a box of parts, IKEA style, but they came fully assembled except for sliding in the leg extensions and screwing on the casters. That was a pleasant surprise.
Reply With Quote