Don't you just hate it when the item in the catalogue looks better in the picture than it does when it arrives? I bought this bench top bandsaw about six months ago. Although the blade cuts just fine, the rest of it leaves a lot to be desired. Here are some mods I made today as I needed to increase the accuracy to try something else out.
If I had more money then I would have just bought another one, but these mods are simple. Later, I might change all the blade guides to roller bearings.
This is the offending little beast. The first problem is the clamp-on fence. You can't get closer than 20mm and support the blade for thin material at the same time.
Also see the red plastic insert. It is too deep and small items catch in the dip
This pic shows the back of the absolutely useless sliding mitre. There is just far too much slop in the T - slot
This is the guide device for the blade beneath the table. A good system has roller bearings and is right under the table not about four inches away like this one.
First, I fixed the table surface. I simply cut a bit of plastic and glued it to the existing red bit.....
...and of course sanded it flat using a block.
Next was the fence, this too was simple. I CA'ed an aliminium channel to one side and when I need to cut thin material I just clamp the fence from the other side of the table.
This way round for thick material.....
...and this way for thin stuff.
Next was the under table guides. The current position offered virtually no support for the blade. Here I made a little block to hold the guides and mounted it on the BSaw body. I could have taken it higher still, but then I couldn't tilt the table, but like this I can still tilt to 45 deg
I only had to file a tiny bit out of the cover to let it close properly.
Finally was the mitre. Here I remove the existing existing slide and cut a piece of steel that just fits in the slot. I also made it longer than the table length to offer more support when using a jig like this one.
I hope if anyone else has one of this type of saw then they can get some use out of this.
PS. Scott ( Mudder ) If you think this is good enough to be in your tutorial collection, then please feel free to edit it as you see fit
Edit in; I just wanted to show how much effect raising the bottom guides had. If I tried this before, the blade would have wandered all over the place. These wafers of bocote are only 0.7mm thick.
If I had more money then I would have just bought another one, but these mods are simple. Later, I might change all the blade guides to roller bearings.
This is the offending little beast. The first problem is the clamp-on fence. You can't get closer than 20mm and support the blade for thin material at the same time.
Also see the red plastic insert. It is too deep and small items catch in the dip
This pic shows the back of the absolutely useless sliding mitre. There is just far too much slop in the T - slot
This is the guide device for the blade beneath the table. A good system has roller bearings and is right under the table not about four inches away like this one.
First, I fixed the table surface. I simply cut a bit of plastic and glued it to the existing red bit.....
...and of course sanded it flat using a block.
Next was the fence, this too was simple. I CA'ed an aliminium channel to one side and when I need to cut thin material I just clamp the fence from the other side of the table.
This way round for thick material.....
...and this way for thin stuff.
Next was the under table guides. The current position offered virtually no support for the blade. Here I made a little block to hold the guides and mounted it on the BSaw body. I could have taken it higher still, but then I couldn't tilt the table, but like this I can still tilt to 45 deg
I only had to file a tiny bit out of the cover to let it close properly.
Finally was the mitre. Here I remove the existing existing slide and cut a piece of steel that just fits in the slot. I also made it longer than the table length to offer more support when using a jig like this one.
I hope if anyone else has one of this type of saw then they can get some use out of this.
PS. Scott ( Mudder ) If you think this is good enough to be in your tutorial collection, then please feel free to edit it as you see fit
Edit in; I just wanted to show how much effect raising the bottom guides had. If I tried this before, the blade would have wandered all over the place. These wafers of bocote are only 0.7mm thick.
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