Bandsaw Bearings

jcraigie · Post by **jcraigie** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:21 pm

Welcome back Ed. Hope you get to stay and play again. Bill Mayo has bearing sets for the band saw. Drop him a line.

wannabewoodworker · Post by **wannabewoodworker** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:38 pm

reible wrote:Hi,

Never thought I would get a shopsmith bandsaw but there it is sitting in my garage...

So I'm in the process of cleaning and de-rusting the cast iron table but I need to get on to the "spending a bit more" part of the process. I'd like to go with the Carter System like I have on my other bandsaw but I don't have the money to do that now. So I started looking for other options, this one of LDH's looks like a good start. The bearings on my machine have seen better days, like back in the 90's and need to be replaced before use.

So I'm looking (1) to see if anyone has any "new" advice or information on this upgrade, and (2) to see if anyone has spare parts sitting around they would like to part with. (Mostly thinking of the McMaster-Carr parts but bearings would also be welcome.)

When looking at the ceramic guideblock web site I noticed they also sell a thust bearing for shopsmiths, anyone have any information on that?

Ed

Man Ed people been looking for you for months and months wondering where you got off to. Very cool to see you back posting again as you are a very valuable asset to this forum. I am thinking about doing this upgrade and if i order the bearings from VXB I could easily order extras and send them your way if you want.

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 12:35 am

I did the upgrade and the only issue is most of the stuff you need 1 or 2 of comes in packages of 10 or 100. When I did it last time a bunch of us here got together and shared all the parts. I think it come out to less than $10 per person including shipping.

Somewhere on the forum is a list of the various supplies and part numbers.

I have both Carter systems, and I have different uses for each, both still use the upgraded bearings. I no longer use cool blocks I prefer the Carter bearings. I think I paid less than $60 for each with shipping by doing a Google search and found out who had them on sale.

reible · Post by **reible** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:33 pm

Hi,

First thanks for the greetings! When I first logged in it said I last visited on 9-22-2010, that has been a while. I hope to spend a bit more time here now.

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I downloaded the pdf's provided by IDH and took some time to reread the postings on this thread. Since I'm very new to the shopsmith bandsaw I wanted to make sure I understood how this all worked.

I can see how one might save a few dollars if they were to do the quantity buys but I have no idea of current interest. It does look like there is some interest in bearings, how about the other parts?

Just like to gauge interest, this is not an offer to make this all happen as I'd really like to move on this project soon... but I'd also like to spend as little as possible.

Ed

jcraigie · Post by **jcraigie** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:25 pm

Talk to Bill Mayo he has the parts you need and he's pretty inexpensive and a nice guy to boot:)

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:19 pm

Keep in mind I'm very new to the shopsmith bandsaw and in fact I have yet to get mine running.

I have been busy tonight doing the bearing upgrade per LDH. Things went along quite well and that part of the machine is now ready for testing as soon as I get a blade and the ceramic guides come in.

I developed some bad habits making believe I knew what I was doing at work for a lot of years, when you design or modify something you need to test it...

I have no idea if this is a real life issue or not but I noticed when the top bearing was installed that the top guide #75 looked like it would hit the bearing if guide block was adjusted fully back. That is indeed the case at least on my machine.

I went ahead and removed some material from my bracket so it would go all the way to the stop point without touching. Like I said I don't know if this can be an issue or not and now I'm looking forward having responses from those who know.

Ed

moose · Post by **moose** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:54 pm

You will love the ceramic guides Ed. I've been using them for years with absolutely no wear. They are cool and do a superb polishing job on the blade for what ever that's worth. Expect them to last a lifetime.

wannabewoodworker · Post by **wannabewoodworker** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:19 pm

Well I just got finished ordering up all the parts for the bearing retrofit on my bandsaw. Figured since my Table Retrofit kit is in back order limbo I would do something else while I wait FOREVER for SS to ship my table kit. I did however get the extension table for the aluminum table today although it won't do me any good until the table itself shows up. I currently am using cool blocks and was wondering if you folks thought that the ceramic blocks were any better than the cool blocks for keeping the blade tracking straight? I had the saw tracking perfectly when i first got it but it has somehow gotten out of the perfect alignment that I had originally aligned it to. I am seeing a lot of blade drift now that i was not seeing before for some reason? I was able to resaw pretty thin pieces before but now the saw doesn't seem to want to cooperate. I think that part of the problem is the blade it self.

Can a bandsaw blade be sharpened in the shop or is this something better left to a sharpening service or is it better to just spring for a new blade as they are not all that expensive???

billmayo · Post by **billmayo** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:03 am

ashbury wrote:You will love the ceramic guides Ed. I've been using them for years with absolutely no wear. They are cool and do a superb polishing job on the blade for what ever that's worth. Expect them to last a lifetime.

Thanks. I also sell the ceramic guide blocks made for the Shopsmith band saw blades by this company:
http://spaceageceramicguideblocks.com/

I get $16 for a set of 4 plus $4.00 for shipping, a total of $20. I accept PayPal (annbill.mayo@comcast.net), money order, cash or check (William Mayo).

billmayo · Post by **billmayo** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:16 am

jcraigie wrote:Talk to Bill Mayo he has the parts you need and he's pretty inexpensive and a nice guy to boot:)

Thanks. I use the auto-track 2 bearings and bolt for both the upper and lower bandsaw guide bearings. I use 6 ABEC3 rated bearings instead of the motor rated bearings that came with the bandsaw. I have been using a thin shim between the bearings to hekp keep the blade tracking between the 2 bearings. It works very much like the Cater Stablizer for a much cheaper price.

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