Hello again. Sorry for the long delay in any kind of update. I have been dealing with an issue with my van for the past year that has finally come to a head this past month. The result has been a month of stress that has not left me in a mood to post up.
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When we last left off I was attempting to make more room in the shop for future projects. I have done exactly the opposite making less room with more projects. Sort of.
I have a fantastic cold saw that I love and use all the time. But when i need to cut stock or material that is larger than 4" I really don't have a way. I owned a smaller 14" Delta saw but it can't cut steel because the blade speed is too fast. Steel needs a slow speed to prevent overheating or breaking the blade.
I started looking for a used Doall saw but they're expensive ($2-3000) and heavy (1500lbs) which, for a small shop like mine, makes them a poor choice. Also, the PNW is slim pickings for machine tools and shipping a big band saw can cost as much as $600-2000. So I've been keeping my eye on local options when a 20" Rockwell showed up on eBay for $1700.
It was a good deal at $1700 but I took a chance and let the auction run out. Big tools that can't be easily shipped are a hard thing to sell on ebay and most of the time they don't sell for that reason. The saw got no bids thankfully and after a few weeks of back and forth messages I finally went to take a look at the saw. It was near Bend, OR and it was partly disassembled, poorly repainted and the doors didn't shut but it was all there. If you were trying to sell something this would be the text book way not to present it.
I feigned non interest, pointed to the poor condition and bluffed that I had another saw to look at and said I could only offer between $6-700. He said $650 and I accepted.
I came back the next week with a tilt bed trailer, a couple of super heavy ratcheting tie downs and a screw gun to screw the pallet into the bed. While there was a forklift to load the saw if I chose to put it in my pickup it would have been dangerous as the saw weighs about 770lbs.
I wish I could show you the photos of Ben and my friend Taylor unloading it off the trailer but bandsaws are top heavy, unwieldy and hard to move. Oh, it was also 3" taller than my garage door - something I failed to take into consideration.
This is the definition of crowded.
To move it we took off the table (100lbs) and the electrical box on the spine (the only side with no knobs or doors) and perched it on top of wooden dowels and rolled it into the garage on it's back pyramid style. Worked perfectly. No one slipped a disc.
The first issue was the doors not closing. Years of ham-handed closing while something blocked the door had tweaked or bent most of the hinges.
My first thought was to buy new ones from McMaster but I couldn't find a match. My next thought was, "I'm wasting time that could be used with a hammer..." and in about 30 minutes I had a set of straight hinges.
Next I started to look online for a table insert... and then saw the stack of 3" aluminum rounds in my material storage.
Ironically I tried to cut the slot with the actual band saw before I milled it. Two things; the blade was so worn it probably couldn't cut butter, and two, there's a reason that band saws have table inserts - it will **** your part right into that hole. Yikes!
Next up I gave the table a quick cleaning.
PB Blaster or WD40 and a green scotch-brite pad have always done well by me. Spray it and scrub and then wipe it up with a shop rag.
If you're curious as to what that hose is next to the blade it's an air hose...
...supplied by an air pump driven off the end of the engine shaft that is used to blow the chips away. Pretty rare and pretty rad.
And this is the reason I bought the saw - a speed range covering 50 fps (feet per second) and 4500 fps. While you want speed to cut wood you need to slow things down to cut metal. Some wood saws can slow down enough to cut thin aluminum but thicker blocks need about 1000 fps - much lower than a wood saw is capable of. Hardened steel might require a speed as slow as 50 fps but generally 100-200 without putting too much pressure on the blade is what you want. This saw will probably never see north of 1000 fps.
Finally I ordered a couple of blades from
Oregon Carbide Saw - one of my favorite shops in Portland. The blades come in that neat coil which I have not been able to replicate so today I asked Alan to teach me the trick.
It's a shame that we can't embed video here so you'll
just have to click this link.
To those of you wondering why I've not stripped it and painted it gray like everything else... keep wondering! Seriously, I'm trying to do my best to limit the things that I'm taking on. The blue bugs me but I have no space or time at the moment to try to remedy this. Nonetheless it has been therapeutic to put in 30 minutes here or there to get the saw dialed in but no, I can't/won't repaint it.
And thankfully I don't need to.
The last thing that I need to do is make more blade guides. Rockwell uses a system of stacked plates that you can adjust by adding or subtracting so that the blade is supported but the teeth are exposed. This photo shows a 3/4" blade that is not sufficiently supported.
I have looked but not found replacement guide plates. My thought is to take them to my water jet cutter and have him make me a dozen or so in O1 steel which I can then harden with the torch and an oil quench. The other option is carbide brazing and I'm not sure I want to learn to do that at the moment. If someone has a better idea let me know. Bronze? A2? Plastic?
The other thing is that the saw has the complete set of rails and fence - another very rare item that has sold for as much as what I paid for the whole saw. The trouble is that they are very long and stick out several feet. I was considering cutting them down to fit the table since I would probably never be cutting material so wide but I've decided to hold off and just not keep them mounted. For those of you with large bandsaws - do you use the fence very often? I can see using it for wood but I can't for metal. Let me know what you think. I'd hate to cut them and then regret it later.
Anyway, I am very pleased with the saw, my patience paid off and there are no issues with it. That, right now, is a relief.
Gregor
Ah man, I know that all too well! Have you tried throwing darts? I discovered I'm a MUCH better dart player than pool player. And I built my own set of darts with barrels from a cheap soft tip board. I've had them for 24 years now and they travel with me whenever I take business trips. Other sets of darts have come and gone, but my inexpensive custom set is still with me and still puts a beverage in my glass or change in my pocket when the time comes.
