Bandsaw Tires for Metal?

[Jeff F]

Had a blowout on my bandsaw. It's a Wilton 8201 wood/metal (with a gearbox), which is the same as a Jet, which is essentially the same as the ubiquitous 14" Delta. I use it 95% of the time for metal. There are a few discussions here about bandsaw tires and rubber vs urethane, but I didn't see anything specifically about the best choice for metal. Despite having a brush mounted to clean off the chips, it gets a lot of metal embedded in the tire. Is urethane more or less tolerant of metal chips? The ease of installation on urethane is attractive, but then again these tires lasted for over a decade so it's not like I'll be doing it regularly.

 

[danielbuck]

on my old delta I use urethane, but I never use it for metal. Just a hunch, but if you're worried about hot chips embedding into the tires, I think both urethane and rubber have roughly similar heat tolerances. 10 years out of a rubber tire is pretty good I would think.

 

[OccupantRJ]

The special T shaped cross section 20” Delta Rockwell tires for older saws are $225 last I checked. I cut a strip of 3/16” or 1/4” thick conveyor belt 15 years ago and glued it on with contact cement just to see how it did. No crown. Works fine, still humming.

 

[Jeff F]

The crown is built into the wheel on this one.

 

[OccupantRJ]

The crown is built into the wheel on this one.

You will get out cheap with that style.