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  1. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    I then set the blade guides (very fiddly process) which took a couple of hours as changes on one side always affect something somewhere. I got it very close before I ran out of patience and had to try cutting something. I ordered some new bi-metal blades but since they won't be here for a...
  2. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    I then assembled the half nut assembly and vise jaw into the saw and, for the first time in who-knows-how-long, the saw had a functioning vise. I also bought and installed a piece of drill rod that just barely fit into the existing hole for the sophisticated "automatic shutoff interlock...
  3. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    I bought an Acme nut from Roton for just over $50 delivered which would allow me to make two inserts for the half nut. This was the starting point. I milled the worn threads out of the original nut and then squared up the new nut to (almost) fit the milled slot. I say almost because I...
  4. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Now that I had the gearbox installed, I could install the wheels and check their height and align them in both planes. Since the wheels sit down inside the head casting, it wasn't a simple case of setting a straight edge or string across them. I thought I might have to trim the spacer under...
  5. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Another area needing attention was the broken stop for limiting the head travel when lifting the head. The casting on mine was broken... So I made a bushing to fit the original bolt that would contact the remaining part of the cast support, which seemed like the simplest fix. I was thinking...
  6. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Thanks MushCreek, and thanks to the other members for the nice comments! That's clever, I like your screw fix, I might use that in the future. I bought an Acme nut from Roton to repair mine. If you find an Acme thread you can't fix in the future, they sell them by the foot for a reasonable...
  7. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention. When I went to look at the saw, the owner started it up and the wheels went round and round like their supposed to. But...when I looked at the motor connections, it was wired for 230V. No big deal, EXCEPT, the owner had plugged it into a 120V outlet! The...
  8. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Next up was the motor. The first order of business was pressing the old bearings off the rotor. Unfortunately, in doing this, the fan caught the edge of one of the press plates and turned it into a potato chip that no longer fit on the shaft. Doh!! Soooo...I flatened it as best I could using...
  9. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    When I trial fitted the gearbox to the saw, I noticed that there was an oil fill plug near the output shaft that had to be way above the oil level. Which made me wonder, after you fill the gearbox with the correct amount of oil, how do you monitor the oil level? You can't see it through the...
  10. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    One other thing that pervaded the project was weld spatter. This saw must have been in a fab shop and used VERY close to a LOT of welding. There was weld spatter (miniscule little BB's) everywhere. They were in all the bearings, in almost every crack and crevice, covering the plastic caster...
  11. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Next, I trial fit the empty gearbox case to the saw just to see how it fit, and it didn't. The area around the input shaft hit before the mounting pads contacted the head casting, so I made three nylon spacers so that the gearbox cleared the head. Finally, I found a couple washers to fit the...
  12. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Next item was the to rebuild the gearbox. The shaft was in pretty good shape but none of the shoulders on it had any chamfers, which made it kind of a pain to handle with all those sharp edges. A quick trip in the lathe had that rectified. I also added a couple of notches in the housing to...
  13. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Next up was putting the idler wheel back in. I had bought all new bearings for the gearbox and idler wheel, but the originals were kind of an oddball and more expensive than a standard ball bearing of the same size. The main difference was that the original bearing had an inner race that...
  14. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    The only downside is that the broken part of the thread also had a small restrictor pressed into it to limit how fast the head can drop with the valve all the way open. I destroyed it trying to get it out, so I made a new one out of Acetal and pressed it into the needle valve. All better...
  15. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    The hydraulic cylinder was in pretty bad shape although it did still work somewhat. The rod was bent because the part of the head pivot that limits travel was broken which allowed the cylinder to hit the bed which then bent the rod. I made a new rod from 3/8 cold rolled and installed a new...
  16. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    I added a pair of flush mount oilers to the bed to make it easy to lube the pivot for the head. I bought them, along with much of the hardware for this project, from McMaster Carr. (My favorite hardware store...)
  17. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    By now the weather had gotten nice so I completed the teardown and started stripping off all the paint and grime, everything was filthy on this thing. I used a combination of 4" and 7" angle grinders and a variety of wire wheels to strip the old paint and rust and then degreased with...
  18. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    Amazingly, Clausing still sells the half nut, but at just shy of $350 delivered I decided to go another route. I was actually about a month in on another project that would make repairing the original half nut reasonable. It didn't look like much when I received it from a friend, but it would...
  19. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    The first thing I did was to remove the motor, gearbox and half nut assembly and disassemble them to see what I had. The gears had almost no wear as I'd hoped but there wasn't a hint of any oil or grease in the gearbox, it had been dry for a very long time and all the bearings felt like they...
  20. M

    Kalamazoo P40 (or P41) 816 horizontal band saw restoration

    I had been looking for a horizontal band saw for a couple of years, waiting for the right deal to crop up. I was originally looking a Taiwan made 4 x 6 but most had worn out gears and I read it can be hard to find the correct ones as there are many varieties. I was looking at having to spend...
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