Show us your 4x6 Bandsaw Modifications!

[mattthemuppet2]

how long is the cylinder stroke with the saw going from vertical to horizontal?

 

[vtcnc]

Can't decide whether to fix it or call it a feature.

All 4x6 Bandsaws leave our factory Tamper-Proof Certified by Mr. Whoopee!

 

[MrWhoopee]

how long is the cylinder stroke with the saw going from vertical to horizontal?

1.75 in. (Yes, it's an awfully big cylinder, but it's the only one I had)

 

[mattthemuppet2]

that's a lot less than what I expected. I have a slim hydraulic cylinder from the scrapyard which has ~9" stroke, so that should be plenty enough.

 

[TechyMechy]

I've been a lurker on this forum for a long time but haven't contributed much. I have a 4x6 bandsaw that I bought for $20 about 3 years ago and it was pretty rough. I've done a bit of work on it and have it sawing quite nicely now. I've made the following modifications:

1. Vice Mods:
a. rod to stop movable vice rotation
b. remove nuts and added knurled rods to allow vice adjustment w/o wrenches
c. fixed vice stop to insure fixed vice comes back to square with blade
d. vice extensions: Fixed vise is a floating jaw, movable vise jaw allows gripping parts next to blade
2. Hydraulic downfeed with table extension to help feed long material into saw
3. Blade lubricator, scraper, and brush
4. Table to capture short cut off parts and to set part cut off length
5. Remove legs and mounted saw on a movable cart,
6. Added a motor starter, rewired saw, and added 120V receptacles to the cart
7. Significant effort to get the saw to cut square:
a. made new pivot axis to minimize slop between saw frame and pivot ears on the base
b. filed the base of the saw table so that the pivot shaft was parallel with the table allowing square cuts
8. Added brass plug to the gear box which allows to easily fill sufficient amount of fluid in the gear box when changing fluid.

A lot of my modifications are similar to the ones shown in this thread. I thought I'd show my blade lubricator, scraper, and brush which is very useful and works well. I didn't see this very well documented on this site. These mods, along with the motor starter and hydraulic down feed cylinder, ensure that I get very nice cuts and I don't have to worry about the motor stalling and burning up. Let me know if you want to see the other mods.

The blade scraper is made from 20 gage sheet metal. It is folded on one end to create a race for the blade scrapers. Another piece of sheet metal is used to keep the scrapers in the race. I used old cut off, hand bent blade with the teeth ground off for the scrapers. I used a spring from a home recessed lighting can modification from home to keep the scrapers lightly pressed on the sides of the blade and allow the scrapers to follow any blade wandering/changes in thickness. The images show the blade scraper design.

 

[TechyMechy]

Here are some photo's of the Oiler. It is very simple: a 1" x 3" long pipe nipple with caps on both sides. I used a brass needle valve to regulate the flow of liquid to the oiler block. The nipple is located on the saw by a hose clamp, sheet metal piece, and magnets. The oiler block is a 5/8" square piece of cold rolled steel that had a slot cut in the end and was drilled/tapped for a 1/8" NPT nipple. I used a 3/32" drill to make a journal from the nipple to the blade slot.

 

[TechyMechy]

Here are some pictures of the blade brush. I have used the blade brush w/o lubrication and with lubrication. It is a simple sheet metal part with a pillow block bearing. There is a stepped shaft that is tapped on the end and a bushing is used, along with a pan head screw, to squeeze the brush and hold it on the inner race of the pillow block bearing. This works great and is simple/cheap. I can also easily drop the brush so it is not cleaning the blade kerf (if wanted).

I'm not too sure how interested people are about my bandsaw mods, but I haven't seen a lot of them dealing with simple blade lubrication. If you use an oiler like the one I made, you'll have to have a blade scraper (at least) for the swarf builds up on the blade body and makes a real mess. The brush pretty much insures that the saw wheels keep clean too.

I've posted a lot of this on the 4x6 groups.io site but thought that I should post something on this site as well since I'm lurking on it a fair bit.

 

[jwmelvin]

Thanks for sharing. Your mods look great.

 

[TechyMechy]

FThanks for sharing. Your mods look great.

Thanks. Many of my other mods are variations on what one could find on this thread or elsewhere on the internet. This looks tube a great, pretty complete thread of the modificationa, but I didn’t see many oiler/scraper/brush mods.

 

[slow-poke]

I posted this video of my quick release table a while back .... https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/4x6-quick-release-table.95026/

Improved vise and cut-off table...... https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/bandsaw-mods-definitely-worth-the-effort.95841/