I finally figured out why my old band saw keeps binding up

Last week I was breaking down a half steer and the blade kept wandering on me during the hindquarter cuts. A buddy of mine from the shop in Austin told me to check the tension pulley alignment and it was off by a hair. Has anyone else dealt with older equipment needing way more babying than the new stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_torres708d ago

Did you try adjusting the blade speed too? I had a similar issue with an old model and slowing it down a bit fixed the wandering right up.

samreed8d ago

Slowing it down was actually the first thing I tried on mine and it helped a TON. The blade speed made a bigger difference than I expected once I found the sweet spot. I also had to mess with the feed rate a little because going too slow let the blade wander in a different way. Took a few test cuts on scrap wood to dial it in but after that it ran PERFECT. Definitely worth spending an afternoon just messing with those two settings together.

the_rowan8d ago

Yep, spent a whole Saturday dialing in the speed and feed rate on mine. Once I got them balanced right the blade tracked straight as an arrow.