Shopsmith Forums

My freshly restored bandsaw vibrates quite a bit. I did the water glass test and it wasn't pretty. If you look at the wheels as they rotate slowly you can see the blade moving laterally by 2-3mm (when guides are backed off) and the wheels themselves, especially the top one, also are obviously out of true, wobbling in and out (radially) by a significant amount (front to back the wheels look pretty dead on).

I've seen a million videos out there about how to balance the wheels, which I can do, but it seems like the underlying issue that wouldn't be fixed by balancing is that the wheels aren't perfectly round with respect to the center of rotation. Matthais Wandel made a cool video about how he tuned up a cheap bandsaw in part by actually truing the wheels (https://youtu.be/B6MqX5atHcY?t=454). His approach looked scary (like a lot of his videos) but we of course actually have a lathe... maybe I could figure out how to chuck these wheels and true them up as he does, but more safely, then balance them as needed.

Am I crazy? This honestly seems pretty straight forward but it doesn't seem like a thing people generally do. I'd really love to avoid buying new wheels of course since that is a very expensive option.

IF you do use a lathe, do NOT overlook the bevel angle(front to rear) About 2°. Are you sure the tires are not the cause?

I looked at some SS Bandsaws in detail about 10 years ago.
- Much older bandsaws (e.g., 1980 vintage) had very true-running aluminum wheels.
- Wheels built in the 2007-2009 timeframe that I saw were fairly "visually wobbly" aluminum castings, upon which "true" grooves had been cut to retain the rubber tires. A cheaper option in my opinion. They did have some drilled-holes in them from the factory for weight-balancing, but they still looked visibly to have a lot of lateral runout. Granted, this is not the radial-runout that you have asked specifically about.

Chris

So first follow JPG's advice and make sure it's not just the tires. You can easily find where and by how much the wheels are off with a dial indicator, or you can just use a feeler stick because the problem is going to be more than a discrepancy of 1/1000". You can probably gauge that at the edge of the rim in addition to the tire surface, and check the rim on both sides.

BTW: How fast are you running the saw? What do you observe in the difference between A and C on the speed dial?
(changed to correct speed range)

edma194 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:56 pm
BTW: How fast are you running the saw? What do you observe in the difference between A and J on the speed dial?

I believe that the top speed for the BS is "C".

beeg wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:23 pm
I believe that the top speed for the BS is "C".

Sorry, yes J is too high! (head slap) Don't know what was going through my mind. Just top out at C.
(went back and corrected that post)

Ok here is an album with videos of the dial indicator after removing the old (2 weeks old) tires and very carefully cleaning every bit of glue:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9cnrT7KUqLZWqf6p9

Radial wobble (the wobble I think I care about) on both wheels is about 20 1/1000s of an inch or about 0.5mm. Honestly in the video, if you watch the other side of the tip, it looks like a lot more than that. Anyway, both are pretty consistent (within ~5 thousandths) but then have visually noticeable bumps that deviate up to 20 thousandths.

The front to back wobble is actually worse but I feel like this matters less as the blade will lie on a straight line on the wheel, even if the wheel is crooked underneath it. Is that fair? I realize this could still cause vibrations which I might need to think about (and no idea how to balance front to back) but seems like it won't actually cause the blade to move around otherwise.

These measurements were also taken with the wheels on and were about the same so I don't think it was ever the wheels. When I put them on I was pretty careful about rolling them out firmly afterward as per the instructions from SS.

Thoughts? Replace the wheels? Regarding my plan to turn the wheels true again, go for it?? Do people agree that much wobble is significant? The bandsaw does work.

Thanks again!

For reference, in the video I linked above, Matthias was only experiencing about 7-8 thousandths of radial wobble, so this is quite a bit worse.

JPG wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:39 pm IF you do use a lathe, do NOT overlook the bevel angle(front to rear) About 2°. Are you sure the tires are not the cause?

Is the shape and bevel for each wheel documented somewhere? Thanks!

eagspoo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:52 am

JPG wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:39 pm IF you do use a lathe, do NOT overlook the bevel angle(front to rear) About 2°. Are you sure the tires are not the cause?

Is the shape and bevel for each wheel documented somewhere? Thanks!

Only vaguely in the patent. They are identical except for the hubs etc.. No crown, they be 'flat'.

Measure across the bevel - inner od > outer od. Grooves make that 'interesting'.