Shopsmith Forums

I did the same thing but used a round junction box cover.

bobgroh wrote:SS uses a clear plastic window there and that window gets covered with sawdust quickly and you can't see very easily through the sawdust.

I had not heard this before. Now I'm less inclined to "upgrade" to the cover with window. Probably a good idea to take the cover off routinely to check things anyhow.

I do like having the hole there to see the degree of tension but the window itself - I find it useless. I removed it and left it off. I see little dust leakage due to open window so why not.

Overall, I should have kept my old cover and added a dust takeoff and put a hole in. Would have saved a bunch of money!

I modified my BS cover when SS first came out with the window. I cut a rectangular hole and glued a piece of Plexiglas on the inside. I don't have any issue with dust buildup on the window. I wonder why some do and some don't.

bobgroh wrote:On the SS cover, the hose sticks straight out and I have to work around it.

Get an elbow for it.

In this post I took a lot of the suggestions that had been made for improving the old cast iron bandsaw and grouped them together and did them. This included adding a window, a hole for the wrench and a dust port. You can find this and a lot of other pieces of information here:

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maint ... t8361.html

I have not had the cover off my bandsaw in quite a while so the window has not been cleaned in a long while. I have a cleaning as a thing to do soon but for now you can see just what my dirty window looks like. I have no problem reading and setting the tension.
The dust port helps but you still end up with sawdust in all the nooks and crannies inside the saw and saw dust comes out the bottom. I built a test port for the bottom but it is too much work to put on and take off so it off all the time until I come up with a better mounting method.

Ed

reible wrote:In this post I took a lot of the suggestions that had been made for improving the old cast iron bandsaw and grouped them together and did them. This included adding a window, a hole for the wrench and a dust port. You can find this and a lot of other pieces of information here:

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maint ... t8361.html

I have not had the cover off my bandsaw in quite a while so the window has not been cleaned in a long while. I have a cleaning as a thing to do soon but for now you can see just what my dirty window looks like. I have no problem reading and setting the tension.

IMG_0204sc.jpg

The dust port helps but you still end up with sawdust in all the nooks and crannies inside the saw and saw dust comes out the bottom. I built a test port for the bottom but it is too much work to put on and take off so it off all the time until I come up with a better mounting method.

Ed

Ed,

That is about as dusty as my window ever gets. I think band saws inherently spew dust. The SS is not too bad but my 14" Powermatic spews dust everywhere and it has a 4" dust port. I will say though that I only have a 2 1/2" hose connected to it from a 4" line.

I never get dust on my home-made band saw window" since it is just an empty opening cut with a hole saw. I'm not really sure what functionality is added by putting a clear cover over the hole.

algale wrote:I never get dust on my home-made band saw window" since it is just an empty opening cut with a hole saw. I'm not really sure what functionality is added by putting a clear cover over the hole.

The clear cover ensures that some idiot (or child) can't stick a finger in there and get it chewed up. A manufacturer that fails to take such easy/basic precautions is easy pickin's in a product liability suit. Standard-sized "finger probes" are available commercially, just for testing enclosures, to ensure that an enclosure will prevent injury to an errant finger. An enclosure that passes this test earns an IP2x (or better) protection rating.

BuckeyeDennis wrote:

algale wrote:I never get dust on my home-made band saw window" since it is just an empty opening cut with a hole saw. I'm not really sure what functionality is added by putting a clear cover over the hole.

The clear cover ensures that some idiot (or child) can't stick a finger in there and get it chewed up. A manufacturer that fails to take such easy/basic precautions is easy pickin's in a product liability suit. Standard-sized "finger probes" are available commercially, just for testing enclosures, to ensure that an enclosure will prevent injury to an errant finger. An enclosure that passes this test earns an IP2x (or better) protection rating.

I totally agree with this; I just don't understand why anyone making a homemade port to view the blade tension would bother.