Shopsmith Forums

keakap wrote:Ah, so, familiar problem I see.
I went for it- took the whole mess apart. Mysterious as to what makes it so "tight".
But I made sure the surfaces that move against each other were very very smooth (thank goodness for Super Fine diamond hones!) and very clean, applied dry graphite lube (spent 20 minutes on this alone to make sure the pieces whut wanted it got it-- in, out, in, out...), made the other contact surfaces smooth (thank goodness for mini-files!), and "re-calibrated" the tension of the springs. (The screws are the "parking brake" type.)

Heck of a lot of work for such a small piece of work, and I don't know how long it'll last (so far 6 blade changes no change) but the difference was well worth it. If I were ten years younger I might consider doing it again if necessary.

It's a simple enough job to take apart and put back together. Use lotsa light.
and good luck

My fear is that I'll take it apart and drop the pieces. If I do, I'll probably not be able to find the spring until one day when I vacuum it up or step on it and break it..

Wow, great comments on this irritating problem. From my point of view I think I've got it solved - here's the rest of the story from my end.

Wife wasn't too happy with having a dirty and torn down bandsaw on the kitchen table, but it was cold out in the shop and not conducive to a careful analysis and repair with lots of parts to keep track of. After removing both blade guide assemblies (108, 99, 80,75) & soaking them, I was able to tap both blade guide brackets out of their slide housings.

How they got so gummed up I'll never know - perhaps as an inexperienced youth 20 years ago I oiled them or something. Anyway, I cleaned them up thoroughly and polished the guide block shafts as KEAKAP recommended. The filister head screws (104, 82) were also fouled and needed cleaning. After reassembly, the guides moved more easily but were still awkward to use.

Not satisfied, I disassembled everything again and carefully flattened the guide block springs (78, 102) SLIGHTLY with a pair of needle nose pliers and a bench vice. They're not flat, just slightly less bowed than original.

Bottom line, after reassembly with liberal doses of dry graphite, the blade guides now move readily with reasonable finger pressure on the adjustment knobs. No additional play was introduced into the guide adjustment system that I could detect. I think flattening the guide block springs a bit was the trick, time will tell.

Total time to research this issue and work through this repair was about 3 hours - worth it to me because I use the bandsaw quite a bit and change blades frequently. Hopefully I won't have to do this again for another 25 years.

Excellent report, Mike and a job well done. You did what I was afraid to do, you flattened that piece of spring steel some. The spring is obviously there to apply pressure to the two carriage pieces and that pressure along with the crude that had accumulated made the difference.

I have two band saws. One exhibits the problem and the other does not. The one with the problem is the one I bought new - go figure.

It sounds as though you had some degree of difficulty getting the Guide Block Brackets out of the Guide Block. Is that correct? If so, what did you do to eventually separate the two. Brut force works but, for me, usually brings some form of destruction.