Shopsmith Forums

I just finished a pair of loft beds for the granddaughter and decided to use my band saw for cutting some notches in the slats. I used the 1/4 in blade and was very noisy. This is not a new sound, but it was worse than before. I did all the stuff suggested on the other posts and it is better, but not good. I am going to replace all the bearings and the auto track, even though they seem to be fine. I cleaned and greased the upper wheel bearing and it has no play at all. The re-pack of the bearing seemed to help, so I re-checked all the bearings and alignments and cool blocks. That did nothing as far as I could tell. The blade is a SS blade and fairly new.
The cut was not vertical with the table, tapering toward the inside of the throat. I checked the setting for square and for tension and they seemed ok. My question is what else, if anything,do I need to check before I replace the bearings? Tires are in good shape, with a very light indentation in the rubber. I did not check the canting on the upper wheel.
Thanks.

It sounds to me that you have already done everything I would suggest for a complete mechanical overhaul.

"The cut was not vertical with the table, tapering toward the inside of the throat." The blade that exists on the right side of the upper and lower wheels, when properly tensioned, is your reference surface. the table should be square to that.

If the blade is not straight between those two wheels (tapering toward the inside of the throat) you have something located where it should not be.

Picture would help.

Strange. Noisy was what got us started.

A bit of less then comprehensive reading here. You did the wheel bearings, I would get the blade support bearing kit and cool blocks and see if that fixes it, it did for me.
With the cool blocks
http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cata ... lerkit.htm

Y'all succeeded in getting me confused!

Surely y'all are not referring to the blade angle deviation from perpendicular to the table at the spine(back ) of the blade. That is 'normal'.

If you disconnect the band saw from the head stock and spin the wheels does it still make the noise?
If so take the blade off and spin the wheels ,,do you hear the noise,,,,if not it could be the the blade guides or like mentioned the guide blocks.

Both need adjusting for each different blade set up on myn or the blade will drift ,,or cut crooked, with the blade off spin one wheel at a time , do you hear the noise coming from one wheel or the other?

Do you have the tension adjusted right?
Are you using SS blades ?

Hobbyman2

Are the tires dirty?


Hobbyan2

Loosen the guide blocks on both sides of the blade, if one of the blocks jumps to the side then it was not adjusted correctly. Guide blocks rubbing on the blade will make a lot of noise. Guide blocks should not rub or push on the blade and should be the last item adjusted when installing a blade.
As for the upper wheel bearings they may be quiet when not under load from the blade but may become noisy when the blade is tensioned.
The blade back up bearing seem to quite noisy and do not seem to have a very long life.
Bill V

I just looked at this post again today and saw that I had not replied . I got a kit from SS cleaned everything up, installed the kit, followed the tune up instructions and replaced the blade. The results were great. the noise is back to the level when new and the cuts are well within my needs. Thanks.

dlbristol wrote:I just looked at this post again today and saw that I had not replied . I got a kit from SS cleaned everything up, installed the kit, followed the tune up instructions and replaced the blade. The results were great. the noise is back to the level when new and the cuts are well within my needs. Thanks.

Shall we start a pool as to when the squeal will return?

I did the double bearing upgrade discussed here on the forum and installed the Carter bearing blade guide. Did this a year or so ago and no more squeal. Also, cutting is much more accurate. Also installed the Kreg table upgrade (has no affect on the noise but very nice set up).

Jack