Shopsmith Forums

Here is the issue: My band saw tire broke the other day, coming off the top wheel (idler) and destroying the aluminum blade guard (properly positioned for the cut!, safety 1st, mostly) as it sort of slapped around. This happened before I started my cut. Praise God I was unscathed.

Before I buy a new tire and a replacement blade guard, I want to try to identify the cause of the failure. I am on a budget and cannot afford to learn the hard way too many times.

I finished restoring the Magna bandsaw earlier this year. I followed a Jacob Anderson instructional video that I bought. I think I was pretty faithful to the instructions. I installed the standard black tires I ordered from shop smith. I need to go back and double check but I am pretty sure that Mr. Anderson recommended not gluing the tires in the video. I am pretty inclined to follow directions so I am pretty sure he did. I know this is contrary to the SS owners manual, but I did a lot of cycling in my younger days and it was not uncommon to install our "sew-up" race tires without glue. So I figured I would try it without glue.

Anyway, I did not use the saw a whole lot but I used it for a few things and it worked fine. Noisy but based on my reading on this forum noise is typical. Till the other day I did not have any noises that disturbed me. I generally released the tension on the 1/4" blade when I was not using it, and tightened it up to use it. The cant of the wheels all seemed fine. I think I had the guide blocks correct (not metal but composite) and the upper and lower bearings seemed to be positioned correctly.

Did the lack of glue precipitate the tire breaking?

Is there something else that may have caused it?

Also, what do y'all use to glue the tires on? The shopsmith product seems a tad expensive.

Thank you

Duckman

I feel your pain. A pair of Shopsmith urethane tires came off my band saw this weekend and got chewed up. I order "blue max" tires from ebay. Some folks on this forum reported good results with them.

As for the black rubber tires Shopsmith sells, I think they sell rubber cement to hold them on and it is recommended to use it.

I think you really need to use glue with the black tires. You also need to make sure they are on correctly, not an easy task. If you just stretch them on they tend to have thick and thin sections so "rolling" using round screw driver shafts or similar helps with this.

I personally like the black tires and if and when mine go again I will use them again. If you care for them they last a very long time.

Any chance you could repair the guard? A picture would help.

Ed

I might be able to bend the guard into a usable form but the blade put a few cuts in it. I will look on ebay. The guards show up once in awhile. Thanks for the responses. Understand the thickness issue. I tried to make sure the tire's "tension" was uniform 360 around the wheel. It is tricky. Duckman

algale wrote:As for the black rubber tires Shopsmith sells, I think they sell rubber cement to hold them on and it is recommended to use it.

Nope. What they sell is a contact cement.

I ordered the new tire and the blade guard. I am pretty sure using contact cement would be a mess. Any suggestions on what type of adhesive to use. Duckman

FWIW I prefer the black rubber tires. They do have to be glued on to the wheels. I put some of the urethane tires on two bandsaws and they failed. One of the owners had them for a few years in his garage before using them. The Florida heat did them absolutely no good. I replaced the tires on my personal bandsaw with the rubber tires and they have performed flawlessly.
SS does sell contact cement for the tires but that can be bought at hardware stores. Rubber cement can be used instead of the contact cement
The headstock speed should be limited to 1000 RPM in my opinion. The diameter of the wheels is just under 12" times 3.14 is about 3 feet in circumference. So at 1000 RPM the blade speed is about 3000 feet per minute. Just about maximum for a bandsaw.
Bill V
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Thx. I will probably try rubber cement. Duckman

I've read the Shopsmith factory orange replacement tyres aren't very good. I went with Bandsawtirewarehouse blue tyres, $30 shipped. No crown by design, no glue by design. Came with excellent instructions and a tool to help on the install. I was going to sell this bush-bearing bandsaw after rebuilding it but it works so well i decided to have a dedicated resaw bandsaw. If you have to replace the tyres I woodn't use the factory rubber when there's a better solution.

I also just installed a set of those Blue Max band saw tires from ebay and they came with the install tool and went on pretty easily. Set up the band saw with a new 1/2" blade and did some resawing. So far, so good. Time will tell if they are better than the orange urethane tires Shopsmith sells (and which came off on me).