Saturday 25 January 2014

belt and braces

I acquired and assembled a mobile base for the bandsaw. Model CT183 from Busy Bee easily accomodates the stand using only a single channel piece on each side in the assembly, making it a good deal stiffer than I expected. Due to a ding in one corner of the stand and the variability of stamped metal parts, some bracing (shims?) will be added to keep the machine from rocking slightly.

The electrical cord exited the stand at the bottom front edge and must be re-located to clear the flange of the base's side rails. It was wired directly into the switch (which I have decided to replace) - no screw terminals - so the cord was cut off and pulled from the stand. I'll re-install it in a more sensible spot at the back of the machine later.

The jack-shaft pulleys are so obviously out of line with the input pulley at the base of the saw it's a wonder it ran at all. No surprise that the v-belts were chewed up.

On the subject of belts, I managed to locate an A-36 belt at Princess Auto for $4.00. Despite having a good sized display, there were no A-24's to be had, although A-22 and A-26 were present in quantity. Inquiry revealed that the A-24 size is not carried at all - go figure. I doubt the need to buy Kevlar belts or Link belts for my planned usage frequency and duration, but you never know.

Saturday 18 January 2014

sawing to beat the band

Thanks to some random grazing of Kijiji, I spotted a Busy Bee bandsaw not too far from my crumbled abode.

A quick trip in the morning sunshine revealed a unit that is a little worse for wear, but not unsalvageable. Quick tests showed it was functional and worthy of some attention.

14", late 80's vintage from Taiwan. Cast iron frame, wheels, and table. 3-speed pulley arrangement. Probably the same model as was offered by 1/2 dozen distributors during that era, just with a different name plate on the front.

Needs new belts, blade guides, and thrust bearings. A new power switch wouldn't go amiss. No mitre fence or rip fence, but those are easily cobbled up. The way it's made will make it fairly easy to modify or add bits & pieces as requirements demand.

I was able to knock it down into 3 pieces to get it from the driveway to the basement. I probably could have split it at the riser location but that would have meant more fiddly re-assembly later. It may come to that during the cleaning and re-alignment phases anyway,

Score - Busy Bee was able to provide a scanned copy of the original manual!