Official Luthiers Forum!

Well folks, after much deliberation, (read procrastination) I finally found a reasonable enough bandsaw to make me part with my hard earned.

The saw is an Aussie made Brooklyn and is about 10 to 12 years old. The tiltable cast iron table is 32" wide x 24" long, the rubber tyred, cast iron wheels are 23 5/8" (600mm) in diameter and are 1 3/8" (35mm) wide, fittings are cast, and it has a foot brake, dust shoot, and a full 180 deg swing blade guard.

It should take an 1 1/2" blade and has a potential maximum depth of cut of 14 1/2", however I think the little 2hp 3ph Italian motor may struggle with that much wood. But then again, it is a relatively cheap and easy upgrade to bolt a 5hp in place of the 2. The depth of throat at 22 1/2" is plenty for me and the "Jolly" brand guides are micro adjustable.

This saw has had moderate use in a cabinet shop, mainly working panels on the odd occasions that curved work was undertaken, however the term "regular maintenance" seems to have slipped by the PO and the Jolly guides, whilst working fine now, where very stiff from lack of lubrication and it did take a good amount of time cleaning and oiling to get them running smooth.

Also on the guides, the threads in the rear blade support bearing adjustment pinch bolts, on both upper and lower guides, have been stripped out by some gorilla with a spanner. I have rectified this problem temporarily via the use of 2 hose clamps and whilst this fix will work OK, I would prefer to either repair the existing guides properly, or replace them with full roller bearing guides along the line of Carters only bigger.

A while back, I seem to recall someone recommending a brand of replacement bandsaw guides, I think it may have been Paul but I can't be sure and have not found anything in my quick search of the archives. So if anyone has any suggestions, or knows of a distributor for Jolly, please let me know, the shaft diameter for the guides is 20mm.

Here is an image of the existing top guide.




And here is another that gives some idea of the depth of cut, the fence and fence slide rail have been removed for transport, this is one heavy saw. The old plane sitting on the table between the blade and the neck of the saw is a No7 Record jointer thrown in along with a BIG pile of other stuff some not so good, some very good indeed





All in all, I am very happy with this saw. I could have bought a new Asian saw for the $1300.00au I spent on this one, but I think with this ol'girl I could cut Asian saw veneers if you know what I mean

Cheers all

Kim

Looks like you got yourself a great toy there Kim! Have fun fixin' it and cutting with it soon!

Serge

Well Done Kim. That is quite a saw and at a good price as well...especially if a "mystery box of stuff" is included. I like the looks of those Jolly guides actually. And wouldn't rush to change them out. I don't know where you can get them, I am sure you have trued a Google Search already.

Good Luck Kim!

Shane

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Canada

You have yourself quit a band saw there! Looks like it's almost time to buy some billets and saw away

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Congrats on the acquisition! I'm looking to get a bandsaw real soon now, mostly just annoyed at all the great-looking deals on 380V (tri-phase) saws...gotta check how much running a line of that to the new 'workshop'/shed would be....

Are the stripped parts aluminum alloy? I see the problem if that's true. Surely there is a repair or replacement of that part.

Larkim, these look exactly like the old Luguna Euro Guides, except for the fact that the Lagunas were a bit smaller and were easy to stop with dust.

They were spark throwing monsters, espescially on the rear thrust bearings. Scorching, sparking, glowing red band blades, it was a true hazard and ruined a bunch of wood until I got the machinist to make rear bearing shafts that replaced the euro setup. I think they made them smaller which gave them less ability to turn under face friction.

With the stubby shaft and a ball bearing inserted on it, and an E-clip, I was set to saw, and haven't looked back. Bruce Dickey38830.834525463

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Yep, the guides are the only aluminium alloy on the whole machine. As you will see from the images, if worse comes to worse I could make a new housing from steel as the adjustable side guides are held in place with an allen key. If I do go down that road, I will address the thrust bearing issue at the same time and replace with a roller bearing as you suggest Bruce.

The hose clamp you can see in the first of the attached images is just a quick work-around that will allow these to work fine for now but do limit the blade size you can use somewhat.














I may be able to fix these more satisfactorily with a bit of Devcon, but the best fix would be to replace the housing with a new one. Problem there of course is that finding anything on "Jolly" is proving difficult

If Paul Woolson tunes in, I would like to know the replacement guides I think he mentioned and posted a link to a few month back, but then I may be wwwrrr..... wwwrrrooo.......wwwwrrrrroooooonnn Oh never mind.

Cheers

Kim

Kim, these are some replacement roller bandsaw guides that are available from Axminster in the UK. They are the same as are fitted to my saw and operate very smoothly. You would have to make an adapter to fit them to your saw, but that should be basic engineering, and would be true for any replacement system.

Colin

Band saw guides

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Thanks for the link Colin and thank you very much Bruce for taking the time to PM me with your advice. But, I am very happy to announce that a solution is at hand .


You see I took the housings to a specialist welder and ask him if he could do anything with them. He took a quick look and said he would give it a try but as there would be a good deal of natural stress built in from casting, they could well crack at the thinest edges around the guide post hole when heated. I told him to give it a go.


Here is the result As you can see after a bit of shaping with a file and abrasives, a quick drill and re-tap plus a coat of paint they look OK. If you compared these to the images in the above post, you will notice that there is now substantially more meat for the thread, so hopefully this problem will not be re-visited.








I had blue paint in the shed, so they are now blue instead of green but thats OK cause I dig the blues



Sometimes it is good to be wrr.....wwwwrrrrr....wwwwrrrrrooo.....mistaken you see the housings are aluminium and not die-cast alloy after all. So they were weldable all along .

Also, as a bonus I managed to find a sparky to come in this afternoon and wire things up, so it's all go from here on, the saw is up and run'in.

I will look into changing out the rear thrust bearing for a roller as recommended by Bruce at a later date, but right now I just want to go play with the new toy.

Thanks All

Kim

Been in the shed and had my play.








Tis Big, Tis Goooood larkim38831.3130555556

Great repair, just what you needed. Better than a new part most likely. Hi fives to the welder and you for perseverance!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Thanks for the big smiley face Kim, i copied it! Am i gonna use it? Well, that's another story to be continued....

Nice lookin' saw Kim!
I run an old 28" on a 5 HP 1ph. motor & it works fine.
I'd like a bit more power, but single phase motors over 5 HP are really expensive.
Have you checked the blade "cross tracking" yet? You can break blades in a hurry if it's out of adjustment. In case you don't know how to do it... Tension up the blade & turn the saw on for a few moments, 'till the blade settles. Then turn it off & spin the top wheel backwards several full turns. Watch the blade position on the wheels. If the blade changes position fore & aft on the wheels it needs to be adjusted. If not, you're good to go.
I only mention this because my old saw was really cranky when I bought it. I broke blades & ruined some nice wood
'till I adjusted the cross tracking.
Have Fun!   Dan

Kim,
that's a nice band saw. You should be able to cut just about anything with
that. It looks like your fix should solve the stripped thread problem, but if
it happens again, you could use a Helicoil insert. They're basically a steel
threaded insert. You drill and tap the hole to accomodate the O.D.
threads of the Helicoil, use a special inserting tool that drives the insert in
and breaks off a small tang of metal use by the inserting tool. They're
used anywhere where a strong thread is required in aluminum. Almost
any machine shop can do it for little money.
Craig S.

Thanks guys,

Dan that is a great tip on cross tracking, I will be checking it out shortly.

Craig thanks for the advice re halicoils. Now that there is more material, I will take your advice and do an insert in the event of a repeat performance.

Having worked on a few VW's back when I wore purple pants and needed shampoo, I became familiar with the halicoil. But before welding, the crater in the housing caused from the ali being broken outward from the thread had not left enough material for that option. So thank goodness for my new mate Willie from Bullet Welding, he really is responsible for success here.

Now I just need a good hardwood resaw blade, any suggestions? I have been told that the carbide tip blades whilst very good, are also very expensive and have the issue of the band suffering metal fatigue and becoming worthless before you get full use from the teeth. So what's your thoughts here resawers.

TIA

Cheers

Kim

Do you have a Woodmizer outlet in Aus?
Their 1 1/4" X .035 blades work fairly well on hardwoods if the teeth are shaped & set properly for the job.
They are very reasonably priced & Woodmizer is a good company to deal with.
Here in Canada's bush country, there are Woodmizer sawmills everywhere & most small towns have at least one guy who does sharpening.
I tried 5 different blade manuacturers & the woodmizers are by far the best blade I've used.

For those of us who need 3 phase power... Most utilities will not provide 3 phase power to a residence. However several companies manufacture phase convertors which will artificially create the proper phase rotation and provide the third leg of power. Generally they're not extremely expensive. Grizzly sels them, and I'm sure that there are others as well.

Al

Hi Kim,

Give Henry Bros a call (02 9627 5486). They're in Sydney but do a mail order service within Aus. Kiwicraig bought some blades from them a couple months ago, said they gave good advice.

Thank Paul will do. At 15' or 4.6 mtrs each blade this is going to hurt no matter were I go but the saw is a cracker and worth the splurge. I'm thinking 3tpi bi metal unless anyone has a better suggestion.

Cheers

Kim