Bandsaw Wheels

J

johnnyf

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Looking at building wheels for a bandmill. Wheels will be 20" diameter and support a 1 1/4" blade. Question is I am thinking about making from plate either steel or aluminum. My lathe is not big enough so I was going to use rotary table any thoughts on best way of doing this.

John
 
I don't see a problem using a rotary table for either aluminum or steel. I'm not sure what tire width is needed for a 1 1/4 blade, but I assume the wheels are going to have spokes with a lot of material removed between. If using steel, you will be starting out with a lot of weight so take that into consideration, about 111 lbs for 20'' dia x 1.25 thick. In that case I might be tempted to center the work on the machine and rotate the ram off center. Again I am assuming that you are using a BP size knee mill or larger. I have made some pretty large disks on a RT. Adding some kind of power feed to the RT would save a lot of cranking.

I might start out by having the wheel roughed out with a water jet or plasma cutter. Water jet would be best if you're going to use steel, the plasma would leave a hard edge on the cuts.

Another crazy thought comes to mind. You could build a ''lathe''. Do all of the work on the center first and get the bearings in place. The mount the wheel up, provide a way to power it, and mount up the compound off of your lathe to turn the OD.
 
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John
I believe 20" wheels for 1 1/4 inch blade is pushing it a bit. Wide blades dont like to be continually bent around such a small radius and tend to crack. Suggest you check out the recomendations for wheel size for this wide a blade before you commit. There may be blades available that will cope.
Cheers
Ron
 
JimDawson said:
Another crazy thought comes to mind. You could build a ''lathe''. Do all of the work on the center first and get the bearings in place. The mount the wheel up, provide a way to power it, and mount up the compound off of your lathe to turn the OD.
Click to expand...
Or lathe the wheels with your mill if it will go slow enough.
 
John
Generally as the width increases so does the thickness. Hence my suggestion that there may be blades that can cope.
Please dont shoot the messanger, I am sure that this issue has been mentioned many times before. I believe that 3/4 to 1"blades are the maximum recommended for 19 - 20" saws. I personally have problems using 3/4 hardback on my 19" saw.
Just suggesting that John checks to make sure his plan will work before he commits to making the wheels
Ron
 
A lot of band mills use car tires and wheels. find out the bend your blade can take find a tire and wheel you would need for that size blade.
 
My DoAll vs (converted filer) has 16" wheels X 1.250" tires, I'm running 3/4x.035 -10-14,tpi vp m42 bi blades. Works good, but next time I'll use 1/2x025 " blades
RT power feed : I've used my cordless drill on the crank shcs turning cw , works good .
Is this for a resaw band saw ?
 
OXTOOL has a utube video where he milled a large hand wheel for a litho art printing press for his wife. He used a rotary table & an assistant to stabilize the overhang. The spoked wheel was (is) much larger than your band saw wheels. The video is over a year ago possibly as much as two years.
 
wow, awesome response. thank you all and what great videos oxtool makes. I will have to watch all of them. this will be a challenge for my machining ability but also a great learning experience.

john
 
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