Fix Or Junk Old Saw.

You might find that seal by just looking for one with the same dimensions or maybe one that is same OD & ID but thickness is just a bit smaller. As far as gears you might also find one that is the same except for the bore. Then you can either sleeve it or bore it out depending on what is needed to fit. I do this all the time when trying to fix old stuff. I have had to make spacers for old bearings that are no longer made. Bought gears and bored them out and even had to face off shoulders to make them fit. Almost all the time I do the job cheaper than if I bought original parts and with readily availbable stuff.
 
Maybe it is time to think outside the box. Guide bearings can be had in lots of 10 on E-Bay for cheap.
You could do some modifying and use something other than a gear box. I built a metal HV saw using
a belt reduction and a chain reduction to get about 100FPM. It works great. There is a photo in
my "stuff I have made" album or I can provide more photos if you desire. You have a good starting point
to make up a saw considering one has to spend a lot of money for a decent saw these days.



Photo #754
 
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I have been looking at some of the bearing places for some of the bearings, But at the same time, people that owned this before when it was still working had done a little bit of outside the box as well. So Some of the stuff like the guide rollers I do not know what should really be there, unless I had multiple the same. They went so far as to replace ball bearings with one a home made bushing setup. ( which you can tell did not work real well as it had multiple flat spots on it from rubbing).
IF I could get a correct numbers for the proper bearings on the top and side rollers would help. Does anyone know someone with a Johnson/Drake Horizontal saw that they could get the numbers off the guide bearings for me.
The gears I'm still trying to find something that might work for them, any suggestions welcome. 20160320_200209.jpg I'm even having a hard tome figuring out size, depth etc of the teeth on it due to wear.
 
I have an ammo box of straight tooth gears my Dad gave me a decade ago. What gears do you need? I'll take a look and see if they are in there. If so, you can have them.
 
Check Boston gear for your gears, bearings and seals, they are very helpful. I think the guides would be an easy rebuild. If you don't want roller guides look at Grob bandsaw guides. The bronze one piece guides made by them would be easy to adapt to anything and they're cheap.
 
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kvt said:
I have been looking at some of the bearing places for some of the bearings, But at the same time, people that owned this before when it was still working had done a little bit of outside the box as well. So Some of the stuff like the guide rollers I do not know what should really be there, unless I had multiple the same. They went so far as to replace ball bearings with one a home made bushing setup. ( which you can tell did not work real well as it had multiple flat spots on it from rubbing).
IF I could get a correct numbers for the proper bearings on the top and side rollers would help. Does anyone know someone with a Johnson/Drake Horizontal saw that they could get the numbers off the guide bearings for me.
The gears I'm still trying to find something that might work for them, any suggestions welcome. View attachment 125595 I'm even having a hard tome figuring out size, depth etc of the teeth on it due to wear.
Click to expand...


OK, you are equating "outside the box" and "home made" to "substandard", which does not have to be the case. If you want functionality,
consider some inexpensive ball bearings and fit them to your saw for the guides. It's easy to do. That way you
are sidestepping a bunch of expensive replacement parts. I bought 10 bearings for $24.00 on E-Bay including
shipping so had enough for the saw and spares as well. Maybe take a look at some other saw set ups for guides
and use that as a basis for yours. Hopefully you find this information useful.
 
Well,myself I don't have deep pockets but bearings are pretty cheap and oil seals I bet McMaster can come very close.If you have any #'s check the auction site you may get lucky.Google the model #'s and the name you might find a manual with a parts list,but is all this worth it ?Post some pics if your able,maybe what you have is the upper/lower end model of what Johnson made then.If you invest say 500.00 will you still have a 500 saw or will you have 2000.00 saw for just a small 500 investment??
 
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Ken,

I sent you a PM in regards to the gear box.

Ken
 
I have a gear reduction unit off a washing machine which is too cool to throw away but I don't have a use for it (yet!). would that work? I had a very vague idea to use it to build a bandsaw, but that's even further down the list of likelihood than all my other mental exercises that pass for projects :)
 
Most bearing manufacturers have online catalogs where you can look up a bearing by it's ID, OD, and thickness. You should be able to find what you need. You only need to know where it goes and what it fit's into and what fit's into it. Take some measurements and go searching. There are a few manufactures, so if one doesn't have what you need another just might have it.
 
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