# Wood to metal band saw saga



## AGCB97 (Apr 18, 2022)

Couple of years ago I inherited a nice craftsman band saw from my FIL. Since I already had one




similar in my wood shop, I decided I would try to slow this one down for metal. After 4 different
sessions of modification, (separated by months of thought and frustration) it seems to be as
good as was expected in the 1st place. It's still a saw meant for wood but now working pretty
well for metal. 

The only costs of the project were for a couple good metal blades, 2 belts and the hardware that was on hand.

The 1st session involved swapping the large and small flat belt pulleys and building a jack shaft.
Most everything was original to the saw. This only managed to get the speed of the blade down
to 390 SFPM. Still way too fast.

Session 2 was to make a better jack shaft with different pulleys. Everything else was again original
to the saw except I replaced the original motor with a 4:1 gear motor. Speed was now down to 260 SFPM. Still too high and the flat belt and its pulleys could not transfer the power without slipping.

jack shaft box with new pulley




Slotting jack shaft box for belt adjustment                                     hung from ceiling winch to make working easy




I've since replaced the belt with a permanent one



Session 3 was to get rid of the flat belt and instead use a v-belt in its place. This cured the slipping problem, but the speed was still too high.

The last session which I did in the last couple days was to make a larger driven pulley from the
motor. Not wanting to spend $40 or $50 on a pulley, I decided to make one from some
linen Micarta that was on hand. Just couldn't find a large enough piece of 3/4” thick stuff so
two 1/2” pieces were bolted together, and an aluminum hub made.

 Apart from turning the hub on the lathe, all holes
were drilled on the mill with DRO bolt circle function. It was then indicated on the newly
powered 10” rotary table (inspired by Charlie Scozzari

see (14) Rotary table power feed | The Hobby-Machinist)

and the V groove cut with a shop made cutter. I used part of the blade from a wood lathe   
gouge and welded it to a 3/4” slotted arbor and ground it to 15 degrees on each side. But before    
starting with this, a 1/4” x 3    keyway cutter was used to cut the center part of the groove to near    
finish depth. The powered rotary table worked wonderfully for this.

finished pulley                                                                                   tools used for pulley groove




I now measure 189 SFPM and it looks/sounds good.

Also put some wheels on to make moving easy




Thanks for looking
Aaron


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